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
Lessons And Leadership
When I started at Inc., just a few weeks before the pandemic, I admitted on this page that I came from a clan of failed entrepreneurs. The patriarch of that family, my grandfather and namesake, was a child of the Depression and an entirely self-made
Inc.3 min read
Inc. Magazine US
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
Inc.1 min read
Hire Your Customers
ONE YEAR AFTER launching organic baby food startup Little Spoon in 2017, Michelle Muller and her co-founders were still handling customer service for the company on their own—until one day, when a parent Muller was corresponding with asked for a job.
Inc.2 min read
The Right Way Is Rarely Easy
“As a kid, I saw my dad struggle as an entrepreneur—and I didn’t realize that I was on that same path until one day, I was down in the basement, cleaning a mess my cats had made because their litterbox wasn’t clean enough, and I started thinking, how
Inc.1 min readFinance & Money Management
When To Marry Your Enemies
Jim Magats, PayPal’s senior vice president of payments and SMB solutions, says that since joining the company in 2004, he’s heard PayPal’s demise predicted many times—when Apple Pay came out in 2014, when PayPal was banned in Greece in 2015, and agai
Inc.2 min read
I Wasn’t Open To Criticism
In 2014, Biggby Coffee CEO Mike McFall knew morale was crumbling in his Midwest coffee shop franchiser. The “midnight move-outs” were, for him, a red flag: Employees were resigning without even leaving a note. Plus, McFall and his co-CEO weren’t find
Inc.2 min read
Making Sustainability Sustainable
How will the sustainability industry change over the next year? We will continue to see conscious consumerism grow. Industries are being forced to own up to the environmental cost of convenience that society had previously demanded above all else. Ge
Inc.2 min readInternet & Web
How To Get Intel Without Cookies
In the spring of 2016, when the European Union first introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), savvy marketers began preparing for the inevitable demise of thirdparty cookies. Since then, such methods of tracking online customers have
Inc.1 min read
How To Make The Aloha Spirit A Sales Strategy
Find the best productivity hacks at inc.com/magazine. IN 2003, ANDY KURTZIG started JustAnswer—a site where users can get immediate responses to questions from verified experts. In 2011, as the San Francisco-based startup grew and began offering expe
Inc.5 min read
Keep Their Hands Off Your Brand
When I was in elementary school, we were regularly shown films designed to teach us life lessons, like the hazards of tobacco or how to be a good neighbor. Sometimes, I think I should make similar cautionary films for founders, to help them avoid the
Inc.5 min read
Payroll Services Level the Playing Field for SMBs Competing for Top Talent
Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) have always faced challenges in the competition to attract and retain top talent. One big challenge is greater access to resources and deeper bench strength that larger corporations enjoy. As the economy continues
Inc.3 min read
Women, Incorporated
HER REVOLUTIONARY NEWSPAPER GAVE REAL MEANING TO “PUBLISH OR PERISH” Between prison stints, the canny but less-than-dependable William Goddard handed his newish newspaper over to his older sister, Mary. The year was 1774, and Mary, most likely the co
Inc.5 min read
Enemies: Closer Than You Think
A few years ago, I was given an unorthodox assignment: Find out why an apparel company was losing market share to a competitor. Our client, which I’ll call BestCloth,* had a stronger brand and social presence, cooler spokespeople, cheaper prices, and
Inc.8 min read
Garyvee Wants To Make You Rich… Again
IT’S the last weekend of summer and Gary Vaynerchuk is buying a soapbox derby car from a stranger. He’s already purchased a thumb-size figurine and a coffee mug (for 33ȼ). For the chairman of VaynerX, a nearly $300 million media umbrella company that
Inc.6 min read
First You Grow Then You Make It Stick
The Mentor: Jim McKelvey Frustrated by losing a sale because he was unable to process a credit card transaction, Jim McKelvey co-founded fintech platform Square with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey in 2008. The San Francisco-based company went public in 2015 a
Inc.3 min read
GARYVEE’S GUIDE TO INVENTING THE FUTURE WITH NFTs
WRITE OFF NFTs at your own risk, says Gary Vaynerchuk. Rather than simply being collectible pieces of pixel art, they are tokens (literally, the acronym stands for “non-fungible token”) that represent whatever underlying value their creator writes in
Inc.19 min read
“Gotta Catch ’em All”
“QUIZ WIZ—YOU REMEMBER that?” asks Al Kahn. We are sitting in his memorabilia-dense office, which occupies an upper floor of an old art deco edifice on Ninth Avenue in New York City’s theater district. And I do, in fact, remember Quiz Wiz—a handheld
Inc.9 min read
Best-Led: The List
1. Snowflake (NYS: SNOW) CEO: Frank Slootman Software 2. DocuSign (NAS: DOCU) CEO: Dan Springer Software 3. Robinhood (NAS: HOOD) CEO: Vlad Tenev Financial Services 4. CrowdStrike (NAS: CRWD) CEO: George Kurtz Security 5. Stripe CEO: Patrick Collison
Inc.19 min readLeadership
Meet Inc.’s 250 Best-led U.s. Companies
They are the unsung heroes of the U.S. economy. Annual revenue between $50 million and $2 billion. Lithe enough to maneuver, big enough to have a broad impact. They employ 35 million people-about one in four U.S. workers. They deliver nearly 40 perce
Inc.1 min read
Evidence Of Absurd Popularity
Newsweek cover • Parents arrested for assaults in frantic efforts to score the dolls for Christmas. Astronaut Cabbage Patch Kid flies on Space Shuttle; photo op with Pres. Reagan. Cover of Time Airplanes emblazoned with Pokémon characters begin flyin
Inc.8 min readSecurity
Hostage Situation
SOURCE: FBI INTERNET CRIME COMPLAINT CENTER (FIGURES DO NOT INCLUDE ATTACKS THAT GO UNREPORTED) Every 11 seconds, business servers—even small-business servers— are infiltrated by hackers who encrypt their data and hold it hostage. Victims have few go
Inc.17 min readCorporate Finance
Capital Idea$
SPONSORED BY THE INC. 5000 HONOREES WHOSE PROFILES APPEAR IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES YOU KNOW THIS: There are no million-dollar business ideas that don’t need at least a few bucks to get started. Those bucks might come in the form of bootstrapping, cashi
Inc.4 min read
The Barefoot CEO
IN 1996, BEFORE Silicon Valley geek went C-suite chic, Netscape co-founder and future VC king Marc Andreessen earned what was then the ultimate business establishment honor: the cover of Time. The story inside lauded the internetbrowser wizard as a n
Inc.2 min readSecurity
A Change of Domain
In 2014, hundreds of new top-level domains—the letters in a website address that come after the dot—were introduced, such as.live, .attorney, and.news. Businesses no longer needed to come up with a company name based on whether the.com address is ava
Inc.2 min read
Powering Unprecedented Insights for Health Care and Beyond
Speeding up processes and improving decision making is a good thing for any business. But in health care, efficiencies can save lives. Analytical Wizards is a data analytics company that enables meaningful benefits in pharma and biotech, such as acce
Inc.2 min read
IP Law that Maximizes Clients’ Business Opportunities
Intellectual property (IP) law has a reputation as a hidebound corner of the legal field, but that’s not the case for Caldwell Intellectual Property Law. Just like the firm’s clients, many of whom are famous for being iconoclasts and innovators, foun
Inc.2 min read
Al-Powered Contract Management
The lightbulb moment that sparked LinkSquares’ establishment occurred when co-founders Vishal Sunak and Chris Combs were working together at a tech company undergoing an acquisition. The parent company asked for a summary of the 6,000 or so existing
Inc.3 min read
Business With a Soul: People Before Profit Is a Success Secret
Hafiz Sikder has nearly 20 years of experience in various leadership roles in the life sciences industry. Partnering with several big-name consulting agencies, he noticed one thing: the relationship was often transactional. When he left to start his
Inc.2 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
YouTube Marketing Pioneer Has a Billion-dollar Future
The tale of catching the entrepreneurial bug as a child by starting a lemonade stand is almost a cliché. But that’s what Aleric Heck, founder and CEO of AdOutreach, did. But Heck envisioned it as a way to generate seed capital for his real goal: a te
Inc.2 min read
Building a Movement, Building a Brand
Earning a spot on the Inc. 5000 is always an achievement. But the bigger you get, the harder it is to pull it off. POWERHOME SOLAR’s latest Inc. 5000 win–its fourth to date-may be the most impressive yet. The leading solar company grew from $35 milli
Inc.2 min read
Partnering with America’s Leading Endodontists
One of the key challenges of any medical or dental practice is managing the administrative burden. Recognizing that, endodontic partnership organization (EPO™), Endo1 Partners was formed by four endodontists to provide comprehensive business and oper
Inc.2 min read
A “Made in the USA” Brand Makes Political History
When Christi Mahfouz started Ace Specialties in 2007, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, a major oil and gas industry hub, the company launched with a single client and product: branded work gloves for local oil field workers. A few months later, a chanc
Inc.2 min read
Prioritizing People Helps This Business Thrive During Challenging Times
Keith Sampson started a solo environmental consulting firm from his Shreveport, Louisiana, home in 1996. Today, SRP Environmental offers several distinct but related services with offices around the country. Sampson credits these diverse offerings, i
Inc.2 min read
The Digital Consultancy for Mission-Driven Organizations
Publishing Resources Inc. (PRI), a digita consultancy that provides strategy, engineering, marketing, and creative services, is celebrating its 30-year anniversary-quite the feat in the dynamic digital world. Longevity is among several factors that m
Inc.2 min read
Specialized Commercial Cleaning Provides a Lucrative Niche
After Rinea Blanchard become a widow when her husband was killed in a 1992 car accident, she was left to support her two small children on her own. In 1997, a friend asked if she’d be interested in teaming up on a new venture, offering construction c
Inc.2 min read
Tech and Corporate Culture Drive Leadership in the Auto Transport Industry
Montway Auto Transport’s unique corporate culture is a primary driver of the Schaumburg, Illinois-based automotive transportation company’s ongoing success. “Everyone brings their own experience and perspective to the company, but we all have the sam
Inc.2 min readLeadership
Co-Founders Prove There’s Power in Numbers
Most entrepreneurs start businesses because they have a passion or expertise. It’s the details that get in the way. From filing taxes to negotiating real estate leases, operations can take more time and attention than many owners expect, often causin
Inc.2 min read
Smart Choices Drive Hockey-Stick Growth for This Sales Training Company
After consistent 20 to 40 percent year-over-year growth during the previous eight years, Sales Gravy more than doubled in size in 2020 with a combination of foresight and smart business choices. It started in 2019, when Founder Jeb Blount began plann
Inc.2 min read
Real Talk Fuels Wealth Management Firm’s Fast Growth
Charisse Rivers founded Zinnia Wealth Management in 2007 because she didn’t like where the retirement planning industry was heading. Her colleagues were pushing “outdated practices and old-school theories,” and they weren’t keen to try fresh ideas. S
Inc.2 min read
A Blueprint for Success
Most people who shop at the grocery store don’t think much about the packaging or label on their favorite foods and household products. Packaging connects us to brands, protects the foods we eat from diseases, extends shelf life, and keeps food cost
Inc.2 min read
Facilitating Access to Capital
One of the biggest challenges facing small businesses today is access to capital. In fact, the Guidant State of Small Business Report found that nearly 67 percent of small businesses cited lack of capital as their top concern. Cash flow is critical f
Inc.2 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Disrupting Traditional Startup Filing Services
For more than a decade, the number of new businesses formed monthly in the U.S. hovered around 200,000, U.S. Census Bureau data reports. However, in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the number of startups climbed past 400,000 and continues to rise
Inc.2 min read
Automation Makes SaaS Implementation Faster
Most apps, settings, and data transfer easily when moving from an Android to an iPhone. So why is there no automated mechanism to move from on-premises enterprise software to Software as a Service (SaaS)? A customer asked Hassan Ramay this when he wa
Inc.2 min read
Facing Adversity with Conviction
Risking your financial livelihood is not for the faint of heart. Chuck McDowell felt like he was in a TV drama when he spent four days defending his actions before a federal judge as timeshare industry giants lobbed one accusation after another at hi
Inc.2 min read
Driven by Impact, Tax Firm Measures Success by Children Nourished
County Epps hates apppunting. That’s a strange thing for the founder and CEO of a full-service tax preparation firm to admit. But Epps realized that the tax work allows her to not just save her clients money but also provide nutrition and water to ma
Inc.2 min read
Connecting the Finance World
As a young equities trader, Mark Loehr had a special phone that could connect him with 120 different people at the touch of a button. About three times the size of a toaster, the “trading turret” had 120 buttons on it—one for each contact—so he could
Inc.2 min readSmall Business & Entrepreneurs
Data Rich
While managing private wealth at J.P. Morgan, Andre Swanston saw clients withdrawing funds to angel-invest in startups. “I thought most of them were the stupidest, worst ideas I’d heard in my life,” he says. Spotting an opportunity, he resolved to do
Inc.2 min read
Wireless Company Creates Community Through Connectivity
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the country’s digital divide, leaving low-income students, unemployed workers, and families at a painful disadvantage. Lack of connectivity made virtual learning, Job hunting, and telemedicine difficult. To Matthew and N

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