Why New Consumer Brands Must Scale Faster

The cycle time from the small seed of an idea to successful scale has shortened dramatically. Barriers to entry have never been lower. Capital is plentiful. This may sound like the start to another technology startup story, but actually we are talking about startups in consumer packaged goods. Steve Demos, the founder of Silk Soymilk, used to joke that Silk is a 25-year overnight success. Today, scaling a company like Silk can take only one-fifth of that time. Consider Koel Thomae, who ran purchasing for Izze, the widely successful natural soft drink that was sold to Pepsi. After the sale, Thomae was on vacation in her native Australia, where she tried a yogurt unlike anything she had ever tasted. She and some partners self-funded to scale Noosa Yoghurt to over $50 million in revenue in less than five years before selling it to Advent, a private equity firm. That example illustrates how speed to scale is accelerating. Read more at Harvard Business Review.