If you go
What: Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute
When: June 14 to 15
Where: Boulder Jewish Community Center, 6007 Oreg Ave.
Cost: $350 to $425
More info: Visit bit.ly/entrepreneurshipinstitute or email info@ghirshberg.com
Gary Hirshberg can talk a lot about success. The former CEO of organic yogurt brand Stonyfield Farm helped guide the company through two major acquisitions: to French dairy giant Danone, one of the first partnerships between natural food and a multinational corporation, and again to Lactalis in 2017 for $875 million.
He had a major hand in convincing Danone to buy Broomfield-based WhiteWave, and has been on the board of several organic brands as they hit the big time, including Applegate, Honest Tea and Annie’s Homegrown.
But the New Hampshire native didn’t come to Boulder to talk about the good times. He came to share the worst of the worst challenges he faced during a 35-year career — and he wants to hear and help heal the woes of other entrepreneurs.
Hirshberg will be hosting his namesake Entrepreneurship Institute for the first time in Boulder. The two-day “bootcamp” has been held just more than a dozen times since its inception 20 years ago, featuring a panel of experts that troubleshoot real problems from real local companies across all industries, not limited to natural and organic foods.
In a brief interview, Hirshberg summed up why the Institute is worth your time: (Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Boulder’s entrepreneur community is quite well supported with events and networking. Why bring the Hirshberg Institute here? Do we even need you?
I’ve been to a lot of events with rock-star CEOs. They come and tell their stories, and it sounds like they were successful from the first minute. On one hand, it is inspiring; on the other, it is discouraging. As a new entrepreneur, you feel like, how can I ever get there when I can’t make payroll next week?
So I started these problem-solving workshops. I get cases submitted a month before the event, and I will curate them for the most interesting, the most gnarly, the most worthy of attention and the most relevant. I’ll narrow it down to six, eight or 10 and the panelists will pick the final two that will present at the event.
It’s 45 minutes of problem-solving. And because the panelists have picked them ahead of time, they’re way up to speed, so it’s not like you’re telling the whole story and asking for a spontaneous reaction. They’ll have had time to research, to think.
I can get an entrepreneur a lot of value that will immediately impact business. And I will get the 200 people watching an equal amount of value. Even I will leave with a notebook full of ideas.
In the natural food space, how have the challenges you hear about changed over time?
The basic cash flow issues are always the same; life balance issues are always the same. But there is one big difference now because, in my day, you launched an organic yogurt, you can be pretty certain you were going to get a good six or 12 months before there were going to be competitors.
At Stonyfield, we had a wonderful company with no supply and no demand. I didn’t have customers; people weren’t even eating yogurt. Now, you’ve got to run a little bit because you know you’re going to create competition.
There’s panic from private equity to get in on these companies. There’s a lot of stupid money being thrown at people for stupid valuations. So the challenge is how you avoid taking too much and the wrong kind of money.
Your title at Stonyfield is Chief Organic Optimist. The industry is growing like crazy right now; why does it need an optimism chief?
Because we’re 5.5 percent of U.S. food sales, and we’ve got to get to 100 percent. We need optimists if we’re going to there.
Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, castles@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/shayshinecastle