Inicio/Negocios y Finanzas/Inc. Magazine/September 2024/En este número
Inc. Magazine|September 2024CONTRIBUTORSSamhita MukhopadhyayMukhopadhyay’s book The Myth of Making It explores burnout and DEI in the workplace—she covers the latter in her look at corporate training firm Praxis Labs (page 34). Her work has appeared in New York, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic.Reeves WiedemanWiedeman is a writer at New York and the author of Billion Dollar Loser, the 2020 book on the rise and fall of WeWork. For Inc., he examines Religion of Sports (page 31), the Tom Brady-backed production company. “It was a nerdy thrill to sit in on a creative strategy meeting at HQ,” he says.Jennifer ConradInc. senior writer Conrad profiles Kizik (page 150), the adaptive-sneaker brand that both competes and partners with Nike. “I was impressed to see Kizik build its prototypes onsite,” she says, “and jealous of the…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Karen Dillon Congratulations on your company's big success. So now, let me ask—are you happy?For Jeremy Kasler, founder and CEO of CaskX, the pandemic offered an unex pected opportunity to reset his life. Having sold his previous company, Hong Kong-based Art Futures Group, which paired midcareer artists with investors, the native Brit planned to spend some time reconnecting with family in Australia as he got his new startup off the ground. The new business, which helps individual investors purchase barrels (or casks) of bourbon and Scotch from distilleries in the U.S. and Scotland, was still in its early days when Kasler arrived in Sydney just a day before the country went into lockdown. “I kind of got stuck there,” he recalls. But in hindsight, it was one of the best things that could have happened to him—and his new company.While riding out the lockdown…6 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024A MISSION THAT MATTERSHeritage can tie families together—or become a lost thread. Bitty Bao’s founders are focused on the former. They aim to connect kids and families to Chinese culture through bilingual books in English and Mandarin or Cantonese.In May, this ambitious quest brought them to Miami and the Small Biz Challenge, hosted by Inc. and The UPS Store, where they competed against two other small businesses and won $25,000 for their L.A.-based company.Co-founders Lacey Benard, 41, and Lulu Cheng, 42, met as teachers in L.A. in 2006 and became close friends, even rooming together for a year in Pasadena. Then they changed jobs and lost touch.Ten years later, they reconnected as Cheng coached Benard in getting through sleepless nights with her new baby. Meanwhile, Cheng was wrestling with her own challenge: how…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024IS DEI DEAD, OR DOES IT JUST NEED TO EVOLVE?A well-meaning man at work consistently talks over women in meetings. A few women have filed complaints about the employee, and you, the manager, are tasked with giving him feedback. But you are dreading the conversation. It will likely be uncomfortable, and it’s unclear how he might react. What do you do?Praxis Labs is here to help, with a healthy assist from generative AI. The Los Angelesbased company, founded by Elise Smith, 33, and Heather Shen, 27, creates simu lated environments for managers to practice giving feedback in delicate situations. The module coaches them and asks them to try again if they don’t get their point across sufficiently.It is apparent why a tool like this is revolutionary, and why companies such as Uber, Amazon, and Accenture have adopted it. Discrimination…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024CRAFTING THEIR OWN CAREERSWhen Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang launched their crochet-kit business, The Woobles, in 2020, their product resonated with a newly homebound population that wanted to craft, and wanted it to be easy. Their audience was anyone who suddenly found themselves with free time, for whom learning to crochet a tiny penguin, fox, or bunny provided joy and distraction amid uncertainty.Tiu, 34, had a background as an education UX designer, and she perfected their kits by watching real people use them to learn to crochet, quickly adjusting the product to remove barriers to entry. She ensured each kit was prestarted to get the hardest part of the crochet experience out of the way, replaced regular yarn with a custom one that doesn’t fray, and created step-by-step online tutorials that customers could…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Scaled My Pup's Raw Food Diet Into a Healthy BrandNo. 38AustinThree-year growth rate: 6,743%Katie Spies, 32, doesn’t know how to live without a pet. In 2015, after graduating from MIT with dual degrees in mechan i cal and environmental engineering, she rescued George, a 6-month-old Italian greyhound. But when George’s first birthday arrived, Spies couldn’t find much to celebrate. Her “spry and spunky” puppy had become tired and lethargic. He began having seizures; medications didn’t work. Then a vet mentioned a raw food diet. Spies went to the grocery store for some ground beef and chicken liver, which she mixed with peas, carrots, and berries. Within a day—she swears—George was excited about food again, and soon his health had improved dramatically. At first, having George back was enough—until 2019, when, as a student at Harvard Business School, Spies decided…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024My Brand's Facials Are Great. Our Real Estate Strategy Is Even BetterNo. 409New York CityThree-year growth rate: 1,087%There is no shortage of competition in the $144 billion skin care industry. Still, Rachel Liverman, 39, knew she had an original idea when she founded Glowbar in 2019. She offered 30-minute facials for $60 on a monthly subscription model-well below the average price-or $75 à la carte. Five years later, those rates remain the same. But Liverman's scaling strategy has as much to do with rent than retinol. She signed a 10-year lease for her first store in New York with no proof of concept, just high hopes and trust from her landlord.Skin care is practically in my DNA. My grandmother founded the Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics in Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1977, which grew into one of the top esthetician schools in…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Strategic HR: Power Your Business With a PEOEntrepreneurs start a business to solve a problem, serve a market, and build a legacy. They don’t start a business because they love labor laws and administrative processes. That is where professional employer organizations (PEOs) come in. PEOs take on the burden of timeconsuming HR tasks and reduce the legal risks associated with employment so that founders can focus on their passions.“Being freed from back-office concerns and paperwork means founders can really focus on productivity in their own business—on profitability, or growth, or employee engagement—in ways that they probably couldn’t if they didn’t have the help of a PEO,” explains Casey Clark, CEO and president of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), a trade association that serves as the voice of the PEO industry and a source for…12 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Marketers Hope the Odds Are Ever in Their FavorElon Musk should have tipped people off. Advertising’s biggest persona non grata came to Cannes for the Lions Festival in June on an apology tour, but left having ruffled feathers further, telling attendees that AI would probably take their jobs. It was perhaps the truest thing said all week at the marketing world’s biggest carnival, where advertising execs meet to sip rosé, make deals, and fête ads on the Côte d’Azur. It’s not that attendees thought Musk was wrong. In fact, many came away from Cannes uncomfortable with the lavish excesses on display even as the industry grapples with existential threats.It’s been a rough ride: The pandemic changed consumer behavior almost overnight and upped the stakes of customers’ relationships with brands, raising their expectations for everything from delivery turn-around times…8 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Power PlayersTo witness the future of energy, drive about 25 miles from Baltimore to West Friendship, Maryland. Turn onto a dirt road that leads to a 100-year-old farm, past rusting tractors, a pit of burning scrap wood, and a pond, and you’re there: a 6.25-megawatt solar energy installation on 23 rural acres. Chaberton Energy (No. 34) designed the 15,000-solar-panel array on land it leases from the farmer.Chaberton is a leader in a field that’s come to be known as community solar: small-scale green energy projects for groups that couldn’t otherwise build their own. After Chaberton secures the land and the permits, it designs and then sells a shovel-ready package to an investor, in this case Greenbacker Renewable Energy. Loyola University in Baltimore buys part of the output of this installation, and…9 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Built a Business Helping Kids With AutismA lot of my clients at the salon were coming in just to talk to me. I thought, “I should get my master’s in counseling.”As a working mom, I wanted to get my master’s as quickly as possible and open my own center for people with autism, one that would accept Medicaid. That way, I could provide quality services for the mostly Black and Brown kids who were going to these facilities.In 2017, I rented a little single-room space in Indianapolis and hired a few other behavior therapists. Within six months, we’d grown to seven kids. There was a nicer two-room space down the block. I started renting it, and a year later I’d made enough to buy the building. When the pandemic hit, I bought another building for $180,000…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGEROver the past four years, companies have had to deal with problems that no one could have foreseen in 2019: a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, worker shortages. In the process, they also had to figure out how to handle a problem that had seemed to be a thing of the distant past—infla tion. After more than a decade in which the inflation rate rarely touched even 3 percent, it soared to 7 percent in 2021 and was at 6.5 percent in 2022. And even as it’s cooled down over the past 18 months, its impact on all companies— particularly this year’s Inc. 5000— will likely influence their behavior for years to come. Which raises an interesting question: Is coming of age in an inflationary moment a boon or a…11 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Helping Hospitals Save LivesKEYSTONEPERFUSION.COM6X Inc. 5000 List$30+ million 2023 Revenue350 Employees2013 Year FoundedThere were many unsung heroes during the pandemic, whether it was the doctors working late into the night, the nurses comforting worried patients, or the medical service providers who had to jump into action. Keystone Perfusion, a South Carolina-based health care company, was one of those organizations that had to pivot in the early days of the Covid crisis, saving thousands of lives in the process.The 11-year-old business provides perfusionists to hospitals that perform cardiac surgery. These professionals operate the heart-lung bypass machines that maintain blood circulation and oxygenation during heart repair surgeries. During the pandemic, Keystone Perfusion’s clients needed perfusionists to run machines called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) devices, which remove carbon dioxide from the blood, sending oxygen-filled blood back…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024A Culture of Impact, in Honor of an American LegendDANIELSFUND.ORG31 EMPLOYEES94% EMPLOYEE RETENTION81 EMPLOYEE NET PROMOTER SCOREHQ: DENVER, COLORADOThe late Bill Daniels would be proud of what he saw if he walked into the Daniels Fund offices today, believes Hanna Skandera, president and CEO. Daniels established the foundation in 2000 to make life better for the people of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—states with personal meaning for him. Since its founding, the not-for-profit has distributed more than $1.1 billion in grants and scholarships.Daniels’s vision and legacy live on within the organization. In addition to preserving his donor intent, board members and employees embody Daniels’s values, including ethics and integrity, patriotism, belief in the free enterprise system, and a strong conviction in the power of the individual. Mission and values are part of what makes the organization an Inc.…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Collaborative Culture and Unparalleled Client ServiceOGLAWYERS.COMOliva Gibbs is dedicated to serving energy companies nationwide, with offices in Columbus, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Midland, Texas; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Our clientele ranges from Fortune 500 corporations to private equity and family office-backed energy companies. Specializing in complex title and transactional projects, litigation, surface use matters, and regulatory concerns, Oliva Gibbs ensures high-quality legal services with a collaborative approach for its clients with attorneys licensed in 13 states.Oliva Gibbs distinguishes itself through its core values: passion for continuous learning, unparalleled client service, and a collaborative culture. The firm believes in the power of continuous learning to enhance business outcomes and takes pride in sharing knowledge with clients and industry peers. Commitment to professional development is lived through initiatives like Oliva Gibbs University and a monthly webinar…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024To Grow Your Business, Know and Nurture Your TalentSCAN123.COM41.75% 3-YEAR GROWTH28 EMPLOYEES133% 5-YEAR EMPLOYMENT GROWTHHQ: PORTLAND, OREGONEach new hire at software company Scan123 receives a deceptively serious assignment during onboarding: Imagine yourself as a superhero and create a poster that defines your superpower. The Portland, Oregon, company provides document management services for home care and automotive businesses. Using the superhero exercise to supplement employee orientation was an idea CEO Jed McCarthy got from Felix Lin, a friend and consultant, after taking the reins in 2019. The posters give company leaders insight into how to use and develop each worker’s talents to the fullest.“We encourage regular quarterly conversations with their supervisor to figure out how they can do more of their superpower and less of the stuffthey don’t want to do,” McCarthy says.Growing togetherMcCarthy also introduced several other initiatives…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How this Life Sciences Company Innovates by Engineering with EmpathyXENCOMEDICAL.COMDriven by a commitment to value-based care through scientific innovation, Xenco Medical has charted a course in the life sciences defined by devotion to the entire spectrum of a patient’s journey. From the company’s application of materials science in the design of its biomimetic spinal implants to engineering highlyreinforced, composite polymer surgical instruments, the San Diegoheadquartered company has fostered an engineering and design culture that synthesizes otherwise disparate fields into interdisciplinary surgical technologies.According to Xenco Medical Founder and CEO Jason Haider, cultivating an empowering workplace has played an essential role in the company’s surgical innovations. He notes, “as a catalyst-oriented company, we’ve prioritized imbuing our culture with the belief that the path to scientific impact is forged through empowerment.”The company’s broad portfolio of surgical technologies, from regenerative biomaterials to spinal…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Freedom and Collaboration Make a Productive Work EnvironmentSTRATEGICCLAIMCONSULTANTS.COM53 EMPLOYEES5,000+ CLAIMS SETTLED6 LOCATIONS$2B+ RECOVEREDStrategic Claim Consultants (SCC), a national public insurance adjusting firm based in Atlanta, specializes in claim advocacy for policyholders. The company has found success—and an Inc. Best Workplace honor—by embracing the concept of collaborative autonomy in the workplace.“We don’t succeed by micromanaging; we do it by incorporating a team effort,” says Michael A. Fried, vice president and partner. “Collaboration is at the forefront. We like to accentuate the team members’ unique skill sets and put them in positions to succeed.”CEO Brandon Lewis founded the company in fall 2016. Since then, through strategic acquisitions of competitive firms, Lewis has expanded SCC’s reach to Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and the Carolinas.Young but experiencedMany of the firm’s employees once worked for insurance companies, and there are several who…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024KICK STARTERSNo. 407Salt Lake CityThree-year growth rate: 1,090%It’s not easy to put a shoe on a toddler. You need to hit the heel at just the right angle, and with a quick flip of the wrist, jam in a little foot. Mike Pratt, the founder of the slip-on sneaker brand Kizik, is showing me a prototype of a toddler shoe that could avoid this delicate dance. The sneaker is shaped like a green monster, and when you squeeze the sides of the sole, the mouth opens like a clamshell, creating a generous space for a tiny, squirming foot to slide in.A serial entrepreneur and inventor, Pratt, 63, spends a lot of time thinking about how to make life easier. About 15 years ago, he got the idea there had to be…11 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Get Influencers to Post on Time —and Stay on MessageLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 459%Working with influencers is the exact roller coaster you think it is—they can be as mercurial as they are savvy and their often outsize personalities can be explosive. Mirror Digital, which represents more than 1,000 publishers and creators, has learned to harness that volatility—booking nearly $24 million in revenue from clients such as Amazon and General Motors last year alone. After 12 years of business, Mirror’s 42-yearold founder and CEO, Sheila Marmon, is unambiguous about the source of her success.As a digital media company, we help brands connect with diverse audiences on digital ad platforms. We have a network of websites, creators, and podcasters. So brands tell us the audience they want to reach. Then we get a digital ad from a media agency of record.…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024INC. 5000 HOUSEHOLD NAMESIf a business is like a house, revenue is just one part of a strong structure. Indeed, for many companies, making it onto the Inc. 5000—or its predecessor, the Inc. 500—is a predictor, but not a guarantee, of greatness. In 2016, Inc. and the Kauffman Foundation found that a good number of Inc. 5000 companies stop growing. Many of those honorees are the small and medium-size businesses that are so vital to our economy.Then there are the Inc. 5000 alumni that go on to become household names. Microsoft, for example, was a small firm with modest revenue when it appeared on the Inc. 500 in 1984; now it’s the second most valuable company in the world. Microsoft is no anomaly. You’ve probably heard of Zoom, Cisco, Domino’s, Apple, and Callaway…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Data-Driven Decisions Fuel Astronomical GrowthMIT45.COM$77.6M 2023 Revenue109 Employees135% 2-Year Growth$679K 2023 Revenue Per EmployeeSalt Lake City-based company MIT45 has answered the call to revolutionize the $1.5 billion kratom industry and has experienced phenomenal growth along the way. By aligning with the heartbeat of the kratom market, MIT45 has transcended from a $1.5 million enterprise to a $77.6 million juggernaut. This meteoric growth is due to a potent blend of meticulous product development, judicious and data-driven strategies, and an unwavering commitment to prioritizing their customers and employees first.Combining innovation and dataThe key to MIT45’s revenue boost was the development of an innovative kratom extract that could be incorporated into a variety of products. While kratom has been a popular botanical in the wellness space for decades, traditional formats (raw powder and capsules) left much to…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024A Human-Centric Approach to Cybersecurity Branded ContentREDTRACETECH.COMDigital threats are evolving with alarming velocity, but RedTrace Technologies is redefining the cybersecurity landscape, transcending traditional cybersecurity approaches. Instead of offering one-size-fits-all solutions, RedTrace dives deep into the unique challenges and needs of each client. Dedication to personalized service has led to the development of highly effective security strategies and fostered lasting partnerships.“We’re in the business of building relationships, not just safeguarding systems,” says Founder and President Kelo Makelele.RedTrace’s experts are among the most highly certified in the industry, a fact that underscores the company’s commitment to excellence and continuous learning. “Our team’s expertise is our clients’ advantage,” states Makelele.In a world increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure, the need for robust cybersecurity has never been more acute. RedTrace Technologies stands ready as a partner in this journey, offering not…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Why Gen-Z will transform workplace culture for the betterClaudia and Carolina Recchi are sisters who run EdSights, a tech platform that enhances student retention, and one of the fastest-growing companies in America. But today, as I speak to them over Zoom, they are sitting at a single laptop in a darkened apartment in a northern suburb of Rome, where they grew up, the windows shut tight to keep out the sweltering summer heat. Carolina, 30, and Claudia, 28, spend three months a year with their family, without their business (No. 296 on the Inc. 5000) missing a beat.“We were born as a remote com pany, since our first five hires,” explains Carolina of EdSights, which started out building student-life apps. “It was important for us to prove that we could do the remote thing, but still not lose…6 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Chip Conley Human wisdom is more valuable than ever. But true wisdom requires these six skills.When management theorist Peter Drucker coined the term knowledge workers in 1959, most people had no idea what he was talking about. Since then, knowledge workers have come to rule the world. Today, seven of the world’s 10 most valuable companies are tech companies, the ultimate workplace for knowledge workers.But now, 65 years after the knowledge economy was born, we’re about to be ushered into the wisdom economy. In this landscape, artificial intelligence will be the commodity, and human wisdom will be a valued yet scarce resource.All those folks who followed the trending advice to become software engineers? My gut tells me they’re a dime a dozen now, and research shows 96 percent of those engineers’ current skills could be augmented by AI in the next couple of years. But…7 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024MOVING THE GOALPOSTSWhen it comes to understanding athletes, Gotham Chopra has learned some lessons: Losses are more interesting than victories, the old guard has more enlightening things to say than up-and-coming phenoms, and success doesn’t typically happen overnight. It was Serena Williams who served that last point to him after he rallied for seven years to try to get her to do a documentary with his production company, Religion of Sports. “ ‘Boy, you’re persistent,’ ” he remembers she said to him.Chopra was telling me this story in early July, when that work had finally paid off. In the Arena: Serena Williams, which he directed, was set to debut on ESPN the next night and become the latest docuseries out of Religion of Sports, which Chopra founded with former NFLers Tom Brady…5 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024HOW YOUR OFFICE SALAD CAN CHANGE THE WORLDDilip Rao didn’t need to start a business. As an investment banker at Credit Suisse, he was highly paid and good at his job. But on July 5, 2014, while crossing the street in Midtown Manhattan, the then 33-year-old newlywed was struck by a car. He suffered a concussion and a handful of other injuries, which rendered him temporarily unable to move his arms and legs.“When I was lying in the hospital and couldn’t feel anything from the neck down, I went through the worst-case scenarios in my head,” he says. Rao wondered whether this was it. “I had so many more things that I wanted to do.” That’s the human condition, of course, but it also drove his recovery. He spent the next six to 12 months engaged in…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROADDon Burnette is circ*mspect about both the speed of technology and the patience required for massive leaps. While we’re still waiting for robotaxis and EVs without steering wheels, Burnette, 39, helped pioneer AV trucking, which he left a gig at Uber to do. Today, his 206-employee-strong Kodiak Robotics is powering AV trucks across a 19,000-road network, covering some three million miles, with plans to eventually traverse the nation. The Mountain View, Californiabased company, which grew more than 10,106 percent in three years, has a clear road ahead of it. But there have been plenty of bumps along the way.1 STAY LEANI intentionally left behind the big tech strategy of throwing infinite resources at problems. I saw how doing so not only can make you wasteful, but also can actually slow…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024CEOSurveyInc. 5000Meet the top 500 of the class of 2024, in ranked order with the No. 1 company at 90,779 percent revenue growth. Then, check out the full list of 5,000 all-stars:inc.com/inc5000/2024• The number of dots indicates how many times a company has been a past Inc. 5000 honoree.NOTE: The growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to four decimal places. There were no ties among the top 500 of this year’s Inc. 5000.GENDER0.07% of respondents identified themselves as transgender or nonbinary.AGEWAKE-UP TIMESWHICH SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR THEY ADMIRE MOST AND WHYJENSEN HUANG“He remains grounded, accessible, and committed to fostering a culture of transparency and trust.”OPRAH WINFREY“Her ongoing focus on personal growth is an inspiration.”YVON CHOUINARD“He did it all his way and didn’t follow a single playbook.”THEIR MOST EFFECTIVE SELF-CARE…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Used AI to Solve a Pharmaceutical PuzzleSan FranciscoThree-year growth rate: 1,728%No. 236Yoona Kim, 44, wanted to help people access health care. That desire led her down a compounding path-from an early career analyzing health care cost trends, to pharmacy school, and then to a PhD program in health economics. Eventually, she encountered an important, solvable problem: Millions of people are prescribed suboptimal-and often dangerous-medications each year. So in 2017, Kim and CTO Penjit "Boom" Moorhead co-founded Arine. The platform, powered by AI, recommends safer, more effective medication regimens. It's grown by illuminating the shadowy side of the $1 trillion U.S. pharmaceutical industry.I always saw gaps in the health care system. My mom is a public health nurse, and even when we were kids, she would bring us to volunteer at public health fairs and county clinics.…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Define Your Precise NeedsConsideration criteria includes:• The types of services provided • The quality, cost, and range of offered benefits • The PEO's culture and values and whether they align with yours • The level of service provided to business leaders, HR, and employees • Whether the PEO offers an app for HR users and employees • Security measures • Liability and how much risk will be shared with or absorbed by the PEO • If the PEO has been designated a certified PEO by the IRS • The user experience of the PEO platform and if it integrates with existing processes…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024AI Is in Its Awkward EraArtificial intelligence entered its adolescence last year, as evidenced by one hell of a growth spurt. Investors piled on in 2023 as companies across industries looked to hop on the AI train. In the U.S., investment in the sector grew to $67.2 billion, with a third going directly to makers of generative AI products, the technology popularized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report, genAI investment jumped to more than $20 billion, up from the $2.21 billion invested in 2022.For AI entrepreneurs, the enthusiasm is doubleedged. Interest in their tools has never been greater, as nearly half of the Inc. 5000 honorees who took our CEO Survey (see page 49) cite the use of at least one AI service. OpenAI was the top provider. But genAI…6 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024When Tiny Changes Reap Enormous ResultsHoboken, New JerseyThree-year growth rate: 90,779%To understand the power of small, non-obvious changes, consider the Long Island patient who kept landing in the emergency room after failing to show up to her scheduled heart surgery. Vytalize Health, the No. 1 company on this year’s Inc. 5000, sent a social worker to the patient’s home and discovered two dozen pet parakeets. The patient had refused to leave the birds alone to go to her procedure. After Vytalize secured an animal-care organization to step in more than a year ago, the patient received the surgery, and she hasn’t been hospitalized in more than a year.“The thing a lot of folks forget about health care is that it’s more than just biochemical reactions,” says Vytalize cofounder and chief medical officer Amer Alnajar. “A…6 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Launched a Cool Baby Brand Despite Having No Kids of My OwnNew York CityThree-year growth rate: 2,413%No. 144Tokyo’s Mandarin Oriental hotel is an odd place to be passing around diapers, Frank Yu, 33, will admit. It was there, in 2016, that he met some friends who were fresh from a baby shower. They’d been gifted diapers that felt nothing like the plasticky ones in the United States. These felt soft—similar to cashmere, even. The gears of Yu’s strategic brain, trained by London Business School, sent him hurtling into a years-long quest to design a fabric-like disposable diaper for the American market. He had the privileges of youth, drive, and hefty savings from working at an investment bank. He soon also had a lab, courtesy of his mentor, Carlos Richer, the CEO of Diaper Testing International. But as a then 25-year-old childless…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024The View From the Top$15.4 billion Carahsoft Technology’s 2023 annual revenue.Craig Abod founded government IT contractor Carahsoft Technology in 2004 with a “handful of employees” and a single vendor partner. In 2008, the Reston, Virginia-based company landed at No. 16 on the Inc. 5000, having grown revenue 6,553 percent over a three-year-period.Carahsoft hasn’t looked back since. The early growth milestone marked the beginning of a nearly unprecedented hot streak, as the company has claimed a spot on the Inc. 5000 every year since—an eye-popping 17 years in a row. Most impressive, Carahsoft has done this without venture capital or mergers and acquisitions, chasing “natural growth driven by hard work,” Abod says.This year, in addition to celebrating its 20th anniversary, Carahsoft reaches yet another milestone: It’s the highest-earning company on the Inc. 5000 list, with…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024The IT Services Firm on a Moonshot MissionBLACKLINEIT.COM30 EMPLOYEES2015 INC 5000 HONOREE6 YEARS: AVERAGE EMPLOYEE TENUREHQ: NAPERVILLE, ILLINOISSome people buy a red Corvette when they turn 50. Jody Jankovsky, founder and CEO of Black Line IT, reimagined his company instead. “It was 2017, and I’d been in the business for 20-something years. I turned 50 and thought, ‘What do I want Black Line’s legacy to be? Do we continue on as usual, or do we double down and do something extraordinary?” The business was profitable and growing, but “make money” isn’t a mission that rallies the troops, Jankovsky observes. He knew the team was capable of more.However, the catalyst that truly changed the trajectory of the company was the buy-in, support, and enthusiasm of his team. This sparked Black Line’s “Moonshot” mission, composed of three goals: be…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024A Premier Lending Partner Committed to Small Business SuccessCHANNELPARTNERSCAPITAL.COMChannel, a leading provider of equipment finance and working capital solutions, is honored to be recognized in Inc.’s Best Workplaces Listing. This recognition is a testament to Channel’s unwavering commitment to excellence and collaboration in a growth-focused culture. Our commitment has earned us numerous accolades, including being named one of the fastest-growing companies by Inc. 5000 for 12 consecutive years. This extraordinary success is attributed to the strength of our team and their collaborative relationships with partners, driven by a shared mission to create enduring and mutually advantageous partnershipsPassionate about empowering small business growth,Channel continuously seeks talented, driven individuals who share the same enthusiasm for the industry. Channel strives to foster an environment that encourages employee growth and supports them in reaching theirfull potential. Channel invests in our employees, both…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024An Agency That Makes Marketing Teams LimitlessQUANTIOUS.COMSmart. Fast. Curious. These traits, which they call superpowers, sum up the agility of the Quantious team. The company is a proud partner to some of the biggest names in tech, as well as startups on the road to greatness. Their knack for tailoring fractional turnkey services to meet the unique needs of their clients distinguishes them from agencies that offer prepackaged, one-size-fits-all solutions. Integrating seamlessly into existing workflows and processes, Quantious helps clients deliver effectively, crossing the finish line on time—and on budget.Quantious founder and CEO Lisa Larson-Kelley has always been committed to the customer experience and being a true partner to clients. As a Meta senior product marketing manager put it, “Love your work—always keeping the customer at the center of everything you do. Our team is lucky…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024The New Home Sales Company That Does Right When No One Is LookingNEWHOMESTAR.COM2024 INC. BEST WORKPLACES WINNER500+ EMPLOYEES90+% MANAGEMENT TEAM RETENTIONHQ: CHICAGO, ILLINOISFounded in 2008, New Home Star—a modern new home sales management firm—took three years before reaching $1 million in revenue. Those three years were among Founder David Rice’s most challenging. But he never wavered from a biblical truth: do the right thing, even when no one is watching. This tenant is the backbone of New Home Star’s award-winning culture, which is the heart of the company’s success.New Home Star operates in 25 markets, employs over 500 people, and will achieve more than $3 billion in yearly home sales in 2024. “We’re being rewarded for doing the right things beyond what we ever imagined,” Rice explains.An origin storyNew Home Star’s culture and faith-based business strategy begins with Rice. He was homeless…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Where Connection and Company Culture is EverythingIMPINJ.COMHave you ever purchased apparel from a retailer like Uniqlo or Zara, run a race like the New York City Marathon, enjoyed a drink from a Coca-Cola Freestyle soda fountain, or checked bags with Delta Airlines? Then you’ve probably interacted with Impinj.Impinj pioneered RAIN RFID, a passive, battery-free wireless technology that enables wireless connectivity for everything that is manufactured, transported, and sold. RAIN RFID tags are attached or embedded into everyday items ranging from clothing to surgical instruments, delivering real-time insights that strengthen inventory and asset management, baggage tracking, shipment verification, greener supply chains, and more. Impinj has enabled connectivity for more than 100 billion items.Company culture is at the heart of Impinj’s success. Nurturing and aligning employees to Impinj principles while promoting and fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, passion, and…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How My Salon Software Can Help You Look Your BestLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 2,276%Plenty of founders start their businesses knocking on doors. Matt Danna, 36, and his co-founder, Sean Stavropoulos, 37, got their start hitting salons all over Los Angeles, in 2015, pretending to be college students working on a class project. At each stop, they asked how the business’s booking software worked and what it lacked. The more the duo learned, the more they wanted to build software to remove the pain points for these salons and their customers. Within months, they had quit their jobs in tech and dived into the world of self-care. Years of eating ramen noodles, challenging cynical investors, and building unconventional software have paid off. Boulevard finished 2023 with more than $50 million in annual revenue, and says it is on track to…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Turned My Slow Cooker Side Hustle Into a Multimillion-Dollar BusinessLayton, UtahThree-year growth rate: 1,103%When Allyse Jackson, 30, started Beehive Meals in 2019, it was to help pay the mortgage until her husband, Adam, found a new job. But with just one click and a post to her neighborhood Facebook group, this stay-at-home mom landed on something all entrepreneurs crave: productmarket fit. Within the crowded $8.7 billion meal-kit delivery space, she found a niche by delivering fresh ingredients for Crock-Pot concoctions designed to streamline dinnertime for families, no chopping required. Before too long, her freezer-meal delivery service started scaling so fast that Jackson solved her family’s original problem—by hiring her husband.I grew up with a father who owned several businesses. It was either feast or famine, so I always thought, I don’t know if I want to be married to…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How an Army of TikTokers Drove 12 Billion Video Views for My CompanyLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 1,224%No. 357Mari Llewellyn, 30, never expected to grow her social media following to nearly two million. But when she shared her own wellness journey online, her transparency and openness inspired a legion of other women to put their health first. As interest grew, so did Llewellyn’s entrepreneurial sense. In 2019, she launched a supplements line, Bloom Nutrition, with her husband, Greg LaVecchia, and sparked a passion among TikTokers. They built an in-house influencer team to tame the frenzied masses, and have racked up thousands of creator partnerships.I became an influencer in 2017, just when the term was really taking off. It was also when I was at my physical and mental worst. I was struggling with my weight and emotional well-being, and had dropped out of…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024HOUSEHOLD NAMESTIMBERLAND1983 (No. 495)“Fashion follows function.” Sidney Swartz, co-founder, TimberlandIn 1983, Timberland ranked No. 495 on the Inc. 500 with $60,000 in 1982 revenue. In 1987, the boot and workwear company went public and achieved a valuation of $46 million. But for much of the four years between those two benchmarks of success, the company’s growth created an internal state of turmoil that Inc. once described as “civil war.”The conflict started at the top. The co-founders of the Stratham, New Hampshire-based company, brothers Herman and Sidney Swartz, had inherited a boot business from their father, Nathan Swartz, and relaunched it as Timberland, in 1978. The brothers each owned half of the company, and while Herman wanted to sell, Sidney couldn’t afford to buy him out.Meanwhile, the marketing and sales departments couldn’t…5 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024The Power of Perspective: An Entrepreneurial Success StorySIERRAGROUPROOFING.COMNO69 2023 Inc. 5000 Ranking25 Employees2017 Year FoundedHQ Blytheville, ArkansasSix years ago, the Arkansas-based roofing company Sierra Group, one of the fastest-growing businesses in the Southeast, narrowly avoided bankruptcy. The rebound is a testament to Founder and CEO Marcos Sierra and his wife, Victoria. Sierra immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico at age eight as hidden cargo in a car trunk. When he got to the states, he was awed by the abundance of opportunity: free school, free transportation, free food in the cafeteria. He never lost sight of these blessings. “Even through our business’s hardships, our attitude was always: ‘We got this. We are in the U.S. There’s always plenty of opportunity. You just have to search for it,’” he says.An antidote for operational issuesSierra searched for the solutions…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Unlocking Growth for Clients-and EmployeesSTRAIGHTUPGROWTH.COMFounded at the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020, Straight Up Growth specializes in one thing: growing brands on Amazon.Co-founders Evan Kesner, a serial entrepreneur, and Daniel Tejada, an Amazon ads wiz who has sold more than $1.5B of products on the platform, saw an opportunity to drive growth for one of the world’s most popular product search engines. In less than four years, the entirely self-funded company has grown to 25 people and more than $700MM in Amazon sales for various leading brands in CPG, baby, health and wellness, and beauty.According to Tejada, “What keeps our growth going is we’ve created an environment focused on educating each other. When our employees grow, it translates to our clients growing even quicker and referring us to other clients.”Many clients say…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024FIGS 2018 (No. 21)When Figs became one of the first e-commerce companies to sell scrubs directly to consumers in 2013, it defined a new category in the medical apparel market with fitted scrubs that were undeniably fashionable and functional. In so doing, Figs demonstrated a certain obsession with its customers—who have responded in kind.In 2018, the Santa Monica, Californiabased com pany was No. 21 on the 5000, and in conversation with Inc., co-founder Heather Hasson described Figs’s intimate relationship with its customers, highlighting its 24/7 customer ser v ice oper a t ion. Figs’s customers typically work 12hour days, Hasson said, sometimes overnight.And being responsive to their needs has been vital to innovation. For example, the former head of fetal medicine at Cedars- Sinai, a member of Figs’s advisory board, related that she…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Before they were big, they were on the listWhat do LinkedIn, Fitbit, and Yelp have in common with GoPro, Yeti, and Touchland?Long before they were household names, these businesses were on the Inc. 5000—our annual list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.These, and so many others like them, were once small businesses with limitless ambition, and the Inc. 5000 and its predecessor, the Inc. 500, helped introduce them to the world.Did you have an American Girl doll, or did you find a home on Zillow? Have you gotten food from Domino’s Pizza or Smashburger, or a snack from Cold Stone Creamery or Dippin’ Dots, or ordered something from Zappos, Grubhub, or Bombas, while holding onto your cellphone with a PopSocket? All of these companies were recognized by Inc. on this iconic list before the country truly recognized…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024TRUFF'S FOUNDERS WANT TO BE THE CÎROQ OF HOT SAUCE. DANIEL LUBETZKY ADVISES: "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, BUT NOT TOO MUCH"Nick Ajluni’s first company was fueled by partying 20-somethings. As a college student, he launched a line of powdered beverages meant to be mixers and chasers for alcohol. The product never took off, but after graduating, Ajluni teamed up with a former classmate who was claiming Instagram handles that might come in handy for businesses. One of them, @sauce, amassed tens of thousands of followers, prompting the pair to start their own sauce company. They drew inspiration from Cîroq vodka, a wildly popular brand thanks in part to its promotion by hip-hop artists.“We wanted to create the Cîroq of hot sauce,” says Ajluni, 30. “To do that, we knew it needed to be luxurious, and not just because we said it was, but because it actually had an ingredient that…8 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024CUT FROM A DIFFERENT CLOTHIt’s hard to say exactly when serial entrepreneur Jeff Shafer soured on the apparel industry. It might have been when he learned, while sourcing for his fourth brand, Agave, that organic cotton wasn’t necessarily organic. (“Ten times the amount of organic cotton is sold on the planet than is actually produced,” he recalls being told. “Because of lying and blending.”) Or when he saw other brands promote recycled polyester—a fabric made of plastic— as a sustainable option. Or when the toxic chemicals involved in indigo dye production became untenable to him. (“There are rivers in China that are blue,” he says, because regulations of what’s dumped into them there are even laxer than in the States.)Shafer was at his wit’s end when he and his wife, Lauren, sold Agave, a…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024WHEN THE MINNOW SWALLOWS THE WHALEOne night in late November 2021, Jay McKee, CEO of real estate tech platform Lessen, hosted 80 real estate VIPs at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an annual soiree. He had something special to celebrate: his company’s new $1.1 billion valuation. Sometime between the unveiling of grand cru wines, Pappy Van Winkle, and visits to the cigar cabana, McKee approached SMS Assist founder Mike Rothman, whom he’d known for 10 years. Reveling in Lessen’s rapid growth, McKee blurted out, half in jest, “What if I buy your company?” Rothman laughed. “Jay,” he said, “our revenue is 10 times yours. We buy you.”They talked for hours, chewing over what each company could bring to the table. Both were tech platforms for facilities managers to hire tradespeople and maintenance workers. But…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Found a Way to Ease the Pain of Health Insurance CostsSan FranciscoThree-year growth rate: 2,380%How can something so vital to human life feel so lifeless? That’s the question Alex Cyriac found himself asking about the health insurance industry after medical complications left his mother struggling with years of chronic pain. As the bills stacked up and his family faced tough financial decisions, Cyriac—who has a background in software, operations, and sales— thought there had to be a better way. By 2016, that conviction had led him and his childhood friend Shobin Uralil to found Lively, a fintech that offers health savings accounts, or HSAs. For Cyriac, now 41, the goal is to be a consumer-friendly alternative to the industry mainstays: fewer forms and fees, plus no getting brushed off by unhelpful customer service reps. It’s a mission that’s clearly resonating.When…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Tech Essentials for Startup SuccessInvest in more than 600 startups and you will see the right—and wrong—ways to design technology strategy, says John Somorjai, chief corporate development and investments officer at Salesforce. Somorjai leads Salesforce Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm that has invested in hundreds of enterprise cloud startups. His advice to founders when designing their tech strategies: Create a powerful advantage by choosing technology options that can grow with your business, while meeting immediate needs.Strategy aligned with business objectivesSomorjai suggests clearly defining your mission and vision to ensure your technology strategy supports your business objectives. The goals may vary: While one business may seek to become more efficient, another may prioritize improving customer experience. Getting clear on what’s most important for your business is the first step to making key tech investment…3 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Turned an Epic Kickstarter Campaign Into a SuperbusinessLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 2,252%No. 167Javon Frazier, 46, grew up in a single-parent home in L.A. His mom worked hard to support him, so comic books and video games were like his babysitters. That nerdy childhood translated into an animated career: After business school, Frazier inked a job with Marvel Entertainment, and then Studio71, a media company, where he would become chief product officer, making frequent trips to China to handle manufacturing for merch like fidget spinners. It was great, until it wasn't-he realized that he was away from home too much. Frazier struck out on his own with Maestro Media, and in 2021 launched a card game on Kickstarter called the Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Requiem. There was a problem, though: Frazier needed capital before the campaign started.…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024"WE HAD 10 EMPLOYEES, AND 25 LAWSUITS"When Clearview AI launched in 2017, its founders had no intention of selling to the government. Indeed, its core product—a facial-recognition tool that scrapes billions of publicly available photos from across the web to, within seconds, identify almost anyone—was originally built as a tool for retailers to thwart shoplifters.But in time, a more consequential customer set took up the software. When reports surfaced in 2020 that Clearview’s tech was being licensed to more than 600 police departments across the country, the revelation and attendant privacy concerns set off a media frenzy and a series of lawsuits, one of which was settled in June.Even so, Clearview co-founder and CEO Hoan Ton-That has continued to license the technology to law enforcement agencies. The New York City-based company also began working with the…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024What's in your growth rate? Depends on your accountant.We rank companies on the Inc. 5000 on the basis of their three-year growth rate. For Vytalize, that was a trickier calculation than usual. Here’s the story: Vytalize initially reported to Inc. 2023 revenue of $775 million, or 90,779 percent growth from 2020, which was enough to earn it the top spot on our 2024 list. But when Vytalize switched accounting firms in early 2024, Deloitte counted the company’s gross revenue rather than its net. The reasoning: Vytalize bears some risk for the work of its member clinics. The new number is an eye-popping $1.53 billion in 2023 revenue. There is industry precedent for this accounting method, but because the figure changed after the Inc. 5000 deadline and the company supplied new data only for 2023, Inc. is using the…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How My Military Career Prepared Me to Build a Lean BusinessNo. 115BostonThree-year growth rate: 2,904%Liseth Velez, 33, knows how it feels to completely rebuild. Growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, where her parents had found work in the textile mills after emigrating from Colombia, her dream was to be a part of the military. Once she got her green card, following high school, she joined the National Guard. But a deployment to Djibouti, which put her in a hostile environment on the base, led her to remap her life plan. Leaning on her military training, in 2018 Velez founded a construction company with one project and zero connections. Her personal pivot paid off: Last year, LJV Development, with 21 employees, pulled in $5.8 million in revenue.At the age of 12, I wrote a letter to a recruiter asking if I could…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How I Help World Governments and Corporate America Keep the Lights OnAngularJS was used in nearly every large corporation on earth, and by governments on every continent. When it died, it was a big problem. A lot of companies can technically survive with unsupported software, but they aren’t allowed to because of regulations. HeroDevs fills that gap by producing a regularly maintained version of AngularJS.In our first full year, we went from zero to $10 million in annual recurring revenue; we’re projected to end this year at about $28 million.The craziest thing about that growth is that our customer acquisition cost is very close to zero. That’s because for 10 years, I ran the biggest AngularJS conference in the world, also called HeroDevs, and had developed a close working relationship with Google. We began talking to Google in 2019 about providing…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Managing the Future of Work Isn't an Easy JobIn the past few years, many of the 184 human resources companies on the Inc. 5000 have had to navigate tremendous turbulence. A wave of pandemic layoffs led to a 14.7 percent unemployment rate in April 2020, which, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, was the “highest rate and the largest over-the-month increase” since it started measuring the data in January 1948.But when the labor market rebounded by around 2022, companies were cast into a talent war during the Great Resignation as they simultaneously battled high inflation. All the while, new remote and hybrid schedules and regulations were changing the way many companies operated, in some cases permanently. For an industry dedicated to managing workforces, the whiplash was real.Jaime Nacach was working six days a week to build…7 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Wealth Management Firm Partners With Clients on Financial JourneyWINTHROPWEALTH.COMWinthrop Wealth believes their success is rooted in dedication to helping clients pursue financial well-being and prosperity. What sets the company apart in the marketplace is a personalized and comprehensive approach to wealth management: They don’t just manage wealth; they seek to build lasting relationships and tailor strategies to each client’s unique needs.The Winthrop Wealth team’s blend of knowledge and empathy helps ensure that clients receive not only professional guidance but also a supportive partnership on their financial journey. The company prioritizes clear and open communication, empowering clients to actively participate in shaping their financial futures.By focusing on transparency, collaboration, and a deep understanding of clients’ goals, they’ve become a trusted partner to high-net-worth individuals, institutions, and business owners seeking a more personalized wealth management experience. Commitment to evolving with…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024One Company's 'Secret Sauce' for Continued GrowthMICHAELSENERGY.COM2X INC. 5000 HONOREE120+ HAPPY EMPLOYEES50% 3-YEAR GROWTH2024 INC. BEST WORKPLACESWith the world inching closer to 2050, when some countries are expected to reach net-zero carbon emissions, Michaels Energy, a La Crosse, Wisconsin–based engineering firm, is seeing a boom in business as companies look to become more energy efficient.Michaels Energy, which started as Michaels Engineering in 1984, is employed by utilities to design and implement energyefficiency programs in commercial and industrial organizations. They’ve seen significant growth as demands on the energy grid grow and decarbonization becomes a necessity.“We have major electric load growth happening, with many data centers coming online,” says Jeffrey Ihnen, who joined the firm in 1996 and is now owner and CEO. “It’s a dynamic situation and it’ll be a challenging decade, but we’re ready for it.”Michaels…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024The Future of the Housing Market? These Companies Want to Build ItIn 2020, the world turned upside down—and so did the real estate market. But despite a global pandemic, strict lockdowns that briefly halted home showings, and a double-digit unemployment rate, the housing market did not crash in 2020. Instead, it soared, with a significant surge in home prices, home sales, and housing demand, bolstered by historically low mortgage rates, increased remote work and demand for space, and stimulus measures. Between March 2020 and June 2022, U.S. home prices jumped a staggering 43 percent. This phenomenon, which I call the pandemic housing boom, defied expectations.The boom created a historic tailwind for almost the entire real estate sector, with the exception of office real estate, which saw vacancy rates spike as remote work took off. As offices emptied, workers built out their…7 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Committed to Protect the Future Through Cybersecurity InnovationIBOSS.COM23% COMPOUNDED 3-YEAR GROWTH RATE~ 500 EMPLOYEES6 LOCATIONSHQ: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTSBased in Boston, iboss delivers cutting-edge cloud security through Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). Pronounced “sassy,” SASE integrates network and security functions into a single platform, using a zero-trust security framework. This framework mandates the verification of all users, whether inside or outside a network, ensuring comprehensive protection.Since CEO Paul Martini co-founded iboss in 2003, information security has evolved dramatically. Data that once resided within physical boundaries has migrated to the cloud, and critical infrastructures such as hospitals and power grids have increasingly become targets of cyberattacks.“Our journey has been about transformation,” Martini reflects. “It’s a journey of connecting people who are working and living anywhere, with cybersecurity embedded in all those connections.”Built for the cloud eraThe iboss platform was purpose-built…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How My Brand's Instagram Led to Gordon Ramsay InvestingLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 627%No. 786Daniel Winer was touring a trade show in Guangzhou, China, when he spotted a Korean vendor selling barbecue plates with a laser-etched stainless steel design. As a former national sales manager at a cookware brand, Winer, now 58, knew innovation when he saw it. He called Cole Mecray, his co-founder on a failed juicer company, with a new idea: They would work with the Korean vendor to create pans with nonstick, cast iron, and stainless steel qualities and sell them directly to consumers. In 2016, Winer and Mecray launched the cookware under the name HexClad and leveraged their contacts to sell to Costco. HexClad became the It pan of the pandemic and caught the attention—and the endorsem*nt—of Gordon Ramsay. The celebrity chef signed on as…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024How a Cold Email From GE Launched My Manhole Cover BusinessBoonton, New JerseyThree-year growth rate: 1,143%No. 388The direct-to-consumer sales model has demonstrated repeatedly that stuff you wouldn’t think could be sold online absolutely can be sold online: mattresses, windows, diamond rings, eyeglasses, e-bikes. Manhole Covers Direct brings an entirely new category of product to the DTC space, and raises some interesting questions. For instance, who buys custom-made manhole covers? And what’s the postage on those suckers? It even seemed a bit crazy to founder Alexander Conklin, who started the company more on a whim than on an actual business plan. But Conklin, 34, understood the market potential, and he could source the product. Still, he wasn’t quite ready to launch until a very big customer came knocking.Our family was already in the manhole cover business. We don’t make them for…4 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024KBURSTING AT THE SEAMSLos AngelesThree-year growth rate: 438%No. 1,168Ask Kim Kardashian about her proudest business decision to date, and she may start talking about her breasts. More specifically, the Skims Ultimate Nipple PushUp Bra, which she released last October for the shapewear brand, based on a mold made of her very own bosom in all its anatomically correct glory“I had this crazy idea,” Kardashian recalled recently during a video call from her home in Calabasas, a tony suburb northwest of Los Angeles. “My stylist is always like, ‘Don’t wear a bra!’ and I’m just like, ‘I can’t.’ I want to feel comfortable and secure. What if one boob’s over here and I’m dancing, you know?” she said with a laugh. “I just always want to look perfect.” Thus the creation of the Nipple…11 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Teamwork—And a Growth Mindset— Make the Dream WorkVISUALISOLUTIONS.COMNO25 2023 Inc. 5000 Ranking2005 Year Founded584% 2-Year GrowthHQ Irvine, CaliforniaThere’s no straight line to success in business—something Visual i Solutions had to learn the hard way.Before the pandemic, the Irvine, California-based provider of audiovisual and technical production for corporate and professional industries had 10 full-time staff and revenues of about $1 million. Then Covid-19 hit and within 11 days of March 1, 2020, the company’s entire years’ worth of planned events was no more, with revenue plummeting to $185,000.“I typically have an answer as to how we’re going to respond to problems,” says the company’s founder Jose Cruz. “And for the first time ever, I had no answer.”The company decided it was time to go back to basics. “Everything stopped, which gave us time to think about those initial…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024MICROSOFT 1984 (No. 80), 1985 (No. 163)It is often said there are three ways to grow a business: build, partner, or buy. Microsoft, one of the world’s most valuable companies, with a $3 trillion valuation, is good at all three. But Inc. would argue that Microsoft’s greatest strength comes from employing those three growth tactics to dominate platforms needed by the masses.That strategy dates back to the company’s earliest days, when co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen purchased the rights to MS-DOS, an operating system designed to run Intel’s 8086 microprocessor, and then licensed it to IBM for its Model 5150 personal computer. That PC became the first to gain widespread consumer adoption; as a result, MS-DOS became the dominant operating system, and Microsoft’s revenue grew from $7 million in 1981 to $97 million in 1984.That…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Enterprise IT For Main Street BusinessesXGENISYS.COMTwo down-home, enterprising IT nerds, with more than 50 years of combined experience thought in 2007: “The strategies, innovative solutions, and security we’re providing for the world’s leading brands should be accessible to small and midsize businesses down the street.” And so, xGeniSys was born.Any company doing business online and using technology is in IT whether they like it or not. In an industry of cold digital and impersonal tech service, xGeniSys wanted to be neighborly, transparent, and earn client trust by always doing the right thing.xGeniSys is focused on delivering outcomes that matter not only for business, but for improving quality of life for the people they humbly serve. xGeniSys frees clients to focus on their business by handling day-to-day IT needs. They also improve client stress levels and…1 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024Lenders on a Mission: When Your Success Secret Is Empowering ConsumersLIBERTY1FINANCIAL.COMNO4 2024 Inc. 5000 Ranking2008 Year Founded3,422% 2-Year GrowthHQ Irvine, CaliforniaJeannette Preston wants you to imagine this: “If someone is unable to put gas in their car or feed their kids because they’re paying so much in credit card debt, educating them about finances can change their life.” Preston is co-founder and man aging director of Liberty1Financial, a progressive unse cured consumer lender with offi ces in Irvine, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah, servicing customers in 47 states.The company’s focus on education is key to its spectacular growth and its number four ranking on the Inc. 500 Regionals: Pacific. When helping individuals obtain a consolidation loan to pay offhigher-interest credit card debt, Liberty1Financial agents take the time to teach customers about interest rates, credit scores, and financial well-being. “It’s…2 min.
Inc. Magazine|September 2024When the Pieces Come Together: Building a World-Class Sales SolutionTHEPIPELINEGROUP.IONO48 2024 Inc. 5000 Ranking2X Inc. 5000 Regional Honoree298% 3-Year Growth400+ Employees in 28 countriesBuilding a business is like assembling a puzzle—except there’s no picture on a box to guide you. “That’s what happened: I found a bunch of puzzle pieces, and I started piecing them together. The result was a complete blessing and a complete surprise,” explains Ken Jisser, founder and CEO of The Pipeline Group (TPG), a technology-enabled services company specializing in remote sales development representatives (SDRs) for business-to-business (B2B) technology companies.For Jisser, one puzzle piece was people—“the world’s best SDRs,” he says. Another was technology that was purpose-built to manage and optimize remote sales processes and drive exceptional results. These pieces proved the foundation for a two-time Inc. Regionals honoree poised for continued domestic and international growth.Built…2 min.
