Inc.

Inc. chronicles the fascinating world of entrepreneurship, providing business owners with the news, advice, and inspiration they need to lead their growing companies.

Inc.2 min read
In Praise—and Support—of Fast-growth Companies
With the backdrop of a worldwide pandemic, supply chain issues, the Great Resignation, and now rising inflation, running a company over the past three years—much less growing one—has been a daunting task. Which is why this year’s Inc. 5000 honorees j
Inc.3 min read
Welcome To The Big Dance
It has not been easy, has it? This road toward birthing something and helping it grow and seeing it mature and succeed. That’s especially true these days, which, with each passing month, seem, disturbingly, less like a pandemic-induced anomaly and mo
Inc.2 min read
Slow Down To Grow Fast
1 | MENTEE Trina Spear Co-founder and co-CEO, Figs 2 | MENTOR Meg Whitman Former CEO, Hewlett-Packard, eBay "WHEN YOU’RE running a fastgrowing business that’s actually turning a profit, a lot of people have useful but conflicting advice. Most of the
Inc.1 min read
Origin’s Origin Story
EXPERT ADVICE FROM THE ELITE FOUNDERS OF THE INC. 5000 Inc.5000 NO. 854 In 2022 2021: No. 215 2020: No. 362 YOU DON’T RIP OFF a man’s gi. It’s just common decency. Which is why, when Pete Roberts, a former world-class Brazilian jujitsu competitor, di
Inc.1 min read
The Metrics That Matter Most
Should your employees’ happiness be your top priority? That’s the question we look at in our new book, Happy at Any Cost: The Revolutionary Vision and Fatal Quest of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. We explore how the Inc. 5000 alum strove to keep his staff co
Inc.2 min read
To Carry On My Father’s Legacy
FOR MANY YEARS, WT Stevens supplemented his Detroit autoworker income with a small construction business. But there was nothing small about his impact on the people of Flint, Michigan. When Stevens, a father of eight, died in February 2002, his daugh
Inc.2 min read
Finding The Right People—and Keeping Them
IF YOU THINK a recession is a good time to sleep on hiring, you need to wake up. Take it from Reid Hoffman, who started LinkedIn during the dot-com bust and grew it through the 2008 crash. Now, as the pandemic reshapes markets and another downturn lo
Inc.1 min read
When Tragedy Becomes A Factor
WHEN NICK WERNIMONT asked VC Mike Apostal to join his meal-delivery company in 2015, Apostal was excited. He saw real potential in Factor 75, now known as four—time Inc. 5000 honoree Factor. The Chicago-based business was bringing in only $500,000 in
Inc.10 min read
Delivering Measurable ROI in Multiple Ways
Professional employer organizations (PEOs) offer small and midsize businesses (SMBs) a long list of advantages, but one stands out above all the others. By relieving SMB leaders of some of the myriad distractions constantly competing for their attent
Inc.2 min read
A Second Chance At A Better Me
NO. 762 In 2018 ALEX AND MIKE Faherty didn’t snag the No. 762 spot on the Inc. 5000 back in 2018 without a fair amount of sweat. No, really—the founders of the eponymous vintage surf apparel brand, both former college athletes, say that the secret to
Inc.5 min read
How Fast-Growth Companies Refuse to Lose
In the classic comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles, a man, played by Steve Martin, is at the end of his rope after enduring excruciatingly cheerful but uncooperative service at a car-rental agency. His flight has been diverted. His train has broken
Inc.3 min read
Changing Lives, One Supplement at a Time
Some people find themselves with a little time on their hands and start a hobby. A retired former tech executive, Joel Kocher decided to work with some of the foremost experts in medicine, physiology, and nutrition to bring innovation to human health
Inc.2 min readSecurity
Solving Customers’ Toughest Cybersecurity Challenges
When the cybersecurity experts at Praetorian are trying to protect a client from online threats, they start by looking for weaknesses. By attempting to infiltrate companies’ digital footprints, they can evaluate the effectiveness the organization’s c
Inc.2 min read
Triumph Over Change
THERE’S RAPID GROWTH, and then there’s the sort of rapid growth that can melt the enamel right off your damn teeth. Surely that’s what it felt like for the founders in this edition of our annual list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. Fo
Inc.3 min read
Manifest Your Destiny
I launched Glow Global Events in New York City as a four-person shop in 1998 and steadily grew it into a sturdy and well-appointed business. I was proud of it, but by 2005, I could see that things needed to change. My company was profitable and we’d
Inc.5 min read
He Helped Put The Craft Beer Industry On The Map. She’s Taking It From Sugar Hill To Rocky Mount And Beyond
CELESTE BEATTY DIDN’T set out to be the first Black woman in the United States to own a brewery. It just happened that way. After years of homebrewing in her New York City apartment, Beatty founded Harlem Brewing Company in 2000. But while that repre
Inc.2 min read
Portrait Of The American Entrepreneur
43% OF INC. 5000 CEOS STARTED THEIR BUSINESSES BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED THEY COULD MAKE THEIR IDEAS HAPPEN. 35% WANTED TO LEAD THEIR OWN COMPANIES. 87% ARE OVER 35. 80% HAVE FOUR-YEAR DEGREES OR MORE. 52% ARE SERIAL ENTREPRENEURS. FORTY-SIX PERCENT HAVE
Inc.1 min readMathematics
The 500
• The number of red 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.
Inc.14 min read
Blockfi’s Great Rise– And Even Greater Escape
NO.1 BLOCKFI CEO: ZAC PRINCE CATEGORY: FINANCIAL SERVICES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 245,616% ANTICIPATION WAS BUBBLING for Collision, Toronto’s annual tech-veneration fest, and it seemed the perfect stage for young fintech star Flori Marquez, co-fou
Inc.4 min read
How I Reimagined The Farmers’ Market To Deliver Local Food Everywhere
NO.450 MARKET WAGON CEO: NICK CARTER CATEGORY: THREE-YEAR FOOD & BEVERAGE REVENUE GROWTH: 1,385% A fourth-generation Indiana farm kid, Nick Carter, 39, grew up expecting to join the family business. But by the time he was in high school in the late 1
Inc.3 min read
How I Built A Home Care Company During A Health Care Labor Shortage
NO. 658 BARBARAKARES CEO: JOSHUA FLOURNOY CATEGORY: HEALTH SERVICES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 958% Evalena “Barbara” Flournoy was none too pleased when her youngest sons, identical twins Joshua and Caleb, dropped out of college in 2007 to start thei
Inc.3 min read
How I Persuaded My Mom And Dad To Let Me Run Our Home-grown Beverage Brand
NO.605 BIOLYTE CEO: JESSLYN ROLLINS CATEGORY: FOOD & BEVERAGES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,052% In 2012, to help her mother through chemotherapy, Jesslyn Rollins’s father began developing a hydration drink meant to work like an over-the-counter IV.
Inc.2 min read
Transforming Behavioral Health With the Help of a CRM Platform
Imagine creating tools that make it easier for a caregiver to help a child with a significant disability say, “I love you” for the first time. While some companies call themselves “life-changing,” RethinkFirst, a behavioral health technology company,
Inc.4 min read
How I Turned A Family Health Crisis Into A Thriving Business
NO.1,094 CASTILLO ENGINEERING • CEO: CHRISTOPHER CASTILLO CATEGORY: ENGINEERING THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 595% Christopher Castillo, 36, was driving home to Orlando one June day in 2017, after a round of sales calls up in Gainesville, when he rang h
Inc.13 min readFinance & Money Management
Off The Chart
NO.2 SNAPNURSE FOUNDER: CHERIE KLOSS CATEGORY: HEALTH SERVICES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 146,319% WHEN SHE WAS 15 years old—decades before she would go on to revolutionize health care staffing—SnapNurse founder Cherie Kloss was emancipated from her
Inc.3 min read
How I Reimagined The Workplace–and The Workforce
NO. 232 WE ARE ROSIE CEO: STEPHANIE NADI OLSON CATEGORY: HUMAN RESOURCES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 2,267% Stephanie Nadi Olson started her meteoric ad-sales career when Microsoft recruited her straight out of Georgia Tech as its youngest account man
Inc.4 min readDiet & Nutrition
How I Got Sweaty And Muddy And Made Non-alcoholic Beer Cool
NO.26 ATHLETIC BREWING COMPANY CEO: BILL SHUFELT CATEGORY: FOOD & BEVERAGES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 13,071% Bill Shufelt, 39, started his craft beer business in 2017 in a moribund segment of an otherwise booming industry: non-alcoholic brews. Shuf
Inc.2 min read
Cookie Monster
NO.45 PARTAKE FOODS CEO: DENISE WOODARD THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 7,48 9% Denise Woodard’s parents didn’t go to college. Their advice for their daughter? Find job security. Woodard, 39, listened. She went to school and worked a series of corporate j
Inc.5 min read
Top Honors
Includes traditional advertising agencies and public relations firms, as well as SEO specialists, data-analysis experts, and developers of online marketing platforms. Number of companies 35 | Total revenue $539.6M | Median revenue $6.6M | Median grow
Inc.3 min read
How I Took On The Immigration System To Help Thousands Get Their Green Cards
NO.553 BOUNDLESS IMMIGRATION • CEO: XIAO WANG CATEGORY: LEGAL THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,131% Xiao Wang, 36, was working as a senior product manager at Amazon Go when he met someone who had spent more than $10,000 on an immigration attorney for a g
Inc.3 min read
How I Unearthed A Big Opportunity By Digging Into Construction Budgets
NO.393 US HYDROVAC CEO:KULDIP PANCHAL CATEGORY:CONSTRUCTION THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,521% Kuldip Panchal arrived at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in 2012, ready to study construction management. He’d emigrated with his family
Inc.3 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
How I Took A Vacation And Launched A Company
NO.193 SIONO • CEO: ANDY HILL CATEGORY: HUMAN RESOURCES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 2,747% Andy Hill went on vacation in Cuba in 2018, and while the beaches were great, he’s not one to lounge. Instead, Hill went around saying “¡Hola!” and—with the hel
Inc.9 min read
Battle Plan
NO.50 KITRUM CEO: VLAD KYTAINYK CATEGORY: IT SERVICES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 6,799% IN THE FALL of 2021, as rumors of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine began to swirl, Vlad Kytainyk knew what he needed to do: make a plan. The 33-year-old CE
Inc.2 min read
Sole Man
MARC NOLAN NO.222 CEO: SEBASTIAN MALCZEWSKI THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 2,39 0% In 2005, Sebastian Malczewski stumbled on a mom-and-pop men’s shoe store in the old industrial neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Stunned by the merchandise— “showstopp
Inc.3 min read
How I Built A Baby Clothes Brand Moms Can’t Resist
No.481 KATE QUINN • CEO: KATE QUINN CATEGORY: RETAIL THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,294% More than a decade after founding her eponymous children’s clothing brand, Kate Quinn was still struggling to make a name for herself in the world of fashion. So,
Inc.3 min read
How I Grew My Language Business From A Side Hustle To A Success
NO.461 PIEDMONT GLOBAL LANGUAGE SOLUTIONS • CEO: MOHAMED HUSSEIN CATEGORY: BUSINESS PRODUCTS & SERVICES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,353% As a first-generation Somali American and the oldest of eight kids who grew up in a packed household in Northern
Inc.2 min read
Board Chairman
NO.225 BEAR WALKER CEO: BEAR WALKER THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 2,357% Growing up on his builder father’s construction sites in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Bear Walker knew he wanted to work with his hands. His parents urged him to avoid manual labor
Inc.4 min read
How I Revived A Classic American Brand–and Rekindled A Rivalry
NO.297 FELTMAN’S OF CONEY ISLAND • CEO: JOE QUINN CATEGORY: FOOD & BEVERAGES THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 1,909% Mike, Jimmy, and Joe Quinn spent their childhood summers on the boardwalk of Coney Island in Brooklyn, where their grandfather, then in his
Inc.5 min read
Been There, Done That. Twice. Or More.
DASHED: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 WHOLE SOL BLEND BAR: 2022 Phil Dumontet started Dashed right after he graduated from Boston College in 2009. It was a few years before on-demand delivery would become ubiquitous, and the idea of food from all kind
Inc.2 min read
Toast Master
NO.715 DRAGON GLASSWARE CEO: MATT ROLLENS THREE-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH: 882% When Matt Rollens received the glass tea bottle he ordered from Amazon in 2016, he was so disappointed with its quality that he decided to make a better one himself. A former e
Inc.11 min read
Multiplying Your Success
SPONSORED BY THE INC. HONOREES WHOSE BRAND PROFILES APPEAR IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES You beat the odds. Obliterated expectations. Even made this year’s Inc. 5000. Now your business is officially a success. Congratulations! But while you’ve certainly ear
Inc.2 min readSecurity
Making Craters: The Cybersecurity Company on a Mission to Leave a Mark
Inc. BWP Winner 3x Inc. 5000 Honoree 8x Workforce 110 Employees All-Time Net Promoter Score +92 “Building a company is incredibly hard,” “says Nathan Sportsman, founder and CEO of Praetorian, a leading cyber-security company. Entrepreneurs have their
Inc.4 min readLeadership
These Virtual Accounting Visionaries Designed an Award-Winning Culture
Year Founded 2004 Employees 175 and Growing Resumes Received 12K+ annually SMBs $2M – $100M In revenue An internet ad and a bit of fate brought Dennis Najjar, CPA and Bill Gerber together in 2004. Within days of their first phone conversation, they m
Inc.2 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Doing Good Work in More Ways than One
Year Founded 2017 Number of Employees 42 Partners Merck KGaA (EMD Serono) Series B Funding About $70M Raised Unlearn probably spends more time thinking about culture than most early-stage startups, says Founder and CEO Charles K. Fisher. Since its fo
Inc.2 min readLeadership
The Right Culture Can Be a Powerful Weapon in the Talent Wars
2-Year Work-force Growth 100% Number of Employees 300+ Remotely Employees 50% Number of Clients 4,000+ With job openings outnumbering available candidates by two-to-one, recruiting and retaining the best and brightest employees has never been more di
Inc.1 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Inc. Best Workplaces
6sense reinvents the way business-to-business (B2B) organizations create, manage, and convert pipeline to revenue. 6sense Revenue AI captures anonymous buying signals, targets right accounts at the ideal time, and recommends the channels and messages
Inc.2 min read
Investing in People Drives Growth
3-Year Revenue Growth Rate 314% 2021 Employee Retention 100% 2021 Client Retention 95% Employees 2x growth in less than one year Cloud force Tasked with designing and maintaining custom Microsoft cloud solutions for its vast clientele, the Cloudforce
Inc.2 min read
Embracing Reinvention as a Business Strategy
Year Founded 1998 Number of Employees 300 Number of Clients 75 Remote Workers 70% Focusing on emerging technologies, Pramod Sajja, CEO of Paramount Software Solutions, isn’t afraid of reinvention or disruption-even when it’s internal. While the pande
Inc.2 min read
Integration Platform as a Service Provider Prioritizes People
Year Founded 2000 Number of Employees 1,700 User Community 100,000+ Number of Clients 20,000+ Boomi’s philosophy is simple: hire good humans and provide them with the best possible employee experience, then foster connections between them. That appro
Inc.2 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Continuous Innovation Propels This Data Tech Company to New Horizons
Inc. 5000 COMPANY SPOTLIGHT Pivot is an overused buzzword these days, but it is still the best way to describe what Chad Philip, founder and CEO of Las Vegas, Nevada-based Power Fusion Media, has done throughout his career. His early success on the r
Inc.2 min read
Digital Lessons in Patient Self-Care
BY COMBINING STREAMING media and microlearning principles with clinical evidence-based content, Bethesda, Maryland-based digital health company Mytonomy helps patients and families care for their health in new ways. Silicon Valley veterans and co-fou
Inc.3 min readLeadership
Inc. Magazine
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Scott Omelianuk SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Richard Russey CREATIVE DIRECTOR Richard Baker DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Janice Lombardo DEPUTY EDITOR Ty Wenger EXECUTIVE EDITORS Laura Lorber, Diana Ransom MANAGING EDITOR, IN

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