Johnsonville: Set achievable goals (hint: making $100m in your first year may not be realistic)

The next speaker - Andria Long, VP of innovation at Johnsonville Sausage - shared some sobering statistics and practical insights:

• Just 90 out of 2,872 new food and beverage products in the IRI Pacesetters rankings generated first year sales of $100m or more between 1997 and 2009.
• The vast majority of products in the pacesetter index get nowhere close to $100m in year one - in fact 77% generate sales of less than $7.5m.
• You don’t have to be the first, just be the best. Remember, Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player (Saehan Information Systems beat them to it) or the first website enabling you to access them (Napster was there first); it just did a better job.
• Make mistakes, but fail earlier and understand why (test fast, fail fast, adjust fast).

Picture: Yoplait Greek 100 is one of the very few new products that notched up sales in excess of $100m in its first year on the market