This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Top XanGo officials touted the Lehi-based supplements marketer Friday as quickly building toward a billion-dollar company after only five years of operation.
In front of about 10,000 of its distributors of the multilevel marketing company that sells a drink made from a Southeast Asian fruit, the founders and top officers pointed to the company's growth rate since it was founded in 2002 and promised much more is to come as it expands globally.
"XanGo is a billion-dollar [brand] today," CEO Aaron Garrity said to loud cheers. "We are a billion-dollar [brand] in less than five years."
The privately held company does not release its financial results so the company's size is not known publicly. Under a multilevel marketing plan, distributors receive part of the sales from distributors they recruit.
Utah is a hotbed of multi-level marketing companies, most of them in the supplements industry that had $4.2 billion in revenues in 2005, according to the United Natural Products Alliance, a trade group.
Companies such as XanGo use conventions to inspire their distributors with show business atmosphere, inspirational speeches and promises of financial success in return for hard work.
The theme of this year's convention, the company's fifth, was Invasion, keying off the theme of the "British Invasion" of the Beatles in 1964 when the group came to the United States.
Company officials walked and ran on a glowing stage flanked by huge television screens that showed their images as they exhorted the crowd to organize sales networks that would capitalize on the company's international growth plans.
The company was set to announce its expansion into Taiwan and Garrity promised entry into countries around the world and touted the opportunities that would create for distributors.
"XanGo is hitting the beaches around the world," Garrity said in a speech filled with stories about World War II, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and quotations from Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister from the 19th century.
"For many of you in this room fortunes will be made," he said.
The convention continues through today.