WhatsApp, Chobani, Immigrants

America is a nation of immigrants. If you are not a native American, either you or someone in your family earlier moved to the country from somewhere else. Putting aside the issue where the line must be drawn: legal, illegal or various technicalities, we know immigration is one of the key things that have made America unique.

Immigrants have created jobs and brought in revenues from overseas markets. Chobani, Greek-yogurt maker, founder Hamdi Ulukaya moved from Turkey to the US at age 22 and started the company by acquiring a closed down factory by Kraft, which laid off 55 employees then. Chobani has over 1,200 employees today.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum moved from Ukraine to the US at age 16. WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook at $19 billion in February with 450 million users worldwide while its Chinese competitor, WeChat had 300 million. Unlike Chobani, the mobile messaging company had 55 employees.

While America is not perfect and needs to solve multiple serious issues such as widening income inequality, obesity, health care cost and budget deficit, it is unheard that immigrants have been such a success story in any other countries. And some of them have really created jobs.

Chobani Greek-Yogurt Maker at $5 Billion, Founder Interview

Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukay interview: every entrepreneur, that has ambition to succeed big, should watch this.

Chobani seeks to raise capital at valuation of $5 billion according to The Wall Street Journal. The yogurt brand is considering either selling a stake to private investors/strategic partners or moving toward an IPO for an equity sale of 15% stake. They plan to use the proceeds for international expansions.

Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, has built over $1 billion revenue just in 6 years since he started by acquiring the plant abandoned by Kraft in 2007. It is a real story.

According to Christopher Steiner, contributor to Forbes, he has focused on five main things:

#1. Keep your product simple. Know what you do and do it better than anybody.

#2. Invest in your core. For us, that’s our yogurt plant…

#3. When you market your business, know that can fool almost nobody anymore. There is too much information available to anybody who wants it. Be real…

#4. Focus on profit. I run my business like a mom and pop store. Cash is everything. Without it you can’t increase production and it’s hard to be innovative.

#5. Lead as an example. If you make yogurt, go to the plant. Work with your people; if you want people to work on Sunday, be there next to them.

Whole Foods Phase Out Chobani, Danone

Chobani, a yogurt brand and producer, has been a huge success story: over $1 billion in 2013 revenue

Whole Foods decided to no longer sell Chobani yogurt in Dec. 2013. While the reason was not GMO-free entirely as reported initially on WSJ, Whole Foods wanted to make room for product choices that aren’t available on the market: such as its own private label products and Stonyfield Greek yogurt.

American yogurt market was estimated at $7.6 billion, and the Greek segment would account for 50%+ of the market. In the Greek yogurt market, Chobani has had almost 50% share, followed by Danone‘s 20%.