发展速度直追谷歌的酸奶公司
乔巴尼CEO乌鲁卡亚获得安永全球企业家奖。
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如何在五年内使公司收入从零达到10亿美元？ 通过组织全世界的信息，谷歌（Google）做到了。 通过让这个世界更开放和联系更密切，Facebook也做到了。 你可能认为，这种超速增长需要能改变世界的创意、头脑聪明的程序员和一个位于硅谷的办公室。 其实不一定。哈姆迪•乌鲁卡亚借了100万美元，买下了纽约北部一家有85年历史的工厂，并找到一种传统产品的最新秘方，然后就开始在大多数专家认为已经饱和的消费市场向《财富》美国500强公司（Fortune 500）发起了挑战。 2007年10月，乌鲁卡亚卖出了第一箱乔巴尼（Chobani）希腊酸奶。五年后，这家公司的年收入达到了10亿美元。这样的增长速度前所未闻，尤其是对于包装商品行业的一家初创公司来说——即使在科技行业，这也非常罕见。 但乌鲁卡亚确实成功实现了科技行业增长最快的公司所创造的奇迹，而且有一点连Facebook创始人马克•扎克伯格和谷歌创始人谢尔盖•布林与拉里•佩奇都要自叹弗如：乌鲁卡亚拥有这家公司100%的所有权。 一个周六的晚上，41岁的乌鲁卡亚从安永会计师事务所（Ernst & Young）挑选出的48名企业家中脱颖而出，在蒙特卡洛获得安永年度全球企业家奖（World Entrepreneur of the Year）。安永挑选的候选人都是在各自国家出类拔萃的企业家。乌鲁卡亚的成功之所以令人吃惊，是因为参加会议的1,000名与会者中，有许多人猜测，由来自各国的成功企业家组成的评审团不会把这个奖项授予美国创业者。而22岁从土耳其移民至美国的乌鲁卡亚凭借其手起家的成功故事打动了评审和所有人。 最近在蒙特卡洛的早餐期间，乌鲁卡亚跟我讲述了他在土耳其东部一个小村子里的成长故事，他在父亲的奶牛场工作的经历，以及为了学英语和读商学院而来到美国的过程。纽约市的喧哗令他不知所措。于是他搬到了北部，在纽约州立大学（State University of New York）奥尔巴尼分校攻读了几门课程，并创办了一家名为Euphrates的公司，做羊奶酪批发生意。 |
How do you get from zero to $1 billion in revenue in five years? Google (GOOG) did it by organizing the world's information. Facebook (FB) did it by making the world more open and connected. A hyper-growth trajectory, you might assume, requires a world-changing idea, brilliant programmers, and a Silicon Valley address. Not necessarily. Hamdi Ulukaya borrowed $1 million to buy an 85-year-old factory in upstate New York, came up with a new recipe for an ancient product and took on Fortune 500 giants in a consumer category that most experts figured was locked up. Five years after selling the first case of his Greek-style yogurt, Chobani, in October 2007, Ulukaya reached $1 billion in annual revenue. This kind of growth is unheard of, particularly for a startup, in the packaged-goods business—and rare in the tech world. But Ulukaya has landed in the league of tech's fastest-growing companies--and can claim something that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page cannot: He owns 100% of his startup. On Saturday night in Monte Carlo, Ulukaya, 41, was named Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur of the Year, copping the grand prize in a competition that pitted him against 48 entrepreneurs whom E&Y designated tops in their own countries. Ulukaya's win was a surprise only because many of the 1,000 attendees at the professional services firms' annual confab guessed that the judges—successful entrepreneurs from across the globe—wouldn't bestow the top award on a U.S. founder. But Ulukaya, who emigrated from Turkey to America at 22, impressed the judges and everyone else with his up-from-nothing success story. Over breakfast in Monte Carlo last Thursday, Ulukaya told me about growing up in a tiny village in eastern Turkey, working on his father's dairy farm and moving to the U.S. hoping to learn English and go to business school. New York City's hubbub overwhelmed him. So he moved upstate, took some classes at the Albany branch of the State University of New York, and started a wholesale feta cheese business called Euphrates. |
