Inc. Magazine March/April 2019

April 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of Inc. magazine’s debut issue, and we’ve thought long and hard about how best to mark that milestone. In 1989, when Inc. turned 10, our founder, Bernard Goldhirsh, noted the publication’s “opportunity to shed light on company builders for the rest of America to appreciate,” and that he “saw the world of company builders as the continuum of economic creation in this country.” Thus, Inc.’s mission was “to encourage a large number of entrepreneurs to work away if this process of creation and economic growth were to continue.” Inc. remains proud to encourage creation and growth. That’s why, for our 40th birthday, we created the Founders Project. The Founders Project will take Inc.’s mission off the page and screen and into the real world. Over the…

Wilfred Pinfold is not an arrogant guy. But who would have blamed him if, after 23 years at Intel, he considered Silicon Valley’s primacy a given? Then, in 2015, he and three partners launched Urban Systems, a Portland, Oregon–based integrator of smart-city technologies. They had a choice: Work solely with tech firms and cities in the U.S., or go where the action was. For Urban Systems, the action was in Europe and Asia. Cities there were older, less car-centric, and more open to alternative transportation. The company partnered with startups in Portugal and the U.K. to develop technology that plots routes for buses, rail, rental bikes, and rideshares. In Hong Kong, the company worked with another startup, in which it holds a minority stake, to investigate deploying autonomous vehicles in a…

Many humans hate tidying up. Aaron Krause isn’t among them. “It’s nice to start with a big stack of dirty dishes, and then everything is clean after,” he says. “A sense of accomplishment, in a short time.” Not coincidentally, Krause is the founder of Scrub Daddy, which sells smiley-face sponges and cleaning wands that stiffen in cold water and soften under steamier temperatures. Scrub Daddy’s perma-grin shape isn’t just friendly: Swiping silverware through the mouth cleans both sides at once; the ridges scrape off stuck-on gunk; the eyes serve as finger holes, so you can cram a Daddy into a persnickety cup. Inspiration for Krause’s Folcroft, Pennsylvania–based company came from a previous job that left his hands dirty. Industrial soaps felt like “lotions with rocks,” he says, and, as an added…

TERRAFURIE • noun “Extreme anger unleashed within those who can clearly see the selfdestructive tendencies in the current forms of industrial-technological society, but feel unable to change the direction.” Nope, sorry, nobody springs to mind. Source: Glenn A. Albrecht MONET • noun A joint venture between Toyota and SoftBank that integrates autonomous vehicles and the internet of things to ultimately “launch MobilityasaService businesses.” A portmanteau of mobility and network—but you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see the MONEY. Source: SoftBank BLOCKSPLAIN • verb When a techbro shares his crypto algo while manspreading in his Lambo. Source: Twitter user @chaosprime OMNIBUBBLE • noun “The inescapable conclusion is that we’re encircled by a series of omnipotent financial bubbles that will ultimately suffocate the world economy.” All together now: There may be trouble ahead, but while there’s credit…

JEFF KNAUSS Co-founder of the Digital Hyve, a marketing agency that ranks 52nd on the 2018 Inc. 5000 MEIKA HOLLENDER Co-founder and CEO of Sustain Natural, which sells all-natural feminine hygiene and sexual health products Won’t politics alienate a big chunk of your customers? • When you take a stand, you can polarize the people who are actually keeping you in business. It could even be fatal for companies that have only a few clients or customers. • From day one, we’ve said we give 10 percent of our profits to women’s reproductive health organizations—primarily Planned Parenthood. Some people do abandon us, but we believe that issue builds a really strong consumer base. Should a company take a political stand when all employees may not agree? • We have 36 people at our agency. I don’t feel it’s…

Sixty-eight teams, 13 cities, buzzer beaters, surprise winners—what makes March Madness spectacular also makes it a logistical nightmare. Enter Zach Maurides’s Teamworks. In 2005, Maurides, a lineman on Duke’s football team, was exhausted from juggling practices, meetings, scrimmages, and classes. “There were 10 or 15 parts to our program,” Maurides says. “They didn’t work together cohesively.” He created software so the staffers could message and book time slots with studentathletes. The football team adopted it, Maurides coldcalled other schools, and today the Durham, North Carolina–based Teamworks, which has raised $21 million, charges NFL, NBA, and MLB teams up to sixfigure sums annually to use its platform. In 2016, the NCAA started using Teamworks for March Madness—tracking everything from itineraries to practice schedules. Which is why the likes of Duke’s freshman forward…