Running a startup taught me more than any MBA — and parenting made me a better executive

• Jash Mehta was a consultant before cofounding the organic coffee and tea brand Pop & Bottle.
• She told Business Insider that running a startup has been the “best MBA you can ever do.”
• Since becoming a mom, Mehta says she’s become a better leader for the company.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jash Mehta, the cofounder of Pop & Bottle, an organic, dairy-free coffee and tea brand. It’s been edited for length and clarity.

I’ve been building Pop & Bottle, a better-for-you coffee and tea company, for about 10 years now. I didn’t come from a food-and-beverage background — I was in consulting before this — but I always had an entrepreneurial itch.

I grew up in a family of business owners, and from a young age, I was dipping into projects for them, learning the basics of running something of my own.

It wasn’t until I started creating something of my own that I realized how much more there was to learn.

My cofounder and I love coffee and tea, and we are passionate about wellness. We wanted to create something made of clean ingredients that still tasted great. That’s how Pop & Bottle was born.

At the time, we didn’t know how to scale a beverage company — we were complete newcomers to the industry. We literally started in my San Francisco kitchen, experimenting with recipes and ingredients.

Our first commercial production was in a tiny rented kitchen in Berkeley, California, where we’d make about 100 bottles a day on weekends. Then, we graduated to a slightly larger space, and eventually to a full-scale factory. Each shift has brought its own set of lessons about how to manage these types of relationships and ensure the quality of our product remains true to who we are.

Now, we partner with several production facilities across the country, depending on the product line, and each has offered us great expertise that helps us scale. We’re now available in Whole Foods, Costco, Target, Walmart, and other major retailers, as well as online for our nonperishable products.

We use plant-based, organic ingredients — things like almonds, oats, dates, and coconut for sweetness — and no refined sugars. Our packaging reflects that same ethos: clean, minimalist, and joyful.

In the early days, we didn’t have a big marketing budget, so we learned to rely on design to do the heavy lifting. A beautiful pastel bottle can act as a mini billboard on a crowded grocery shelf.

As a company, we’ve grown chapter by chapter. The first chapter was all physical grit: making the product, delivering it ourselves, taking orders, hustling sales — nothing was too big or too small. It was exhausting but exhilarating.

The second chapter was about building a team — learning how to hire, manage, and motivate people, and shifting from being a doer to being a leader. That was a whole new skill set.

And then I became a mom. That added another dimension entirely.

How parenting taught me to be a better executive

Balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood comes with a lot of mixed emotions — many positives and some challenges. As any working parent knows, there’s always that question: Could I be doing more here? Could I be doing more there?

But becoming a parent has made me a better executive in two major ways.

First, time management.

Before kids, I could pour 80 hours a week into the business — staying up late, working weekends, and constantly glued to my laptop. As a parent, that’s just not possible. Your time suddenly has an opportunity cost that’s very real. It forced me to get ruthlessly clear on priorities and learn what to leave on the cutting room floor.

Second, empathy.

Parenting has given me more patience, compassion, and listening skills — all of which are invaluable when managing people. Understanding and supporting your team isn’t so different from guiding your kids: you have to listen, adapt, and communicate clearly.

I often say that running a business is the best MBA you can ever do. You’re constantly learning, constantly growing, and the “curriculum” changes every day. There’s no textbook for the challenges you face — you just evolve to meet them.

Financially, building a company like this is a long game. There are sacrifices, especially in the early years, when you’re reinvesting every dollar back into the business. But for me, the motivation has never been purely financial. It’s about creating something meaningful — a product and brand that make people’s lives a little better.

We’ve expanded nationally, and our ambitions continue to grow. For now, our focus remains domestic — there’s still plenty of room to grow here — but someday, who knows? Maybe international expansion will be on the table.

Ten years in, I feel like we’re just getting started. Pop & Bottle has evolved so much, and so have I. It’s been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life — right up there with motherhood.

Running this company has pushed me to grow in ways I couldn’t have imagined, and becoming a parent has given me the perspective and balance I needed to sustain it. Together, they’ve taught me lessons no MBA program ever could.