一对杜校友生意兴隆
作者(年代)
乔恩·斯通
媒体关系经理
Daniels 校友 start-up now 84th fastest-growing private company in the U.S.
Webb Lawrence, executive vice president 和 Brian Stern, president at LED供电公司.
As fraternity brothers 和 students at the Daniels College of Business, Brian Stern (BSBA ’07) 和 Webb Lawrence (BSBA ’07) already knew that they would make great business partners one day. All they needed to do was find the right opportunity at the right time.
“We actually bounced a few crazy ideas off each other, until Brian had the idea to do this.”斯特恩, 谁的家族经营海鲜进口生意, saw the dem和 for efficient 和 durable LED lighting in the cold storage industry. 在大学, 斯特恩发现自己在数字和金融模型方面很有一套, 而劳伦斯发现了他的推销天赋, 成功销售电台广告. “I was hired to sell advertising for a local radio station with a signal that could not be heard in downtown Denver, 这不是一件容易的事.所以在2009年, 不受经济衰退的影响, the new graduates decided to take the leap of faith 和 enter an industry they knew almost nothing about: the LED lighting industry.
斯特恩说:“实际上，这只是从愿景开始的. “You have an idea for a product 和 then you figure out how to do it.“在创业初期, they spent countless hours at Stern’s kitchen table on late night conference calls with overseas vendors, took apart nearly a hundred product samples 和 learned everything they could about the technical components of LED lights. “我们成立之初的座右铭就是超越竞争对手. 一旦我们意识到竞争是存在的.”
During the first two years they realized that competing with companies like Philips 和 GE, 还有他们惊人的工程预算, 是一条艰难而不可能的成功之路吗. 相反，他们转向了分销商, using the knowledge gained from prototyping 和 component research to sell LED lighting to the same manufacturers they had tried to compete with. While the manufacturers were employing sales reps 和 agents to sell anything from HID (High-Intensity Discharge) technology to fluorescents, this br和-new startup offered to sell LED lighting exclusively 和 better than the competition. They succeeded; their technical expertise 和 sales acumen gained the duo contracts with Philips, GE, 和库珀照明公司. Selling multiple 和 competing br和s was unheard of in lighting distribution, but the company’s laser focus on the product they understood best was the competitive edge they needed to reach new heights.
今年，LED供应预计将达到1400万美元的收入. 公司. Magazine ranked them as a top 100 fastest growing private company in 2015 和 Denver Business Journal published a story on this tremendous growth shortly thereafter. They have purchased their first building 和 will be onboarding their 18th employee in just a few weeks. But the two partners rarely reflect on the success that they have had, 相反，他们总是在寻找下一个机会. When one of their top sales guys told them that the girl he was in love with was moving to San Diego, 他们以此为契机，在西海岸开设了办事处. A business connection that worked for Excel Energy in Eau Claire, Wis. wanted to get into the lighting industry, so he opened up their first Midwest location. They are on the verge of launching their eCommerce platform to attract businesses from across the country 和 they have patented their first product; a wireless mass notification system that opened up a business segment so promising that it granted a brief return to their engineering roots. “Our core business is still growing pretty dramatically 和 we’re still spending a lot of our time on that. And then there are opportunities that present themselves 和 I think it’s the same for any new company: you have to take those opportunities 和 act on them,斯特恩说.
What the numbers don’t reveal is that the road to success was rocky. Starting a business during the recession made it impossible to secure a loan during the first four years. The realization that large manufacturing companies could take them out of business forced them to adapt their vision. 尽管他们称这是naïve他们努力的开始, Stern says they agree on one thing: new graduates that are thinking about starting a business should not be afraid to jump in the deep end. “You’ll be surprised at how much you learn 和 how many paths to success there are. 只是不要害怕迈出这一步.”