Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i Inc. Magazine

When I arrived at Inc. in the beginning of 2020, I had plans. Big plans. Of course, they went pear-shaped as the pandemic went hockey stick, and most had to be radically altered, if not scraped altogether. I think most of you know what that was like. In fact, when I think about it today, so many problems came through the door so fast, I’m not sure I remember them all, though I definitely still feel the body aches and emotional pains of being hit with each of them—sort of as if at some point there had been a real hockey stick involved. I know you know what that is like, too. And, yet, despite all that, here we are, still standing. And, more important, here you are, in the…

Earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 is proof you’re doing something right. “It just elevated us that one extra level,” says Glenn Langberg, whose Clifton, New Jersey-based company, Seaman’s Beverage and Logistics, has made the Inc. 5000 three times and cracked the 500 in 2019 (No. 485). But being ranked doesn’t just mean joining an exclusive club. It can also help gain investors’ trust, build your client roster, attract talent, and boost morale. Here’s how to leverage your Inc. 5000 status—or any recognition—to achieve your next business goal. USE AWARDS AS A LAUNCH PAD FOR FUNDRAISING Past honorees attest that once you’re on the list, investors will come to you even if you don’t seek them out. “As soon as that issue of Inc. came out, I probably got…

In 1998, Just before the dot-com bubble burst, Matthew Telesca envisioned an internet-based future for the logistics industry. With the help of a friend, he’d written a program simplifying the cumbersome process of comparing freight rates and was excited to show it to the manufacturing company where he worked. To his chagrin, he was told to stop wasting management’s time. “I was already convinced that new technologies in the logistics space was the future, and that rebuke convinced me it was time to move on,” he recalls. In May 2000—after nearly a million lines of coding—Telesca started Easton, Pennsylvania-based MGN Logistics and launched LogisticsQuote.com, one of the first online transportation brokerage websites. The site enabled shippers to set up accounts, rate shipments, create shipping documents, and track their freight online.…

As the COVID-19 pandemic created one of the most serious business disruptions in recent memory, many small and midsize businesses (SMBs) struggled to stay afloat. An onslaught of new laws, regulations, and programs compounded the challenges they faced. Five states (California, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York) alone accounted for almost 2,400 new pieces of pandemic-related legislation affecting businesses. Every state enacted some new laws and programs, and there were dozens more at the federal level. “An overload of information that was frequently changing was one of the most notable HR-related concerns among small and midsize businesses during the pandemic,” says Chad Sorenson, president of HR Florida State Council, the state affiliate for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Trying to keep employees safe while still maintaining a…

When Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year, I became the only Black female CEO of an NYSE-listed SPAC. When I launched Xtreme Solutions in 2002, I became the only Black woman CEO of a cybersecurity company. Before that, I spent 22 years in the Army, including three stints at the Pentagon, where I was often the only Black woman in the room when crucial decisions were being made. Being “the only” in any situation can be lonely for some, but it doesn’t bother me. Some of this year’s Inc. 5000 honorees are “the only” in their fields, and, as they likely know, it’s a unique position with distinct advantages. There have been more than 820 SPAC IPOs since 2009, but Athena is…

If you are in the business of selling—whether its goods or services-nothing can more potently affect your sales than mastering the art and science of Risk Reversal. Risk Reversal is making it hard for the potential or current client to say “no” by taking as many reasons/restrictions off the table as possible. Whatever you sell, to whomever you sell, there is always some perceived risk, uncertainty, or apprehension. The key to closing the deal (and building a lasting relationship) is to find a way of removing those concerns from their plate and putting them squarely on yours. At the very least, you can strive to mitigate those risks or guarantee a minimum resulting level of outcome/satisfaction. This process and practice of reversing risk puts you way ahead of competitors who…

As a self-taught computer programmer Michael Nardy was not your typical 19-year-old. In 1998, the Boston College student started selling custom software programs for online businesses but realized he needed to connect them to a transaction processing system. He was surprised to learn that processors were woefully inefficient and expensive. “They didn’t have technology of any kind and weren’t price competitive,” says Nardy. He incorporated Electronic Payments in 2000, answering the company’s toll-free number from his dorm room. In addition to lower prices, his primary mission was one he upholds today: one-call-for-all service. “We give a single point of contact to minimize credit card processing downtime, because payments are so critical to business,” says Nardy. The company offers 24/7 tech support and ships equipment daily through their facility across the…

Despite the extreme challenges business owners have lived through since the world stopped in 2020, the rallying cry attributed to Winston Churchill has never rung more true for the fastest-growing companies in the United States: They don’t waste a good crisis. So it’s not surprising that when we polled the CEOs of the Inc. 5000 this June, as we do every year, their second-biggest concern was continuing to manage fast growth as they emerged from the pandemic and recession. Their chief worry? Their people. Managing the crisis took a steep toll on Inc. 5000 honorees because, for this group of entrepreneurs, business is personal-and it always has been. Thirty-six percent of these founders cited worry for employees’ livelihoods as one of the biggest factors in weighing the decision to start…

MARK BUFFINGTON was stunned by the purity of the pitch. And even more so by the kid making it—a student presenting at Georgia Tech’s Create-X program for aspiring entrepreneurs. The managing partner of Panoramic Ventures in Atlanta, Buffington had heard a million pitches during his career as an investor. This one was special. “Simplicity is really hard to obtain,” he explains, “and the way he articulated the solution was so elegant I thought, ‘This is going to be a massive winner.’” Buffington knew immediately that he wanted in. That Georgia Tech student was named Sean Henry. And what he outlined that day in 2016 was the concept behind Stord: a cloud-based distributed logistics platform designed to connect companies in real time to the hundreds of thousands of nodes that constitute…

No 167 CAMERON MANESH CAMERON SEAFOOD ONLINE THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 2,530% Cameron Manesh’s cousin, Peymon Manesh, was taking his turn running one of the family’s food trucks in Hagerstown, Maryland, when he spotted some West Virginians in line with coolers. They’d driven hours to load up on Maryland blue crabs, and if people would do that, he figured, surely they would pay to order the Chesapeake Bay delicacy online. FUN IN THE SUN Every year around mid-April, when the water in Chesapeake Bay approaches 60 degrees, Maryland blue crabs emerge from dormancy in the mud to mate. Mirroring the crustaceans’ frenzy, beachgoers swarm from across the Mid-Atlantic looking to feast on crab. The local prep is simple: Steam with Old Bay seasoning, and enjoy with friends. “Crabs are a social…

No 300 MIKE VICHICH WISELY THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,542% While he was creating Wisely, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based software platform that allows restaurants to build stronger relationships with their customers, Mike Vichich hit some painful lows. In that regard, he’s far from alone. Whenever Vichich shares those stories, he says, other entrepreneurs will often come back with their own tales of hitting rock bottom—even though admitting weakness doesn’t square with the chest-beating ethos that dominates much of America’s startup culture. Now that Wisely’s path has finally reached the fast-growth stage, Vichich finds himself taking on a new mission: making entrepreneurship more vulnerable. One evening in 2015, I got onstage at the monthly Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup, plugged my phone into the big screen, and started introducing myself to the…

No 417 CAROLINA ALVAREZ J&S BUILDING MAINTENANCE THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,158% Carolina Alvarez spent 13 years working in the male-dominated janitorial industry, where she encountered discomforting sexism and shady business practices, and struggled to get the credit she deserved. Thanks to a nudge from a customer, she decided to launch Commerce, California-based J&S Building Maintenance in 2016, offering cleaning services to businesses ranging from retail stores to utility companies. Her simple but powerful competitive advantage: using her years of experience to run a company that does things differently than many of her rivals. My sister and I were born in Buenos Aires. When we were young, my parents wanted to get away from the corrupt Argentinian government and decided we should move to the U.S. We all had to learn…

We’ve heard the phrase over and over again, because it’s true: We have lived through unprecedented times. Almost overnight, we had to rethink and reimagine every aspect of our daily lives because of the pandemic, and endure hardship and uncertainty. Still, our country and its people remained resilient. Our businesses pivoted to meet the challenges before them. They helped one another and found purpose in their missions. In turn, they found new revenue streams to rebound and even grow. This is why the 2021 Inc. 5000 list feels like one of the most important rosters of companies ever compiled: These companies grew because they became elemental to the very fabric of this country and what makes it amazing. When the world was shutting down, Inc. 5000 leaders did more than…

When Covid-19 began confining people to their homes last March, panicked urban dwellers sent demand for the company’s bicycles and treadmills through the roof. In some areas, sales soared as much as 400 percent compared with the year prior. The only problem? Supply chains started drying up—and customers started getting antsy. Here’s how co-founder and CEO John Foley, president William Lynch, and the rest of the Peloton team dealt with the crunch.…

David A. Steinberg was riding high when his wireless phone company, InPhonic, earned the No. 1 spot on the 2004 Inc. 5000 on annual revenue of $119.4 million. Three years later, Steinberg left, and InPhonic filed for Chapter 11. But he didn’t sit still. That same year he launched marketing technology firm XL Marketing (now Zeta Global). Here, Steinberg reflects on what went wrong with InPhonic—and how he’s doing things differently this time. I started my first company at 16. Now I’m 52, and what comes with maturity is the understanding that I don’t need to prove myself every hour of every day. When I was a young entrepreneur, I thought I had to do everything. I had to be the head of every division and know every detail. But…

SUNEERA MADHANI, CEO OF STAX (NO. 436 ON THE 2020 INC. 5000) “Every day of my life was a business lesson. My dad came from nothing and used his settlement check from losing his thumb in a Chicago factory to buy his first gas station. From there, he dabbled in everything: convenience stores, restaurants, a marketing call center—and I worked in all of them. When we owned a Church’s Chicken, my brother, Sal, and I wore chicken suits to bring in customers and hand out balloons. By 15, I was writing payroll checks and cleaning bathrooms. By 17, Sal and I were managing one of Dad’s pizza places in Orlando on our own. In 2014, Sal and I launched our own company, Fattmerchant (now called Stax), which processes direct payments…

Every day, my colleagues and I meet with young entrepreneurs seeking funding and expertise to help grow their businesses. All of them have one goal in common: to achieve the kind of success that might one day land them on the Inc. 5000. It’s an honor we’re familiar with, as the outfit I founded and ran for nearly two decades, Big Ass Fans, appeared on the Inc. 5000 for 11 consecutive years. That’s a feat matched by few companies. Behind that accomplishment was a determination to increase revenue and put profits back into the business to expand product lines and markets; a firm belief that excessive profits at year-end meant missed opportunities; and a steadfast refusal to accept outside investment. And, honestly, after making the list the first time, I…

Five years after my co-founder and I launched our A.I. marketing firm, Retention Science, we made the Inc. 5000 for the first time, in 2018, and offers began rolling in to purchase our business. We weren’t ready to sell-more and more brands were turning to us to develop and deploy marketing insights from big dives into their sales data-but it was clear even more offers would be coming our way. A few months after we made the Inc. 5000 for a second time, in 2019, we started discussing an offer in earnest, from Constant Contact, in January 2020. Of course, the world closed down around us months later as the pandemic raged, complicating the sale and giving our buyer a temporary case of cold feet. At the time, something I…

6 ON THE 2015 INC. 5000 Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan DRAWBRIDGE Since landing on the 2015 Inc. 5000 as the fastest-growing woman-led company that year, Drawbridge, the San Mateo, California-based data-connectivity firm founded by Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, has closed two rounds of financing and doubled down on its core line of business-helping clients learn about customers, even across multiple devices. In 2019, Drawbridge sold itself to a partner, LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, for an estimated nearly $300 million. –AS TOLD TO CHRISTINE LAGORIO-CHAFKIN We had been discussing a potential acquisition over the course of 2019. In spring, things kicked into overdrive. I was actually pregnant at the time. My company was my first child, and LinkedIn was conscious of that fact. We had to get the product, the business, and the…

Each of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 has its own tale of persistence, perseverance, and pluck. Tales of traction. Tales of triumph. Tales of doing the work, no matter the obstacles. They filled needs in a time of need. They built better businesses. And through it all, they grew. From making musicals to mixing potions, from cleaning up to killing Covid, these are the stories of 13 founders who tell us how they prevailed in 2020-and the lessons they learned on the way to winning the biggest prize of all.…

No 370 CASSANDRA MORALES THURSWELL KITSCH THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,304% In 2010, Cassandra Morales Thurswell launched her $87 million beauty brand, Los Angeles-based Kitsch, with a simple hair tie and a knack for divining the emotional backstory behind even the simplest purchases. She’d already learned the fundamentals of product development creating private-label jewelry for brands like Hot Topic and Nordstrom. While so many of her CPG peers scrambled to blitzscale like tech startups, Morales Thurswell’s slow and steady approach turned out to be the secret to skyrocketing growth. I grew up in the Midwest, and my step-dad was an orthodontist; he gave me an allowance for making retainers in the garage. So there I’d be, out in the garage in the middle of winter, with the generator blasting to keep…

No one can deny how difficult the past year has been for everyone. The COVID pandemic hit us hard in our personal and business lives. But as the tide begins to turn, business leaders are remarkably optimistic about their prospects for the immediate future. Insperity’s 2021 Business Outlook Survey paints a picture of businesses looking to recover economically, add to their teams, and increase wages. National Business Outlook Surveys - four quantitative waves conducted by Insperity; 95% statistical confidence level with a +/- 4% margin of error. 53% of business leaders expect to increase staffing levels in 2021, up from 14% in March 2020. “We’ve had an amazing and doing really well. Insperity. They’ve really some great new talent.” couple of years; we’re growing It’s all due to our team—and…

Starting in the mortgage business while your house is in foreclosure may sound odd. Especially when you have also filed for bankruptcy and both cars have been repossessed, along with your garbage can. “The garbage company dumped the garbage on the street and just took the can,” Tim Baise explained. “That was a defining moment for me.” Baise knew he had to do something to support his family and break the poverty mindset that plagued him. A Detroit native who had a difficult childhood, Baise wanted to offer his family something better, and he was determined to break the cycle. “I should have been a statistic. I should have been dead or in jail,” Baise says. With this motivation, he got a year of training in the mortgage industry and…

Larry Gurreri is a movie buff. As founder and CEO of Sosemo, a digital marketing agency that handles strategic media planning, buying, and campaign management for mostly health and pharma brands, he’s also responsible for helping his team avoid burnout. And his passion for film has rubbed off on his team and engaged employees. Employee satisfaction and engagement are key goals that landed Sosemo on īnc.’s Best Workplaces list. And engaging in fun activities helps boost those attributes. MAKING REWARDS FUN In 2017, when team members found out that The Post, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, was being filmed near their New York City office, they reached out to casting to see if they could act as extras. A few of the 20 team members, who call themselves “Sosemo-ians”…

WHEN LATE JULY co-founder Nicole Bernard Dawes started her second company, Nixie Sparkling Water, in 2018, she decided to adopt a novel approach toward her competitors: Ignore them. Instead of trying to prove Nixie was better than myriad other sparkling water brands, the seven-time Inc. 5000 honoree chose to target the shelf space given to soda. She pulled research on that category’s decline in sales and presented her findings to grocery-store buyers: “You have to build a data story—these are the brands that are growing; this is the part that is shrinking.” Dawes’s strategy was simple: a shift to generate more in-store sales by taking space from the soda brands and using it for what consumers actually wanted—healthier options. And stores drank it right up. By year’s end, Nixie expects…

How will cybersecurity and data privacy evolve over the next decade? We’re hearing from our customers that cybersecurity and data privacy are increasingly becoming board-level conversations. Companies will start to think about privacy, security, vendor risk, and ESG, not as siloed efforts in the organization, but as a broader effort to build trust in their brands. How can businesses protect themselves from hackers? Getting attacked isn’t just about tech infrastructure and security. Humans are the most exploitable part of any system; they can be manipulated to intentionally or unintentionally give access to hackers. Employees need training—to spot phishing attempts, yes, but also on the ethical use of data to prevent inadvertent abuses. It’s also vital to implement third-party risk management—to have an ongoing understanding of your vendors’ security practices, and…

When I first began to explore taking Dell from publicly held, multibillion-dollar business back to private company a decade ago, there were many naysayers. They said the PC market was dead, and that there would be grave risks in relying on it to fund the growth of our new businesses. But I believed new mobile devices would complement the PC rather than replace it. And I saw going private as the best way to liberate the company, reinvigorate its entrepreneurial spirit, and allow us to get more aggressive on gaining share, investing in R&D, and adding sales capacity. So I ignored the experts. Read more about how that decision paid off in my new book, Play Nice but Win.…

As Founder and CEO of The Abraham Group, Inc., Jay Abraham has counseled over 10,000 clients in more than 1,000 industries. Widely recognized as a leading expert in sales and marketing, Abraham has spent his entire career solving complex problems and fixing under-performing businesses. In this series of articles, Abraham speaks about three topics at the heart of his overall business philosophy. What does it mean for your company to be preeminent in its field? And why should current and potential clients care? The answers are simple, but reaching preeminence is not. Being preeminent means being better than everyone else in every way. When it comes to business, it means being the supplier or provider of choice. Preeminence strategies include creating something entirely new, mastering a niche, developing pricing efficiencies,…

For most entrepreneurs, launching a startup three months before a global pandemic would just be bad luck. Not so for Realm founder Liz Young, whose real estate platform helps homeowners maximize the value of their home by guiding them through decisions like how much to spend on a kitchen renovation or when to refinance. During the pandemic, when millions of Americans began working remotely from their homes, Realm started receiving hundreds of inquiries per week from homeowners looking for advice. “We’ve had a really captive audience of people sitting in their biggest asset and not spending on travel and other discretionary expenses,” Young says. “They’re saying, ‘Help me figure out how to interact with my home in its new use.’^” Young, 33, first took an interest in real estate at…

No 2 EREN BALI CARBON HEALTH THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 39,734% FRIENDS OF EREN BALI talk about a certain kind of glow that lights up his face when he gets into conversations about solving problems. The soft-spoken co-founder and CEO of Carbon Health, this year’s second-fastest-growing company on the Inc. 5000, has what longtime investor and friend Paul Lee describes as “a weird, quiet confidence about him. He has a calm demeanor, but also this deep curiosity.” Lee, who, like Bali, has a degree in mathematics, recognizes a mathematician’s way of thinking. “Math is not about throwing a bunch of formulas at something. It’s about solving problems in a very thoughtful, logical way,” he says. “And I think that’s the fundamental thing that Eren brings to being a founder: He falls…

No 78 GEOFFREY GOLDBERG & EVAN HOROWITZ MOVERS+SHAKERS THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 4,802% Geoffrey Goldberg and Evan Horowitz were married and living in a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment in 2016 when they wondered if they should hitch their careers together, too. Goldberg was a former Broadway dance captain turned director and choreographer, and Horowitz was a marketing pro with a Harvard MBA. They combined forces and called their new venture Movers+Shakers. The Santa Monica, California-based business puttered along as a two-man digitalmarketing shop for a few years until one of their campaigns exploded on TikTok, hitting a billion views in a week. They’d reinvented the marketing jingle for Gen-Z, and it sent their business soaring-from $130,000 in 2017 revenue to $6.6 million in 2020. That’s on track to at least quadruple this…

No 443 JENNIFER YEN YENSA THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,107% With her first beauty brand, former Power Ranger actor Jennifer Yen didn’t hit the mark she’d set for herself in representing the Asian beauty traditions she’d learned from her mother and grandmother. Thanks to critical advice from the buyers at QVC, and a little postpartum Chinese wisdom from her mother, Yen pushed the reset button with Yensa. Here’s what happened when the fledgling, L.A.-based beauty brand earned Yen a golden ticket to appear live on QVC—with eight minutes to make or break her. Once upon a time, I was the evil villainess Vypra on the TV show Power Rangers. As a young actor in my 20s, I didn’t realize how damaging heavy TV makeup could be to my skin. So I…

There is no universal playbook for fast growth-which has been more apparent than ever during this unprecedented past year. Besides a great idea, a stellar team, and a healthy sprinkle of luck, every founder needs strategic measures to reach the heights of the Inc. 5000. And even once your revenue has begun to skyrocket, the hard work is far from over; learning what it will take to maintain that success, now and in the future, is immensely difficult. We asked dozens of current and former members of the Inc. 5000 for the key moves that have helped them pull it off-and the hazards they’ve managed to avoid along the way. GEORGE AZIH Founder and CEO LeaseQuery “Deciding to hire 50 sales development representatives was the move that put our company…

“Our mantra is FAMILY: Fun, Accountability, Mindfulness, Integrity, Love, and YES! We keep these values front and center every day,” says Jason Zintak, CEO, 6sense 6sense is an account engagement platform helping B2B revenue teams identify, engage with, and close more opportunities. Powered by artificial intelligence (Al), big data, and machine learning, 6sense uncovers and decodes anonymous buying behavior to help marketing and sales deliver personalized, multichannel, multi-touch campaigns to accounts in the market to buy. 6sense is driven by a passionate, results-driven culture obsessed with meeting customer expectations, and beyond. From product development to our own revenue team, we are relentlessly focused on executing and delivering results. Visit 6sense.com “It’s a privilege to be part of such a values-driven company. Our mission is to defeat every attack, and our…