????“我們的使命很簡單：讓每位運動員更快更強，”Under Armour創始人兼CEO凱文?普朗克說。“我們的愿景更簡單：讓運動員們每時每地如虎添翼。”

????你注意過嗎？最優秀的企業往往都建立在簡單易懂的基石之上？換言之，一個好的理念。

????這就是上周五普朗克在弗吉尼亞大學（University of Virginia）創業者專題討論會上的主旨演講所傳遞出的信息。正如普朗克回憶，1996年他23歲，是馬里蘭大學（University of Maryland）的一位畢業生。在校期間，他是足球隊的特別隊長，決定發明一款不會被汗水濕透的T恤。

????普朗克不是性能服裝行業的開創者，但他讓這個細分領域變成了大眾市場，發掘出了誘人的商機，還吸引了耐克（Nike）和其他反應迅速的公司跟進。與此同時，他還成立了一家初創企業，去年年收入23億美元，股市估值超過90億美元。本周，UA股票將入選標普指數成分股。

????41歲的普朗克有太多建議可以傳授給弗吉尼亞大學的創業者們（我的校友），但他表示，他的成功可以歸為三點經驗：

????專注。“頭五年我們一遍遍地推倒重來，打造第一款T恤，”普朗克在談到Under Armour早期的產品開發時說。“人們總是說，你應該做這個……你應該做那個，”他回憶說。但他對這些擴展產品線的建議一概忽略。二十年后，Under Armour也開始銷售鞋子、太陽眼鏡和各類運動裝備，但最初的產品——吸汗排潮T恤仍然在不斷開發之中。“我想，這款T恤已經是第63版了，”普朗克在主旨演講后的聊天中表示。“第一件產品‘一炮打響'很關鍵，”他說。“它會讓你獲得可信度，將來一旦準備好就可以進入其他領域……而這通常意味著花很長時間，反復完善產品！”

????知道產品能不能賣出去。創建Under Armour前，普朗克做過校內玫瑰花生意Cupid's Valentine。1996年，他將來自玫瑰花生意的16,000美元投入了T恤初創公司，其中9,000美元花在了專利和商標上面。“為自己省點時間和金錢吧，”普朗克說，他自認在法律方面上花費過度。他表示，早期要將有限的資本用在“如何讓產品進入商店”。

????意志堅強。Under Armour總部位于巴爾的摩。談到自己怎樣向公司7,000名員工講述公司的主人翁文化時，普朗克說：“我在公司里說過這樣一句話：員工只求把事做完，合伙人會努力把事情做好，而主人翁則力求把事情做到完美。”

????聆聽普朗克，我想到了其他像他這樣基于一個理念打造了數十億美元規模企業的領導者。全食食品（Whole Foods）創始人-CEO約翰?梅克就是這樣做的。哈姆迪?烏魯卡亞也是如此，他發明了Chobani Greek酸奶，打造的企業頭五年增速堪比谷歌（Google）和Facebook。有興趣的讀者不妨可以讀讀貝思?考維特的烏魯卡亞《財富》雜志專訪（內容是關于他新近從私募股權公司TPG獲得7.50億美元投資的消息）以及全食食品的《財富》雜志封面文章。另外，品牌專家、寶潔公司（Procter & Gamble）前首席營銷官吉姆?斯登格在他的六篇系列文章中也分析了持續增長企業的要義。詳情點擊這里。增長始于一個偉大的理念，如果你足夠智慧和幸運，增長就不會止步。(財富中文網)

????"Our mission is simple: to make all athletes better," says Under Armour (UA) founder and CEO Kevin Plank. "Our vision is even simpler: to empower athletes everywhere."

????Have you noticed that the best businesses are typically built on easy-to-understand foundations? That is, one big idea.

????That was the message that Plank delivered last Friday in a keynote talk at a University of Virginia Entrepreneurs Symposium. Back in 1996, as Plank explained, he was a 23-year-old graduate of the University of Maryland, where he'd been special teams captain of the football team, and he was determined to invent a T-shirt that wouldn't get soaked in sweat.

????Plank didn't create the performance apparel category, but he made it mass-market, and that fielded lucrative opportunities for Nike (NKE) and other companies that were smart and nimble enough to adapt. Meanwhile, he built a startup that generated $2.3 billion in revenue last year and has a stock-market valuation of more than $9 billion. UA stock is due to join the S&P this week.

????Plank, 41, had loads of advice for the entrepreneurs at UVa (my alma mater), but he said that his remarkable success comes down to three lessons:

????Focus. "We rebuilt that first T-shirt time and time again during the first five years," Plank said about Under Armour's early product development. "People kept saying, 'You should do this…You should do that,'" he recalled, noting that he ignored advice to broaden his product line. Two decades later, Under Armour sells shoes and sunglasses and all sorts of athletic gear, but the original product, the moisture-wicking T-shirt, is still in development. "I think we're on the 63rd version of that shirt," Plank said as we chatted after his keynote. "It's key to become 'famous' for one thing first," he added, "and that will give you the credibility to go into other areas once your ready....which generally means a long time and a lot of perfecting!"

????Find out if your product can sell. Before he created Under Armour, Plank had an on-campus rose-selling business, Cupid's Valentine. He invested $16,000 from that business into his T-shirt startup in 1996—and $9,000 of the $16,000 went into patents and trademarks. "Save yourself time and money," Plank said, contending that he overspent on legal fees. Early on, use scarce capital to "get your product into stores," he advised.

????Possess strong will. "I have a saying at the company," Plank said as he described how he talks to his 7,000 employees' about their Baltimore-based company's culture of ownership. "Employees get things done. Partners get things done done. But owners get things done done done."

????Listening to Plank, I thought of other leaders like him who created multi-billion-dollar businesses from one idea. Whole Foods (WFM) founder-CEO John Mackey has done that. So has Hamdi Ulukaya, who created Chobani Greek yogurt and built a business that grew as fast as Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) in its first five years. Read Beth Kowitt's exclusive Fortune interview with Ulukaya about his new $750 million investment from private equity firm TPG—and her Fortune cover story about Whole Foods. Meanwhile, brand expert Jim Stengel, the former CMO of Procter & Gamble (PG), captures the essence of enduring growth companies in his six-part series here. Growth begins with a big idea, and if you're smart and lucky, it never ends.