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About a quarter of all businesses in the U.S. are family businesses—but that doesn’t mean working with family members is easy. “A lot of people aren’t built for it,” said Allison Ellsworth, chief brand officer of Poppi, the soda brand she co-founded with her husband, Stephen, and sold to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion in May. “Any successful business relationship or marriage is really based on trust,” Stephen added. “If you have the ability to trust them and you’re committed 100 percent, I think that’s where the magic really happens.” The Ellsworths joined Diego and Natalia Boneta, the brother-and-sister team behind the film and TV production company Three Amigos, on stage at the Inc. 5000 Conference in Phoenix last week. Three Amigos, which signed a first-look deal with Amazon Prime Video in 2022, recently produced Killing Castro, which stars Diego as Fidel Castro and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. “The number-one rule that we established from the get-go was family first,” said Diego. “If anything happened to the business, if there was a big decision that we really disagreed on that was detrimental to our personal relationship, we would always pick our relationship with siblings.” Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation In conversation with Sammi Cohen, the CEO of Social Currency Media, the panelists laid out a few more ground rules they’ve learned along the way for building and scaling a successful family business. 1. Set Midyear Relationship Reviews Allison Ellsworth said that in the early years of Poppi, they were “a little bit wild and chaotic as entrepreneurs and just kind of swung from the hip.” But as Austin-based Poppi became one of the fastest-growing beverage brands in the country, the Ellsworths realized they needed to put formal processes in place. Allison says she and Stephen settled on a system of sitting down a couple of times a year to align their goals for their family and business and set a schedule for the year. “For the longest time, it was just business and kids. We kind of forgot about, oh, we’re married. We need to work on that and have those conversations,” Allison said. “Taking a step back and working on [how] personal life can align with professional life was a really big game changer for us during those growth years.” 2. Check in as Family First When Diego and Natalia Boneta are working in different cities, they check in about once a week on the status of their projects—but they don’t neglect their relationship as siblings. “We have a simple rule: If the house isn’t on fire, we first ask how each other is doing personally,” Natalia said. “Take care of the personal, and then you can take care of the business 10 times better. If one of our lives is in shambles, then we need to be able to really step in and help each other out and be good teammates to one another.” But, Diego added, they keep that support behind the scenes. If he were to step in as the “protective older brother,” he said he felt that he could undermine Natalia professionally. 3. Let Each Person’s Strengths Shine “I’ve learned three magic words: You’re the boss,” Diego Boneta said, explaining that he and his sister have complementary strengths. “I cannot multitask for my life,” he added. “But damn, I’m a great perfectionist and I’ll focus on one thing … That’s where I think we win, knowing and trusting each other in that regard—and also being able to have fun.” Allison and Stephen Ellsworth agreed that allowing each person to focus on the areas in which they excel was the key to a successful family business. When they launched Poppi, Allison took charge of the creative and branding, while Stephen ran the supply chain and product innovation. “We realized what our superpowers were really early on,” Allison said. “I was the person who was jumping off the cliff as he was trying to catch me, while building the business plan while trusting me to next time jump higher.”
