7: Siggi Hilmarsson, Founder + CEO of Siggi’s Dairy, on Bold Entrepreneurship, Risk-Taking, and the Truth About Clean Eating

Siggi Hilmarsson is the founder and CEO of Siggi’s Dairy, dubbed the fastest-growing yogurt brand in America by Forbes. Siggi moved from Iceland to the United States to study at Columbia University, but after graduating and heading to Wall Street with so many of his peers, he soon realized that this straight path wasn’t a good fit.

Loving his life in New York but missing the food from his home country, Siggi started playing around in his kitchen, whipping up Scandinavian staples like Skyr (Icelandic yogurt) after work. He was disturbed by the fact that the average American yogurt contained more sugar than a can of Coke and committed himself to perfecting his own low-sugar, grass-fed dairy alternative. Now, 15 years later, Siggi has gone from delivering his yogurt personally by hand to selling 35 unique products in more than 25,000 stores across the country.

In this episode, we’ll find out more about how Siggi’s Dairy went from a one-man show to a company with more than 40 employees and the important lessons Siggi has learned about growth along the way. He opens up about the challenges he’s faced on his road to success, from going bankrupt in 2008 to figuring out how to transport cold yogurt via the NYC subway in the middle of summer. He’s also sharing the best and worst entrepreneurial advice out there, why he thinks you should always hire people who are smarter than you, and a foolproof way to plan for success.

To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com.

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