NutriSystem -- the Horsham, Pa.-based online weight-loss company -- has bulked up.
Its first-quarter 2006 revenues grew 292%, to $146.8 million, and net income rose 592%, with analysts predicting continued sharp increases in 2006. Memories of its bankruptcy filing and litigation woes under previous owners have all but been erased, even as the company plans to target new customer segments and expand internationally.
And yet, according to its two top executives, there has been as much luck and grit as glamour and glitz in the company's rise from the ashes. "Sometimes you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes," said president and COO George Jankovic, 38, who came to this country in 1991 from Serbia to study electrical engineering at the University of Colorado. "It's not like everything we found was gold. Lots of times we found dirt and worked around it until we found gold -- or silver."
Or, as chairman and CEO Michael Hagan, 43, who comes from Yardley, Pa., and earned an accounting degree at Saint Joseph's University, put it: "At the end of the day, it's about portion and calorie control.... We're not selling fads. We're Wal-Mart, not Wall Street." Hagan and Jankovic spoke at Wharton last month as part of the School's leadership lecture series.
Dressed informally in sports coats with no ties, both men were anything but casual. "In our DNA, we're both entrepreneurs," Hagan said. "We understand what it's like to make payroll, to hire people and sometimes fire people." The two men first worked together at Verticalnet, a business-to-business Internet company that Hagan co-founded in 1995. Jankovic joined in 1998 as vice president of product development after the Internet firm that had hired him as CEO was acquired by Verticalnet.
As they realized how well their styles, personalities and skills meshed, Hagan and Jankovic started searching for a new venture.
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