As a newly arrived immigrant from Turkey, Hamdi Ulukaya learned to be resourceful, determined, and even stubborn when he needed to be. All those traits would serve him well as he began to navigate the hairpin turns of building a yogurt business from the ground up. In 2005, Hamdi was running a small feta cheese business in upstate New York when he happened up ... Show More
May 11
Room & Board: John Gabbert. A Broken Deal, a Family Rift, and the Birth of a Furniture Giant
John Gabbert built a massive furniture brand. But in order to do it, he had to defy his family. John grew up working at his dad’s furniture store in the suburbs of Minneapolis. It sold classic, American-made furniture, with flowery prints and curved legs. But in 1972, John took a ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 2024
Chobani’s Founder on Mission-Driven Entrepreneurship
Chobani is a leader in the global yogurt market, with more than 20 percent share of the U.S. market alone. It all started with one man, an abandoned yogurt factory in upstate New York, and a mission to make quality yogurt accessible to more people. In this episode, Harvard Busine ... Show More
41m 1s
Jan 2020
Eat your heart out, Willy Wonka: How Edita beat out global household names to become the leading snack food producer in Egypt
If you’ve ever been starving in Egypt without a kitchen anywhere in sight, it’s likely that you’ve tried a snack by Edita. Since its founding in 1996, the maker of such brands as Todo, Molto, Bake Rolz and Twinkies, expanded its product offering, grown its manufacturing capacity, ... Show More
36m 11s
Jan 2025
165 - The Dairy Empire Built on Junkmail | Chobani
Get JD's best content to your inbox — subscribe at jondavids.com. Today, Jon tells us all about the entrepreneurial journey of Hamdi Ulukaya, who transformed an old factory into Chobani, a $2 billion yogurt brand, starting with a piece of junk mail. And follow Jon across social: ... Show More
14m 19s
Jul 2024
694: How to Build a "People-First" Culture (with Unicorn Founder and CEO of One Planet Group, Payam Zamani)
Welcome to an interview with the author of Crossing the Desert: The Power of Embracing Life's Difficult Journeys, Payam Zamani. In this episode, Payam shares the most important lessons he learned from building a record-breaking billion-dollar IPO called AutoWeb, and how it fell a ... Show More
47m 40s
Feb 2024
How Local Businesses Can Compete with Larger Rivals
In 2020, Kwame Spearman left his consulting job in New York City to take over an iconic independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado—his hometown. Spearman saw an opportunity to reinvent the local business to build a community space after the pandemic. ... Show More
30m 1s
Oct 2020
Breaking baladi bread with Zooba CEO Chris Khalifa
Zooba sells taamiya, not falafel. When Chris Khalifa launched Zooba in 2012, the goal was to elevate Egyptian street food from cheap, delicious, everyday sustenance to a global brand. By 2020, Zooba’s value proposition had already shaped a loyal following at home and abroad with ... Show More
44m 11s
Sep 2025
How refrigeration took over the world
The next time you open your fridge, take a second to behold the miracles inside of it: Raspberries from California, butter from New Zealand, steak from Nebraska. None of that would have been remotely possible before the creation of the cold chain. The cold chain is the name for t ... Show More
23m 29s