We are Porsche, says SRAM Stan

The BusinessWeek report details the history of SRAM – it nearly didn’t make it past its first year because of lacklustre sales of GripShift – and says the privately held company has seen 15-20 percent growth for the past five years. It now has revenues of $318m a year.

Shimano has a marketing and R&D budget of $122m.

You won’t find many cars at SRAM’s headquarters on the Near North Side of Chicago. Nearly all the office’s 100 employees pedal to work, including [CEO Stan] Day, who is 51. Expensive road and mountain bikes clutter the place.

Day himself doesn’t work from a regular desk or office. Six-foot-three and fit, he uses a drafting table in the open. Walls, he says, would cut him off from co-workers. Or the beer vending machine, where employees can buy cold ones for 75 cents after 5 p.m. Or his view of the bike test track, which runs the circumference of the interior.

The rest of the BusinessWeek report can be read here.