Tales of Tenacity
One of the most inspiring elements of Inc.’s annual conferences is hearing tales of tenacity from company founders who refuse to give up. Some of these stories get told onstage, like Slack co-founder Cal Henderson’s describing, at this year’s GrowCo conference, how a failed video game business turned into a multibillion-dollar software empire. But we hear just as many from attendees, like Merrill Crawford, who runs a successful plumbing company in Houston. Finding clients, Crawford says, is easy; finding good plumbers is much harder. Her hiring needs are so urgent that she has gone well beyond traditional recruitment channels; indeed, she is looking to retain an ad agency to help convince would-be employees that her business is a great place to work. This issue of Inc. is similarly loaded with such…