Business is berry good for Larsen's MonaVie

What do you do when you've sunk nearly everything you have into starting a business, but few people want to buy your products?

You could cut and run, burdened with losses and a ravaged ego. Or you could do what Dallin Larsen did, and risk even more to bring an entirely new product to market. In gambling parlance, you could go "all in."

That was Larsen's situation in 2004. His company, Monarch Health Sciences, was struggling, potentially taking with it not only the finances of Larsen and his co-founders but also significant investments made in the company by their families and friends.

In January 2005, Larsen decided, based on a suggestion from a company distributor, to introduce a new product formulated from 19 fruits including the a?i berry, then virtually unknown outside the Brazilian rain forests where it grows.

The drink, MonaVie, was a sensation, driving 10-fold revenue growth — and that was only the first year. MonaVie is sold by a worldwide network of distributors, many of whom have met Larsen personally as he travels the world to meet with and encourage them.

Now, Larsen's company, renamed MonaVie, is the largest consumer of the a?i berry outside Brazil and harvests its berries using only sustainable methods. The company also is a leader in a?i research and regularly plants new a?i palms, which have a better environmental impact than older trees.