Under Armour掌门人：实现增长的3个小秘密

    “我们的使命很简单：让每位运动员更快更强，”Under Armour创始人兼CEO凯文•普朗克说。“我们的愿景更简单：让运动员们每时每地如虎添翼。”

    你注意过吗？最优秀的企业往往都建立在简单易懂的基石之上？换言之，一个好的理念。

    这就是上周五普朗克在弗吉尼亚大学（University of Virginia）创业者专题讨论会上的主旨演讲所传递出的信息。正如普朗克回忆，1996年他23岁，是马里兰大学（University of Maryland）的一位毕业生。在校期间，他是足球队的特别队长，决定发明一款不会被汗水湿透的T恤。

    普朗克不是性能服装行业的开创者，但他让这个细分领域变成了大众市场，发掘出了诱人的商机，还吸引了耐克（Nike）和其他反应迅速的公司跟进。与此同时，他还成立了一家初创企业，去年年收入23亿美元，股市估值超过90亿美元。本周，UA股票将入选标普指数成分股。

    41岁的普朗克有太多建议可以传授给弗吉尼亚大学的创业者们（我的校友），但他表示，他的成功可以归为三点经验：

    专注。“头五年我们一遍遍地推倒重来，打造第一款T恤，”普朗克在谈到Under Armour早期的产品开发时说。“人们总是说，你应该做这个……你应该做那个，”他回忆说。但他对这些扩展产品线的建议一概忽略。二十年后，Under Armour也开始销售鞋子、太阳眼镜和各类运动装备，但最初的产品——吸汗排潮T恤仍然在不断开发之中。“我想，这款T恤已经是第63版了，”普朗克在主旨演讲后的聊天中表示。“第一件产品‘一炮打响'很关键，”他说。“它会让你获得可信度，将来一旦准备好就可以进入其他领域……而这通常意味着花很长时间，反复完善产品！”

    知道产品能不能卖出去。创建Under Armour前，普朗克做过校内玫瑰花生意Cupid's Valentine。1996年，他将来自玫瑰花生意的16,000美元投入了T恤初创公司，其中9,000美元花在了专利和商标上面。“为自己省点时间和金钱吧，”普朗克说，他自认在法律方面上花费过度。他表示，早期要将有限的资本用在“如何让产品进入商店”。

    意志坚强。Under Armour总部位于巴尔的摩。谈到自己怎样向公司7,000名员工讲述公司的主人翁文化时，普朗克说：“我在公司里说过这样一句话：员工只求把事做完，合伙人会努力把事情做好，而主人翁则力求把事情做到完美。”

    聆听普朗克，我想到了其他像他这样基于一个理念打造了数十亿美元规模企业的领导者。全食食品（Whole Foods）创始人-CEO约翰•梅克就是这样做的。哈姆迪•乌鲁卡亚也是如此，他发明了Chobani Greek酸奶，打造的企业头五年增速堪比谷歌（Google）和Facebook。有兴趣的读者不妨可以读读贝思•考维特的乌鲁卡亚《财富》杂志专访（内容是关于他新近从私募股权公司TPG获得7.50亿美元投资的消息）以及全食食品的《财富》杂志封面文章。另外，品牌专家、宝洁公司（Procter & Gamble）前首席营销官吉姆•斯登格在他的六篇系列文章中也分析了持续增长企业的要义。详情点击这里。增长始于一个伟大的理念，如果你足够智慧和幸运，增长就不会止步。(财富中文网)

    "Our mission is simple: to make all athletes better," says Under Armour (UA) founder and CEO Kevin Plank. "Our vision is even simpler: to empower athletes everywhere."

    Have you noticed that the best businesses are typically built on easy-to-understand foundations? That is, one big idea.

    That was the message that Plank delivered last Friday in a keynote talk at a University of Virginia Entrepreneurs Symposium. Back in 1996, as Plank explained, he was a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Maryland, where he'd been special teams captain of the football team, and he was determined to invent a T-shirt that wouldn't get soaked in sweat.

    Plank didn't create the performance apparel category, but he made it mass-market, and that fielded lucrative opportunities for Nike (NKE) and other companies that were smart and nimble enough to adapt. Meanwhile, he built a startup that generated $2.3 billion in revenue last year and has a stock-market valuation of more than $9 billion. UA stock is due to join the S&P this week.

    Plank, 41, had loads of advice for the entrepreneurs at UVa (my alma mater), but he said that his remarkable success comes down to three lessons:

    Focus. "We rebuilt that first T-shirt time and time again during the first five years," Plank said about Under Armour's early product development. "People kept saying, 'You should do this…You should do that,'" he recalled, noting that he ignored advice to broaden his product line. Two decades later, Under Armour sells shoes and sunglasses and all sorts of athletic gear, but the original product, the moisture-wicking T-shirt, is still in development. "I think we're on the 63rd version of that shirt," Plank said as we chatted after his keynote. "It's key to become 'famous' for one thing first," he added, "and that will give you the credibility to go into other areas once your ready....which generally means a long time and a lot of perfecting!"

    Find out if your product can sell. Before he created Under Armour, Plank had an on-campus rose-selling business, Cupid's Valentine. He invested $16,000 from that business into his T-shirt startup in 1996—and $9,000 of the $16,000 went into patents and trademarks. "Save yourself time and money," Plank said, contending that he overspent on legal fees. Early on, use scarce capital to "get your product into stores," he advised.

    Possess strong will. "I have a saying at the company," Plank said as he described how he talks to his 7,000 employees' about their Baltimore-based company's culture of ownership. "Employees get things done. Partners get things done done. But owners get things done done done."

    Listening to Plank, I thought of other leaders like him who created multi-billion-dollar businesses from one idea. Whole Foods (WFM) founder-CEO John Mackey has done that. So has Hamdi Ulukaya, who created Chobani Greek yogurt and built a business that grew as fast as Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) in its first five years. Read Beth Kowitt's exclusive Fortune interview with Ulukaya about his new $750 million investment from private equity firm TPG—and her Fortune cover story about Whole Foods. Meanwhile, brand expert Jim Stengel, the former CMO of Procter & Gamble (PG), captures the essence of enduring growth companies in his six-part series here. Growth begins with a big idea, and if you're smart and lucky, it never ends.