I often hear claims of it being the fastest to $1 billion in revenue. True?

I’ve seen quite a few people in my previous thread comment that MonaVie is the fastest growing company in the United States. Others say that it is the fastest company to $1 billion in revenue (See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Clicking on any of those links will show that people are using this information as justification of MonaVie’s value.

I haven’t been able to find documentation of the $1 billion in sales. Is this independently audited or is this Monavie reporting the numbers themselves? If it’s independently audited, I’d like to see the paper work. Since Monavie is a private company, I suspect that this number isn’t audited (they aren’t required to). If the only source of this information is MonaVie and unaudited, perhaps it’s a case where they are trying to take advantage of the adage, “Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.” Are they trying to drive sales by pretending that sales are already made?

MonaVie gives discounts for big bulk purchases. If this $1 billion number is to be believed, does it include product that is in distributor’s hands waiting to actually be sold? MonaVie probably counts it as a sale since they’ve made their money. However, supplying distributors with product is different from selling it in the traditional model. We should note the difference, because if a product is sitting in a distributor’s warehouse, it’s what I’d call “sold.”

In another note, One MonaVie distributor suggested that I become a distributor and buy a year’s worth of MonaVie in advance to get the best price. If I buy a year’s worth, does MonaVie amortize those sales over the span of a year? I would guess not.

Another thought… YouTube was around for 18 months when it was sold for a 1.65B valuation. I know that’s not a revenue number, but if it decided to give away $1.50 worth of stock to everyone that wanted to give it $1, it could have had a billion dollars in revenue.

Originally posted 2009-03-07 10:19:54.