Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i Inc. Magazine

With the rise of video games in the late 20th century came the rise of cheat code culture: “Buy this book [or visit this site] and you will learn everything you need to win at Galactic Insect Invasion.” The advice is usually effective, if a little unsavory. But, in case you need a reminder, most of life—and starting a business in particular—is not like a video game. The annual Inc. 500 list serves as a colorful and potent reminder that there is no cheat code for business growth, no single path to success. Take, for example, Josh Levin, founder of Empowered Electric (No. 210 on this year’s list, and featured on page 108). He is about as far from the Harvard MBA path as it’s possible to get. He may…

Three-year growth 36,680.4% | 2018 revenue $36.9M Phoenix | Founded in 2015 The story of the fastest-growing private company in America, a profitable technology startup called Freestar whose revenue growth since 2015 has been a staggering 36,680 percent, starts with a calendar. Not a buzzy new calendar app. Not a life-altering meeting request. A printed wall calendar. One of those relics with pictures of animals or landscapes that we all used to tack up in the kitchen. This particular calendar—Tempe12—had, well, swimsuit models. Arizona State University co-eds in bikinis, to be exact. “All the girls had to have a minimum 3.0 GPA, so they had beauty and brains,” explains Freestar co founder David Freedman, without a trace of sheepishness. Freedman, who launched the calendar when he was a 22-year-old fifth-year…

Put a Ring on It When it comes to popping the question, only 14 percent of grooms buy engagement rings online. “People still want to look at and touch and feel the ring, which might be one of the biggest purchases they’ve made,” says Anubh Shah, a third-generation diamond jeweler. Shah thought he could bring more transparency to the online experience and help calm consumers’ cold feet by letting them try on 3-D-printed replicas at home before committing to the real bling. “This isn’t an industry you can just walk into one morning,” says Shah, whose diamond-dealing dad immigrated from India to America with $5,000 in his pocket. “But I didn’t want to constantly do the same thing. I think every generation feels the need to reinvent how business gets…

Pat Brown isn’t an inventor so much as a reinventor. He sees something that works, but not well, and figures out how to do the same thing, only a lot better. And, along the way, he’s reinvented himself into perhaps the most unlikely entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Brown trained as a pediatrician but, seeing that genetics figure prominently in diseases such as cancer, repurposed himself as a scientific researcher. Within a few years, he’d created something called the DNA microarray, a technology that has allowed scientists to better study genetic code. It was a breakthrough, and for most people that would be a career peak. Not Pat. In 2001, frustrated by limited worldwide access to scientific research, he co-founded the Public Library of Science, a radical revision of academic publishing.…

They can level the playing field by giving business owners access to training and development, robust and cost-effective benefit programs usually only available at Fortune 500 companies, leading technology, and employee engagement strategies. PEOs give business owners the tools and expertise they need. Mark Perlberg, vice president of PEO, Paychex, Inc. and president, Oasis, a Paychex© company. When Pat Cleary, president and CEO of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), sits behind a one-way mirror during focus groups, his most rewarding experience is watching the change that comes over participants who are originally skeptical of the PEO concept. It happens when they hear other participants, already using a PEO, talk about how it relieves them of non-revenue-generating responsibilities and frees them up to focus on more strategic activities.…

Glass(es) Half Full When Ben and Laura Harrison’s son Jonas was born blind, navigating 21 eye surgeries and four corneal transplants was beyond overwhelming. Where could Ben, who worked as a graphic designer and photographer, exert some control? “If Jonas was going to need glasses, I wanted him to look like a little stud,” says Ben of his son, now age 6. Ben started designing frames himself, and used personal savings to manufacture prototypes. The startup’s breakthrough came in 2015, when the co-founders connected with the former CEO of LensCrafters, who offered them seed funding. Suddenly, the Harrisons could fill prescriptions in-house instead of mailing parents empty frames, and launch try-on kits for consumers. “That,” says Ben, “was our pivotal moment.” Kids Are Hipsters Too “There’s no real adult aesthetic…

Sweet Teeth After graduating from college, Loren Brill learned she had Stage II Hodgkin lymphoma. “All my friends were headed off to jobs, and I was at home starting chemo,” she says. Brill began tracking which foods helped her energy levels, and signed up for cooking classes to study nutrition and to take her mind off the treatments. “That’s when I had this aha! moment, that I needed a healthier way to satisfy my sweet tooth.” After more than a year of perfecting a chocolate chip cookie recipe, Brill began fielding requests for premixed dough for home baking. In 2011, she started Sweet Loren’s with $15,000 in personal savings, eventually landing a meeting with a Whole Foods buyer, despite not having any official manufacturing plans in place. Today, the gluten-free…

HE POWERED HIS WAY THROUGH THE DARKNESS Josh Levin was raised on the wrong side of the tracks. An unexpected call from his future mother-in-law—plus his own fierce determination—led him to start Empowered Electric, which has what’s probably the coolest Instagram of any electrical contractor anywhere. My mom got pregnant with me when she was 16. I had multiple stepdads. They treated her poorly. She did the best she could, but she had to make decisions based on survival. The question wasn’t, “Is this a caring, loving person?” but “Does he have a house, so we don’t end up in a homeless shelter?” Once, we ate pork rinds for a week, because we couldn’t afford groceries. Another time, we fished in the pond out back to catch and eat the…

For the interactive map experience go to: inc.com/inc5000 3-YEAR GROWTH Each light blue circle shows the revenue growth rate of a single company from 2015 to 2018. Shading signals density—the darker the shading, the more companies present. 11,623% Green Grass Foods (No. 13) The Bellevue, Washington, dairy-free creamer company was started by Madeline Haydon, a Vietnamese immigrant, while she was pregnant with her second child. The company struggled to find funding at first, but after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, it has become the 13th-fastest-growing company in America. Eastern Rise The 36 Inc. 5000 companies in Charlotte, North Carolina, grew revenue at a rate of 225%, the third-fastest collective rate in the U.S. New York City’s 191 Inc. 5000 companies placed fourth, with a 194% growth rate. The State…

Every year, the Inc. team gathers the data, crunches the numbers, and compiles the Inc. 5000. And the Inc. 5000 is not a mere list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. It’s the backbone of the U.S. economy. These businesses generate hundreds of thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars in revenue, in their hometowns across the country. While the Inc. 500 issue always focuses on companies whose growth rates boggle the mind, it also shines a light on the smart marketers who work tirelessly to help these companies achieve and maintain that level of growth year after year. In doing so, these marketers walk side-by-side with the founders, and share in the innovation that drives their success. This year, Inc. is celebrating its 40th birthday, and it continues…

Companies on the 2019 Inc. 500 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2015 to 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2015. They must be U.S.- based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2018. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2015 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to three decimal places. There were no ties on this year’s Inc. 500. OPEN HERE TO SEE THIS YEAR’S INC. 500…

Art of the Cart Baby-stroller wheels and a repurposed cart chassis that looked like it was held together by duct tape and glue—that’s what Michael Reznik found himself looking at when, at a birthday party, a family friend shared a photo of his stair-climbing, fold-flat handcart prototype. “It looked like some Frankenstein contraption, but I saw there were a thousand potential applications for it,” says Reznik, who’d built a career helping Fortune 500 companies with process improvement. Post-soiree, he and Leonid Khodor, a patent agent, became business partners, launching TriFold and its debut product, the UpCart. Today, the carts are a hit with parents, seniors, urban grocery shoppers, contractors—and pretty much all those who want to schlep stuff from one place to another without breaking their backs.…

Spinning Wheels “When you’re 15 and trying to figure out how to get and keep a girlfriend, showing up to school sweaty every day is tough,” says Mike Radenbaugh. He should know: As a high school freshman in a small rural town in California, his commute was 17 hilly miles on his own horsepower. So, in 2007, the teen converted his road bike to an electric ride, with the help of a lead acid battery, a brush motor, and a bit of Tupperware. Word spread, and Radenbaugh sold converted bikes. Fast-forward to 2015, when he relaunched Rad Power Bikes with childhood friend Ty Collins and college pal Marimar White-Espin. “I had to drop the traditional thought process about adding a motor to a regular bike,” he says. “Electric bikes are…

Founders Project Best Dressed Inc. 500 alum and savvy e-tailer Sarah LaFleur of M.M.LaFleur mentors Revelry founder Michelle DeLoach, who runs a wedding wear startup that cracked this year’s Inc. 500. To commemorate Inc.’s 40th anniversary, we’re matching 40 aspiring founders with 40 experienced mentors for the Founders Project. Our mentor in this issue, Sarah LaFleur, was once a recent Harvard graduate and jet setting associate at a private equity firm who worked on luxury goods deals. She always felt underwhelmed by her clothing options—but of course she would be: LaFleur was raised by a mother who sported Parisian suits and worked in fashion. So LaFleur ditched the cosseted world of private equity to channel her enmity for “frumpy pantsuits” into the women’s workwear startup M.M.LaFleur. Named after her mother, M.M.LaFleur…

When Nicolas Vandenberghe, CEO and co-founder of Chili Piper, a provider of buyer enablement technology services, began outsourcing the HR function at his rapidly growing business, he was convinced that using a professional employment organization (PEO) would save money, improve his firm’s agility, and increase its ability to hire the right workers. He hasn’t been disappointed. Chili Piper has 32 employees, and it’s doubling every year. While it initially handled HR functions in house, the red tape involved with having remote employees in multiple states quickly made that an untenable option. “We have a philosophy at Chili Piper—tool over labor, Vandenberghe says. “The direct cost of a tool is always lower than the equivalent cost of an employee. Today, we do not have a single employee dedicated to HR.” As…

Inc. Life Brewing a Business After Ashley Harris and her family began experimenting with probiotics at a doctor’s recommendation, they saw digestive issues clear up, eczema disappear, and moods improve. She started LoveBug Probiotics in 2015, grew the brand 2,621 percent in three years, and landed deals with major retailers like Target and CVS. Harris also began fermenting her own kombucha—an excellent source of probiotics. Fermentation, like business, requires balancing acidity, temperature, and time: “It’s not just about how fast you can scale,” says Harris. “It’s about putting the right things in and letting it grow.” Trust Your Gut When it comes to business, Ashley Harris would rather listen to her own instincts than to advice from well-meaning MBAs: “If they knew exactly how to do it, they’d be doing…

The Inc. 500 is managed by Marli Guzzetta and Zalini Persaud, with additional research by Patrick Hainault and Alyssa Parsons. ADVERTISING + MARKETING Public relations firms, marketing companies, ad agencies, and companies that are involved with web-based promotions, inducing people to click on ads, and keeping track of those who do. Number of companies 51 → Total revenue $931.5M → Median revenue $7.4M → Median growth rate 1,482.1% → Total employment 2,981 CEO CELEBRITY CRUSHES What celebrity best expresses your company’s brand or culture? “Oprah, because I started from very little and am now building something sustainable that will hopefully outlive me.”NO. 50 AMRITA GREWAL, TalEx BUSINESS PRODUCTS + SERVICES Companies that sell primarily to other businesses. Number of companies 34 → Total revenue $384.5M → Median revenue $4.7M →…

Glass Act The most affection ever given to a disposable cup was likely at the end of a beer-pong table. But, Benson Liu wondered, why couldn’t the lowly drinking receptacle get a high-class makeover, something more akin to a wineglass? Having spent decades in food-container manufacturing, he took a year to figure it out. In addition to developing a new blow-molding process, Liu embraced 3-D printing, allowing customers to personalize glasses with a slew of printed designs. If Liu and his co-founder, Michael Fun, had the chance to do it over? “We’d raise more capital and go big!” says Liu. “We were a little conservative in the beginning. If we’d gone big sooner, we’d have 30 designs by now.” Next up: the Reserve line—reusable and virtually indestructible—is slated to launch…

SETTING THE TABLE When Krystle Mobayeni launched BentoBox—which helps restaurants build state-of-the-art websites—her experience in hospitality was mostly limited to dining out. Today, her startup serves more than 4,500 restaurants worldwide. She’s succeeded by persevering through a time she thought her company might lose everything—and because of the great sacrifices her parents made for her. I’m a first-generation American. My parents emigrated from Iran to the U.S. in 1976 so my father could study at American University. They intended to go back, but then the revolution there intensified in 1978, four years before I was born, and they didn’t. My father had been in the Air Force in Iran. My family gave up so much to come here, to provide for me. That’s always in the back of my mind.…

I grew up in Liberia at a very tumultuous time, a very violent time. We had our first set of riots that really shook the country when I was 10 years old. We had those riots in ’79, and then the following year we had the coup d’état. Just extremely violent. Did it affect your family directly? Very directly and very personally. We lost a lot of extended family members, but a lot of painful things happened in my immediate family during that period as well. I grew up seeing how cruel humans could be to one another. I think that shaped a lot of my sense of fairness. Did you think, “I’ve gotta get the hell out of here”? It really wasn’t “I’ve gotta get the hell out of…

HOW THE 9/11 TRAGEDY PUSHED HER TO BUILD ANEW Keri Mungo is co-founder and CEO of SABG—the Strategic Alliance Business Group—which provides technical services for the federal government, including the Missile Defense Agency and the Department of Defense. Prior to starting her company, she spent four years in the Army and worked at the Pentagon—a job she left several months before September 11, a decision that will stay with her the rest of her life. I joined the Army in April 1997. After boot camp and school, I was sent to South Korea. My company met people when they got off the plane and determined where within the country they were needed. It was an interesting job. My first sergeant had just come from the Pentagon. I was on orders…

DRAFTING A NEW BUSINESS PLAN Nine years ago, Greg Avola and Tim Mather created Untappd, a Foursquare-style check-in app for beer, thanks to an idea and $1,000 from Avola. Even as Untappd took off, the two kept their day jobs—until they found an unconventional way to devote themselves to their company. It’s funny. I wasn’t really that into beer. Tim and I met over Twitter in 2007. I lived in Massachusetts and he was in California. We worked on a few freelance jobs together—me as a software engineer, and Tim as a web designer. I’d never heard of what he was drinking out West, and sometimes I’d think, “I wish I could get that beer.” In the summer of 2010, I was traveling a lot as a consultant for KPMG.…

WHAT IS YOUR POLITICAL AFFILIATION? WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL OPINION OF DONALD TRUMP’S PERFORMANCE AS PRESIDENT? ABORTION SHOULD BE WHAT IS TRUMP’S BIGGEST IMPACT, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, ON YOUR BUSINESS? Many praised the current economy, tax changes, and deregulation. Others criticized new tariffs, trade policy, and divisive rhetoric: “A growing economy and a strong stock market are allowing our customers to invest … and for us to grow recurring revenue.”NO. 4,827 JOHN ALSTON, ClubDrive Systems “His disrespect for women and all minorities (including LGBT) has allowed people with similar beliefs to express them in the workplace more often,”said another Inc. 5000 CEO TRADE TENSIONS Steep new U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports—and China’s retaliation on U.S. goods—are causing some big Inc. 5000 CEO headaches. “China tariffs are crushing us.”NO. 721 GEOFF…

Hole in One The first thing GoDaddy founder and self-made billionaire Bob Parsons wants you to know is: “I’m an avid golfer, and I tend to center my business around things I enjoy doing.” One night in 2013, when sharing ideas about what might make golf equipment better with an executive friend who worked at a leading manufacturer, Parsons realized the conversation kept stalling out around profit margins and price-point limitations. “I wondered, what if I started a company and we never had any constraints?” Two years later, PXG debuted its first generation of clubs, built by hand, and customized to individual golfers. For Parsons, this is just the beginning. “How many people have a baby and think it’s the most beautiful thing in the world?” he asks. “Our job…

David Barrett survived the Great Recession by making his business as boring as possible. In 2007, the founder and CEO of Expensify was trying to launch a prepaid debit card that would enable—and hopefully encourage—charitable giving to panhandlers in San Francisco. But, as forecasts of economic turmoil mounted, investors were interested only in ideas that sounded “sane and reasonable,’’ he says. So Barrett started pitching the safest related product he could imagine: an automated expense-report management system. That worked; Barrett secured enough money to quit his full-time job in April 2008. He still intended to pursue the card idea, but soon hit a production snag—and with the economy in free fall, Barrett recalls thinking, “Shit, I really need to make a business out of this right now.” So he doubled…

WHAT’S IN A NAME? A BUSINESS, IT TURNS OUT Darpan Munjal came to Chicago from India in 1997 to work for a startup and, later, Sears. By 2010, he was about done with corporate America and began planning his own e-commerce business. That venture wouldn’t survive. But his difficult search for a name for the firm would lead him in a more fruitful direction. As a teenager in India, I became passionate about computers. I used the limited amount of time we were allowed on them in school to learn programming and build simple games. In 1994, I got my degree in computer engineering, and then spent three years at a technology consulting company in New Delhi. But I was aware of how quickly interest in the internet was growing,…

Man of Steel After spending five years learning the ropes at a specialty steel company, Viv Helwig couldn’t shake the desire to head up his own. So he raised capital from angel investors, put in a bid to buy a metal distributor, and moved to Florida with his wife and 8-month-old daughter to close the deal. “When it fell through, I started from scratch,” the Jamaica native says. He launched Vested Metals International, selling steel and other metals to industries like health care and aerospace. In those early days, Helwig says, “I remember trying to get work at Target to pay my bills, and praying to God: If it’s meant to happen, it will.” Inventory was cash-intensive, and nine months in, the startup’s coffers ran dry. But Helwig pushed through—and…