Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Inc. Magazine

My oldest relatives were great storytellers, perhaps because they were born pre-internet, pre-TV, even pre-radio. My great-grandmother Marie was one of them. She used to tell me how she and some other turn-of-the-last-century tweens caused a commotion midway through the first motion picture they’d ever seen. They had upended the chairs and tables in a saloon in a mad rush to the door because mounted bandits, she said, started charging toward the building. Another tale: how, during the Great Depression, with no central heating and drafty windows in her room, she’d wake up under a blanket of snow. The most interesting recollections, though, were about the Second World War. Those stories were amazing to a child like me. She described a time when American life seemed to be at once…

INFOBLOX 1700 EMPLOYEES AND CONTRACTORS OPERATES ACROSS 38 COUNTRIES 15-20% HEAD COUNT INCREASE YOY BEST COMPANY PERK: BEING YOURSELF AT WORK ► A company mission is the what. Culture and people are the how. For Infoblox, a leading provider of cloud-based network solutions, the “what” is delivering the world’s most reliable, secure, and automated networks—making them smarter, safer, more efficient, and easier to manage. The “how” is a bit harder to explain. Norma Lane, EVP, People and Places, says life at Infoblox is fast-paced and fun. Employees bring their whole selves to work. They are encouraged to take risks, push the boundaries, and be up front about career aspirations so Infoblox can help them achieve them. “Our goal is to become a destination employer. You don’t have to leave Infoblox to achieve…

BUSINESS REBOOT CONGRATS! You made it into the most elite club in entrepreneurship— the Inc. 500. Then came 2020. Since the onset of the pandemic, Inc. has been airing weekly webinars with the most influential names in business. Think of these excerpts as a master class on making it in the new reality. (Edited for length and clarity; more at inc.com/real-talk.) KENDRA SCOTT Founder and CEO of the billion-dollar Kendra Scott jewelry and homewares brand Don’t focus on the business. Focus on the customer. Where is she in this moment? How can we serve her? How can we surprise and delight her today? When you bring it down to that basic level, magical things can happen. SETH GODIN Author of 19 books, including This Is Marketing and Tribes; founder of…

Every summer, the CEOs of the Inc. 5000 respond to an exhaustive (and, we’ve been told, exhausting) survey comprising more than 80 questions about themselves, their companies, and their views of business and the world. Those responses, over the years, have contributed to an understanding of the entrepreneurial experience and character that is at once mutable and remarkably consistent. Hot industries have cooled; marketing strategies morphed; and employee benefits proliferated. But always, these founders build organically and build to last. Whether unemployment is near zero or in double digits, finding great talent is hard. And while they pay more attention than ever to their teams, at the end of the day, they agree, it is lonely at the top. Something else that hasn’t changed much is the demographics. American entrepreneurship…

Eight years ago, Brandon Wood and Brian Duly saw and seized an opportunity: The Affordable Care Act (ADA) had created a need for more innovative and affordable health care solutions, so agencies and businesses could meet the needs of families across all income levels. Today, their business, Premier Health Solutions (PHS), is a leading provider of comprehensive benefits administration and management services to agents, associations, and carriers across the country. “Traditional major medical plans are not a perfect fit for all customers,” Wood explains. “We focus on combining insurance plans with ancillary services like telemedicine, lab discounts, patient advocacy, and prescription discount programs so consumers can gain access to a more well-rounded health care approach. It is not just medical—these products and services help people manage their everyday health care…

Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) that were using a professional employer organization (PEO) for payroll and HR services prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were well aware of the advantages PEOs have to offer. Research conducted by the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) has documented many of them. But the turmoil of the past several months and the cloud of uncertainty hanging over the near-term future are shining a light on just how much more PEOs can do to help their SMB clients succeed—not just in good times, but when the going gets tough. With unemployment at historically low levels in the years leading up to the COVID- 19 pandemic, competition for talent was brutal. Competing against larger organizations to recruit, hire, and retain the best employees was a…

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 39 • Total 2019 revenue $479.7M • Median 2019 revenue $6.4M • Median 3-year growth rate 2,166.2% • Total 2019 employment 1,071 BUSINESS PRODUCTS + SERVICES Companies that sell primarily to other businesses. Number of companies 32 • Total 2019 revenue $375.4M • Median 2019 revenue $5.1M • Median 3-year growth rate 1,522% • Total 2019 employment 2,280 WHEN THE PANDEMIC STARTED WE CALLED EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE TO DISCUSS OUR STRATEGY. AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM EXPRESSED A DESIRE TO HELP IN ANY WAY THEY COULD. IT WAS SO INSPIRING. KEVIN JOHNSON POWER OF CLEAN ENERGY,…

WESTPAC WEALTH PARTNERS 160 FAs AND 40 EMPLOYEES WORKFORCE 30 DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES 30,000 CLIENTS OPERATES ACROSS 7 STATES Sustainable, diverse cultures aren’t possible without blending different backgrounds and view-points. At WestPac Wealth Partners, such diversity is embodied by the company’s leadership and is reflected in every layer of the organization, giving the firm a competitive advantage. This strength helped the private wealth management firm grow to support 30,000 clients in Hawaii, California, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Montana, and Wyoming. Since CEO Nash Subotic started the firm in 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii, WestPac has consciously hired people with different perspectives. “It probably has to do with me being an immigrant. I think I have a little bit of a different way of looking at things,” explains Subotic, who fled Bosnia for Serbia with…

Kabir Barday OneTrust THREE-YEAR GROWTH 48,337.2% “There’s a lot that goes on behind the cookie banner,” says Kabir Barday, the founder and CEO of OneTrust. He’s talking about that now-ubiquitous pop-up on websites that lets you know the site is collecting data on your visits and activity in order to personalize your experience—or sell your information to third parties. The cookie banner is perhaps the most visibly identifiable sign of his company’s software, but the real work is the invisible machinery churning away behind that banner. Atlanta-based OneTrust, which landed at No. 1 on this year’s Inc. 500, with more than $70 million in 2019 revenue and a staggering 48,337.2 percent three-year growth rate, is among the global leaders in privacy-law-compliance technology. In the most straightforward terms, OneTrust builds a suite…

After decades without change, the parking industry was due for disruption. ParkHub, a technology company that provides cloud-based parking and access-control solutions to property management and venue operating companies, is delivering that long-awaited innovation to the industry. Its hardware and software services drive operational efficiencies, reduce costs, and increase revenue for companies. The client case studies are impressive, and Founder and CEO George Baker says that his team is just getting started. Baker practically grew up in a parking lot. He worked at his family’s parking business, where he dealt with the cascading inefficiencies that plagued the industry. Parking attendants frequently miscounted (or intentionally overlooked) parkers; operations managers lacked visibility into attendant performance; and venue owners lacked the ability to compare event data, if they even had it in the…

Amanda Sozer SNA International THREE-YEAR GROWTH2,544.4% In the aftermath of 9/11, when officials needed a DNA expert to identify victims, they called Amanda Sozer. Her scientific and technological expertise has led to other work with government agencies as well, following natural disasters and other mass-casualty events. Then, in 2017, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency hired her firm to staff its labs and field operations. This agency’s mission is to identify every missing soldier from every conflict the United States has ever fought. The company now runs much of the science for the agency and IDs remains all over the world—digs from Laotian mountainsides to Belgian meadows—and processes them at labs in Hawaii and Kansas. We do forensics, biometrics, and identity intelligence. That means looking at measurable features that people have…

Ian Dorsey Mast Landing Brewing Company THREE-YEAR GROWTH 1,379% Ian Dorsey was working a cushy finance job in 2014 when he bought his friend Neil Fredrick a homebrewing kit as a birthday present. You know how one beer can lead to a few? The two tried brewing together, and a hobby became an obsession, the operation growing from kitchen to garage to warehouse. Today, the Westbrook, Maine-based Mast Landing Brewing Company serves beers with names like Little Choppy and Neon Sails in its taproom and sells to retailers in 15 states. The top seller is Gunner’s Daughter, a heavy, wintry milk stout. An in-house design team creates labels with a distinctly colorful style. “We want people to look fast and say, ‘That’s a Mast Landing beer,’ ” says Dorsey. “And…

FOR MORE than 40 years, Inc. has been the trusted voice for founders and business builders, with its mission to help them take their companies to greatness. During this span, our September issues have offered powerful accounts of the hard work and perseverance required to grow companies at rates that most entrepreneurs only dream of. In 2020, we are witnessing new challenges to businesses, from an ongoing pandemic to a recession and renewed demands for much-needed social change. All of these will have a lasting effect on these fast-growth companies and the nation as a whole. While the Inc. 500 companies celebrated in this issue and the 4,500 additional companies on the Inc. 5000 list (which can be found on Inc.com) are included for their accomplishments through the end of…

In 1971, I founded a payroll-processing company—Paychex. I had only $3,000 and a credit card, and everyone told me I was making a mistake. But, by 1982, Paychex was No. 8 on the very first Inc. 500 list. We took the company public the following year, and now it has a $27 billion market cap. I still serve as director and chairman, and now run other organizations—like a fiber-optic internet service provider, and a charitable foundation. In my decades of doing business, I think I’ve learned a thing or two, so I decided to pass on some of my experience in Built, Not Born: A Self-Made Billionaire’s NoNonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs. The book is meant to be a road map and toolkit for founders— practical tips interwoven with my business…

582,748 TOTAL JOBS CREATED BY INC. 5000 COMPANIES BETWEEN 2016 AND 2019 #2 TEXAS IS HOT... ON CALIFORNIA’S HEELS Each year, Inc. sorts through the Inc. 5000 list to find the facts, figures, and trends that make for great stories. Some of those trends are more obvious than others—like the fact that California, with the fifth-largest global economy and a population larger than that of many European countries, is first in pretty much everything. But there are some really interesting stories found a bit further down the list. Like the fact that one of the oldest Inc. 5000 companies, Itasca, Illinois-based W.S. Darley & Co. (founded 1908), manufactures fire trucks and firefighting equipment (and is still growing!). And that Signallamp Health, which is the only Inc. 5000 company located in Scranton,…

REBECCA MINKOFF Co-founder and creative director of her namesake New York City-based fashion brand No one’s looking for glossy right now. The more you can just be real, that’s resonating. SIMON SINEK Best-selling author of Start With Why, Find Your Why, Leaders Eat Last, and The Infinite Game It’s essential that we have uncomfortable conversations with our friends and co-workers. Black and White, about our roles and responsibilities when it comes to race. To think we don’t have biases and blind spots is itself a blind spot. DAYMOND JOHN Shark Tank star; investor; founder of apparel line FUBU; and author of Powershift I’ve started having open forums with the companies I work with so we can all educate ourselves about one another and the challenges we face. Afterward, employees will…

DYNAMIC LOGISTIX 100 EMPLOYEES 2,585% GROWTH FROM 2016 TO 2019 MOST COMMON EMPLOYEE TRAITS COMPETITIVE SPIRIT SENSE OF HUMOR It takes many factors to power a successful business—from a market gap, to a smart business model, to a top-notch product or service. Dynamic Logistix, a third-party logistics and transportation management software (TMS) provider based in Overland Park, Kansas, checks all those boxes. But the single most important factor in its fast growth is its culture. Dynamic Logistix (DLX) has doubled in size every year since Jeff Auslander became CEO in 2016, because its amazing work environment attracts some of the area’s best talent. From 2016 to 2019, it has increased revenue by 2,585 percent, earning a number of industry accolades. This year, DLX ranks on the Inc. Best Workplaces list…

When the invisible woman is born and placed into her mother’s warm embrace, she doesn’t know she is invisible. At that moment, her invisibility exists only as a lingering fear in the back of her mother’s mind. Yet her mother has hopes that things will be different for her daughter than they were for her. The mother dreams her baby won’t be subjected to the injustices that she, the mother, has to face. The newborn’s only transgressions, after all, are her skin color and her gender. Early on in her life, the invisible woman has glimpses of her invisibility, although she doesn’t quite understand what it means. It’s simply a mote of emotion that leaves her feeling out of place. It begins within her own family and the colorism that…

As cyber threats exponentially increase in number and complexity so does the demand for cybersecurity skills to combat these threats. Invictus International Consulting, a cybersecurity services and technology solutions company headguartered in greater Washington, D.C., uses its exceptionally talented workforce to answer the call to duty every day. Invictus provides strategic and tactical solutions that protect U.S. global defenses and critical infrastructure. Since its launch in August of 2014, Invictus (Latin for unconguered) has grown from three to 230 employees and now operates across 15 locations, including Seoul, South Korea and Stuttgart, Germany. Last year, the company was No. 103 on the Inc. 5000 list, with a 3,215 percent growth rate. This year, it is No. 1 0 on Inc.’s inaugural ranking of D.C.-area businesses. While the numbers are impressive,…

1) “We use A. I. to crawl into the network of a company and help it understand and find all the user data it has. You’d think that a company knows that already, but it’s surprisingly difficult because there are so many different departments, products, ads, contractors, and partners.” 2) “We help companies compare the data they have against all of the laws in the world that apply to them, and determine if they are compliant. If not, we help them remediate the problem. What do we need to encrypt? What do we need to stop collecting?” 3) “We open up control of the data and make it transparent for consumers. And guess what? When you submit one of those forms on a website that says ‘Delete all my data,’…

The company hadn’t planned on it, but BrüMate was ready to capitalize when the hard-seltzer craze hit: In 2017, the Denver drinkware-maker launched the Hopsulator Slim, a $25, stainless steel insulator designed for skinny, 12-ounce beer cans. It was niche play, but when hard seltzer took off, so did Slims. BrüMate sold more than a million of them, and the product spent four weeks atop Amazon’s home category before stock temporarily ran out in May. The Hopsulator is just one in an extensive line of BrüMate goods designed to keep alcoholic beverages cold, including receptacles for beer, for wine, for champagne—even for highballs and martinis. “These aren’t just gimmicky products you buy for someone who likes beer,” says 25-year-old founder Dylan Jacob. “They truly serve a purpose.” BrüMate is on…

Outer Aisle Jeanne David THREE-YEAR GROWTH 5,006.1% Jeanne David has a simple goal—to revolutionize the bread industry. The founder and CEO of Outer Aisle, a Santa Barbara, California-based maker of cauliflower pizza crusts and sandwich thins, David recognized the potential for a cauliflower trend in 2013, the year she founded her company. At the time, the white cruciferous vegetable was not “the cool kid” it is today. With $11 million in 2019 revenue and a three-year growth rate of more than 5,000 percent, Outer Aisle is a leader in a burgeoning new category. Among the company’s fast-growing team: all four of David’s sons, as well as her husband. We got started as a family project. About 10 years ago, our doctor put my husband and me on a diet of…

AARON RILEY Co-founder and CEO, CannaSafe ANTONIO FRAZIER President, CannaSafe When asked about the greatest hiring decision he’s ever made, Aaron Riley says, “Hands down, Antonio Frazier. He’s brought us to another level from a quality perspective.” It’s high praise that’s well earned: Four years ago, when Riley started CannaSafe, he needed someone he could trust to help his Los Angeles-based cannabis testing lab meet California’s stringent standards. His old college football teammate, Antonio Frazier (right), checked all the boxes. Not only does Frazier have a degree in engineering and experience running an aerospace lab, but he was also one of the only people who stood by Riley when he was arrested for selling weed in college. It took 18 months, but Riley eventually persuaded his old friend to join…

Gopal Parvathaneni Chairman and CEO EPSoft Technologies (No. 664) I take a cold shower to wind down at the end of the day. That probably doesn’t sound relaxing to most, but it’s how I get my brain to shut down. This allows me to have a restful night of sleep. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking. Matthew Revich Co-founder and CEO Yedi Houseware Appliances (No. 105) I start every morning by solving a Rubik’s Cube and a Pyraminx. I end every day by playing a couple of online chess games on my phone and then practicing Spanish on Duolingo for 15 minutes. Stephen Trimble Founder and CEO Arctic Solar Ventures (No. 275) My favorite way to end the day? Blasting around smooth streets and trails on my electric…

SEISMIC 900 EMPLOYEES 14 OFFICES AROUND THE GLOBE 7 TOP WORKPLACE AWARDS SINCE 2019 600+ ENTERPRISE CLIENTS ► A strong leadership team is a must-have for any company to be successful. But when the co-founders truly like each other and treat each other with respect, the potential for achieving big things—and having fun doing so— increases exponentially. That’s the case at Seismic, a cloud-based sales enablement and marketing orchestration platform. These relationships are a microcosm of Seismic’s award-winning culture. The company works hard to live up to its accolades, consistently investing in people and culture since its launch in 2010. CEO and Co-founder Doug Winter says it is easy to justify the spend, which has contributed to consistently strong revenue growth and a client portfolio that includes more than 600…

Hey, all you Chicken Littles of the world. Contrary to how you are feeling, the sky is not falling. Yes, there’s no way around it—this has been an extraordinary year, and the sheer magnitude of the calamity and sorrow might make some entrepreneurs inclined to simply pack it up and call it a disaster. But this is not the time for inertia and despair or running around like the proverbial scaredy-cat. If your company is among those with a place on the Inc. 5000, you have already had to overcome incredible obstacles (not to mention the pain of broken posteriors) to achieve that position. And that’s why now is a good time to acknowledge how far you’ve come and to remind yourself that you have already achieved something great by…

The future of work arrived out of nowhere, on the back of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Team dynamics got challenged as members dealt with illness, trauma, and crisis. We’ve all been forced to rapidly and radically adapt to new working norms. The Ferrazzi Greenlight Research Institute has spent more than 15 years studying high-performing teams, but I’ve never seen entrepreneurs rise to the occasion as they have this year. When the crisis subsides, the temptation will be to turn back that progress and retreat into old behaviors. But entrepreneurs need to shift from overload to shared load, and to practices that can transform team performance to find unexpected growth—and lower unsuspected risk. Let’s not go back to work; let’s go forward. We’ve been examining great remote teams since well before the…

Innovation means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A startup flickers to life on it, a well-toned unicorn has often had a steady diet of it, and legacy brands will, at some point, inevitably hear that the lack of it is the reason their good times are behind them. You have, more than likely, practiced some version of innovation yourself to make it into the Inc. 5000. Innovation feels like the holy grail of our age: the foundational lifeblood of the modern economy, and perhaps even the modern world. Those deemed its greatest achievers—Jobs, Musk, Zuckerberg—are given special, iconic status. I’ve been fortunate to have worked within a number of incredible companies, large (Google), scaling (Meltwater), and long-standing (STS Education). I’ve met a lot of…

Companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2016 to 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2019. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired. ) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 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 four ties on this year’s Inc. 5000.…

To move cargo in the developing world, you need to be flexible. Rules and regulations in Afghanistan or Pakistan are different than, say, Rwanda or Sierra Leone and can change without warning. Anticipating changes is integral to Logenix International’s success. The business provides logistics services across more than 25 developed nations and 140 developing countries. Its niche is hard-to-reach places— destinations many other logistics companies won’t or can’t get to. Founder and CEO Ron Cruse credits the company’s recent growth to its focus on transporting critical supplies, including medicines for leading health organizations, and its reinvestment in infrastructure, IT, and people. Beyond a commitment to doing meaningful work, the team shares a drive for excellence—an ever-moving target, but shooting for it leads to high performance. GROWTH BY SPECIALIZATION This isn’t…

There’s no such thing as a sure thing, not in business and not in life. Even professional gamblers flinch at the prospect of going all-in, but Sidney Paramadilok did just that four years ago, rolling the dice and investing everything into R&D. His gamble paid off big-time. While the hypercompetitive world of beauty might seem an odd place for someone with a background in deep learning, data science, and information analytics to land, it makes perfect sense to Paramadilok. His scientific roots make him “naturally interested in technical solutions that are data-driven and validated through science and guantifiable results,” he says. That’s just the approach he took in developing Microderm GLO, a patented, FDA Class I medical device, and he started with extensive research of the category’s potential opportunities. In…

Sheila Kavanaugh TKT & Associates THREE-YEAR GROWTH 11,106.7% It seemed like a natural progression to Tierra Kavanaugh’s family. In 2006, she left her position as executive director for then-Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher’s newly created Office of Minority Empowerment to launch her own business, Louisville-based consultancy and staffing service TKT & Associates. She had one co-founder—her mother, Sheila Kavanaugh. Over the next 14 years, TKT grew to roughly 250 employees as it managed diversity spending and training and offered staffing services for cities, states, and Fortune 500 companies, including Deloitte and Toyota. From 2016 to 2019, TKT increased revenue a whopping 11,106.7 percent, earning the $135 million company a spot at No. 20 on the Inc. 500—the highest ranking ever achieved by a Black female founder. At the onset of the pandemic,…

Diana Lee Constellation Agency THREE-YEAR GROWTH 4,865.5% Diana Lee is the founder of the Constellation Agency, which produces hypertargeted digital advertising for more than 700 auto franchises across the country, for brands including BMW, Audi, Jaguar, and Volkswagen. Today, much of the work is automated: The company’s software generates thousands of ads a month that make highly tailored offers, in multiple languages, based on a target market’s ethnic and labor mix and other demographic data. But it wasn’t always so hands-free. Lee describes how, with no outside funding or debt, she built an $18 million advertising agency by hitting the pavement and pitching car guys in their own showrooms. Little did they know, she had a secret weapon. In the beginning, I would just drive from dealership to dealership myself, nine…

Pivot International credits its explosive growth in recent years to a unique single-source business model that provides turnkey solutions for companies introducing new products. Outsourcing the entire process of development, design, engineering, and manufacturing to Pivot lets them sidestep staffing and infrastructure investments and get new products to market faster and cheaper. President and CEO Mark Dohnalek acquired the company in 2012, when it had about 100 employees and $10 million in sales. Today it has a global workforce of approximately 450 in 12 offices around the world and does nearly $200 million in sales. “We target embedded electronic technology markets, where our technical expertise can help firms deliver innovative new solutions to the marketplace,” he says. The secret to Pivot’s success is a broad technical skill set combined with…

Ray Lui and Mary McCann Sprinly THREE-YEAR GROWTH3,190.7% Sprinly’s food is plant-based, but co-founders Ray Lui and Mary McCann craft their subscription-service menu with a wide audience in mind. “We try to make meals that vegetarians and vegans will enjoy, but that are also approachable for the omnivore diet,” says Lui. That includes Burmese lemongrass noodles with jade pearl ramen (left) and a Mediterranean veggie crumble with a coconut milk-based tzatziki sauce (below). The organic, gluten-free meals are delivered weekly, with plans ranging from $109 to $289. Lui and McCann spent Sprinly’s early days renting restaurant kitchens after hours to experiment with recipes. It paid off: The Cleveland-based company became profitable in just four months.…

David Baron Nugget THREE-YEAR GROWTH 13,786.2% Like a lot of college students, David Baron bought a futon for his dorm room. And, like a lot of college students, he soon discovered that a futon frame is a pain to put together and makes sitting utterly uncomfortable. So Baron went to school on it instead. He spent the next three years designing an assembly-free frame, until it dawned on him that what he was prototyping wasn’t fit for the university demographic at all. “I realized,” Baron says, “that I was making the couch my mom wouldn’t have told me not to jump on as a kid.” Today, his Hillsborough, North Carolina, company produces the machine-washable Nugget, which, for $229 to $259, comes in four pieces that can be pulled apart and…

Even though half of the population is single, unattached people are often ignored by marketers. Jonathan Beskin wants to change that. He is the founder and CEO of SinglesSwag, a monthly subscription box service designed for single women, delighting recipients with fun, full-size, self-care and lifestyle products, from skin care and cosmetics, to snacks and best-selling books. Clearly, it’s working: the company ships 45,000 boxes a month to 30 different countries. Savvy digital marketing and a highly engaged social media community have fueled a 1,950 percent 3-year growth rate, earning SinglesSwag the No. 9 spot on Inc.’s ranking of Florida’s fastest-growing companies. Best of all, the company has been profitable from the day it launched. BUILDING A PREDICTABLE CUSTOMER-ACQUISITION MACHINE Beskin, a single dad, dreamed up the business concept on…

Matt Wursta Wursta THREE- YEAR GROWTH 1,875.2% Six years ago, Matt Wursta thought his employer, Google, was doing an excellent job of building cloud solutions for businesses—but a terrible job of teaching companies how to use them. So he launched his eponymous firm in 2014 to guide business owners through the virtual shelves of Google’s tool shop. The Austin-based founder had banked on his Google connections to grow his customer base, but old colleagues weren’t so quick to support his new venture. Not yet two years in, Wursta was on the brink of bankruptcy when a favor from an old friend floated the company long enough for it to catch a tailwind. When the pandemic hit this spring Wursta was doing upwards of $10 million in sales. As Americans were…

Mark Hu Ororo THREE-YEAR GROWTH 2,035.2% Walking around on frigid winter days wouldn’t be so bad if you could constantly clutch a warm mug of cocoa. A far more practical solution: Ororo’s $200 heated gloves, popular with skiers, snowboarders, and sports fans cheering on their teams. A lithium-ion battery powers up to seven hours of warmth, and thin carbon-fiber wires ensure that fingertips aren’t neglected. Ororo was born of disaappointment. Software engineer Mark Hu spent $700 on a heated jacket and was unimpressed with its look and functionality. Today, the Las Vegas-based Ororo also makes heated jackets, fleeces, vests, hoodies, and socks. Each item gets extensive testing to make sure it’s weatherproof. “These products,” Hu says, “combine apparel design, heat technology, and battery systems, so it’s a challenge to get…

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