Category: ABT Culture

What is the Inc. 5000?

Inc. magazine, founded in 1979, is a monthly publication focused on growing companies. Its own history is rich with entrepreneurship – its founder was an MIT trained engineer who worked at Polaroid before starting his first company, Sail magazine. Sail was sold for $10 million, and the profits were used to found Inc. Since then, the magazine has been acquired twice – once in 2000 and again in 2005 (the price in 2000 was rumored to be over $200 million).

The magazine published its first list of the “Fastest Growing Companies in America”, the Inc. 500, in 1982. In 2007, the list was expanded to 5000 in order to give readers a “deeper, richer understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape”. Only privately-held companies are ranked, and the rankings are based on overall revenue growth over a three year period – so to be listed in 2014, you actually had to show growth since 2011.

2014 marks Atlantic BT’s sixth consecutive time on the Inc. 5000 list. Last year, we were inaugurated into the “Inc. 5000 Honor Roll” by making the list 5 times (not necessarily consecutively). I decided to do a little digging and uncover who has made the list consecutively – showing consistent growth in spite of, shall we way, inconsistent US economic growth over the last 6 years. Here’s what I found:

In the southeast US, 49 companies managed 5 consecutive Inc.5000 rankings in 2013. By 2014, 9 of those companies dropped off the list entirely, leaving only 40 to remain. Of the 40 remaining (showing 6 consecutive years of growth, like Atlantic BT), only 3 are located in North Carolina:

• Atlantic BT
• Bronto
• The Select Group

“It is exciting to see great companies like The Select Group and Bronto continuing to generate record growth year over year. We have worked closely with both companies on projects over the last several years, and have gotten to know them well. The Select Group and Bronto are captained by great leaders and are doing outstanding things for entrepreneurship and technology in the Triangle.  They each are well deserving of the honor.”   — Jon Jordan, CEO

What kinds of companies make up the Inc. 5000?

By revenue, “Health” companies make up the largest single category, with the “IT Services” and “Business Products & Services” categories following closely behind. By growth percentage, “Consumer Products & Services”, “Advertising & Marketing”, and “Software” round out the top 3. When scanning through the list of fastest-growing companies in our region, you can see those trends easily reflected – many companies with the highest growth rates could easily span multiple categories (one such company does B2B consulting around electronic medical record software, for example).

It’s also easy to see the “small business” representation – nearly half the companies on the list (47.1%) generated revenue of less than $10 million, and increasing that threshold to $20 million adds another 19.8% to the total. In other words, two thirds of the Inc. 5000 is made up of companies with gross revenues of less than $20 million in 2013.

What traits do Inc. 5000 companies share?

From here forward, research should be considered anecdotal – the results of creative Google work rather than in-depth interviews and surveys. Still, I think my conclusions would stand up to reasonable scrutiny (if someone out there would like to do the research).

Inc. 5000 companies are employee-focused

Many of the companies listed claim “Best Places to Work” (or similar) awards both before and after being honored by the Inc. 5000.  Not all companies earned those awards consecutively – but by earning that recognition repeatedly over a span of 5-7 years, it certainly shows an emphasis on company culture and caring for employees.

Atlantic BT earned “Best Places to Work” two years in a row; Bronto and The Select Group are also multi-year winners.

Inc. 5000 companies are metrics-focused

Ask any CEO from the Inc 5000 (and certainly the Inc 500) if they have a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and they’ll be able to point you directly to it. They may even be able to pull it up in real-time on their tablet or smartphone.

At Atlantic BT, we have done for ourselves the same we’ve done for our clients – we have recognized that profit is the result of clear goals and metrics. Not only do you need to capture the data, but it also needs to be the right data displayed in a meaningful way. Take our CQS service, for example. Every morning the average score and submission rate are announced at a daily huddle of the management team, and each week that same team at Atlantic BT views all scores for all active projects. We are never more than a click away from the numbers – whether that’s productivity across a project or client satisfaction across the company.

Inc. 5000 companies are strategically results-focused

It’s easy to be short-sighted when you’re results-focused and you have great access to good metrics. After all, the operation is humming along, profits are solid, and growth is steady. At Atlantic BT, and many other consistent performers among the Inc. 5000 Honor Roll, the leadership team is strategically results-focused. In other words, we use our metrics to forecast results well into the future, and then set a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (or BHAG) that describes what Atlantic BT looks like 5 years from now. If we hadn’t set that goal (and achieved it) 5 years ago, we wouldn’t have been one of the fastest-growing companies in America 6 years in a row – and we have to continue to work towards a new goal if we want to keep the run going.

If you’re interested in being part of the growth, or even part of the BHAG, contact us!

Less Than 10%

Less than 10% of the “fastest growing private businesses” who achieved the Inc. 5000 award five years ago will make the cut for the fifth year. Atlantic BT is in rare company with our 10th Inc. 5000 award. Inc.’s growth requirements are so high repeating once let alone five times can be all but impossible.

Atlantic BT Passes Test of Time

Time may be the great overlooked judge. Google uses time in their algorithm not granting trust until trust is earned. Achieving the Inc. 5000 award for five years straight speaks to a company’s ability to design and execute process to create satisfaction. Satisfaction implies customer support and no five time Inc. 5000 winner can achieve the award five times in a row without amazing customers.

The other side of the satisfaction coin for a web design and software development company is employee satisfaction.

Every skill Atlantic BT teaches and employs is in high demand. Headhunters practically camp in our parking lot, so employee satisfaction is as important as high ratings and word-of-mouth from customers. Atlantic BT’s second year on Triangle Business Journal’s Best Places To Work speaks to our company’s ability to balance on a beam between customers and employees.

Secret Sauce

I’ve had the honor to work for great companies such as P&G and M&M/Mars. I’ve started four companies and so can appreciate how difficult Jon, Mark and our team at Atlantic BT’s achievement can be. In my almost two years at Atlantic BT I’ve learned about where success lives.

Atlantic BT Secret Sauce

• Inspirational people (starts with CEO Jon and President Mark, doesn’t end there).
• Great Team.
• Willingness to HIRE NOW and figure it out later.
• Myth Creation.
• Business Processes.

Myth Creation & Business Process

At first I didn’t understand. In my career cultural events were either formal (M&M’s) or missing (when you are burning 401k money nose is firmly to grindstone in companies I started and that was a mistake of epic proportions <smile>). Atlantic BT’s need to haul out their medieval Trebuchet once a year to see how far they can smash pumpkins seemed inconsequential and strange.

WRONG!

The more I got to know Jon the more I understood Atlantic BT’s culture. Jon started Atlantic BT in 1998 when he was nineteen (what were you doing at 19, I was NOT doing anything that might one day employ more than 70 people). It is rare I meet someone whose brain spins at faster cycles than mine. This is NOT to say I am smart as much as chaotic (lol).

Jon is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked for or with. His ability to see the unseen connection is the best I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had the honor of working with some amazing people. Jon is so competitive he works all night on his egg drop contraption or tries to figure out how to rescue a Ford Bronco on his “free” time.

For every brilliant grey cell of Jon’s there is a need for balance. Mark provides the perfect balance. Mark, or someone with Mark’s leadership and management skills, is the missing element in my four startups. Mark makes trains run on time and that they run on the right tracks. Mark doesn’t try to manage a company this size alone. He gets great help from solid Project Managers and an expanding layer of “coach/leaders”.

Inspirational people can wander around in the dark forever without defined yet flexible processes.

Atlantic BT has several well defined business processes. My favorite example is our Continuous Quality Score or CQS.  CQS was a brilliant answer to a clear problem. As projects increased in size and time to market the management team noted we needed to check and catch wobbles before they became cracks.

CQS is brilliant and cool, but it is also a living breathing and important “business process”. When bad things happen they get fixed long before brush fires become infernos. Every Friday the company meets before Jon buys everyone lunch (a sizable bill with more than 70 employees). CQS is one of the fixtures of Atlantic BT’s team standup meetings. CQS is the voice of the customer and customers are respected and appreciated at Atlantic BT.

Dov Seidman in his great book How: Why How You Do Anything Means Everything explains our business processes are all the “intellectual property” left. In a “no secrets” flat and connected time how a company forms their work, identifies market needs, responds to customer concerns and creates a family atmosphere where employees feel valued and loved is what a company owns. Inspirational people, myths, process and fun create the strange alchemy that is Atlantic BT one of the fastest growing private companies in America for the 10th year.

In a few months I will “retire” to work on Story of Cancer Foundation and Cure Cancer Starter, one of the first crowdfunding cancer research websites being created by Atlantic BT.  Life is a strange twisting journey and TIME is our most valued and often overlooked nonrenewable commodity. In my long strange trip of a business career I’ve consistently voted for creativity and challenge. Like most people I judge a “job” on its ability to teach new things.

Working for Jon, Mark and with the amazing team at Atlantic BT has been like going to Internet marketing graduate school all over again, the school that never ends <smile, sigh>. This is NOT to say I skip home from work everyday, but the character of this company wants to do the right thing.

Perhaps the highest compliment a cancer survivor can pay is I’m glad I spent two years learning, working and contributing to Atlantic BT. Success will continue for Jon, Mark and the team at Atlantic BT because their heart is in the right place and our minds (whether employee or customer) know it. Maybe having your heart, passion and mind in the game is the secret sauce that brings Great Place To Work and Inc. 5000 awards to Atlantic BT.

Note
I published this post erroneously with 10 years initially, but the extensive research I did last year into the Inc. 5000 was in anticipation of Atlatnic BT’s 5th straight award. Less than 10% of Inc. 5000 companies make the list 5 years in a row. Apologize for the mistake, but Atlantic BT’s 5th year on the Inc. 5000 is a substantial accomplishment sure to be followed by many more.

TBJ’s Annual Best Work Places Survey

Each year the Triangle Business Journal (TBJ) searches for the “Best Places To Work” in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Among the thousands of companies in the Triangle TBJ employs Quantum Market Research to find 35 “Best Places to Work” in several categories. Quantum Market Research created a rigorous employee survey with Best Places Awards earned based on survey results. Kudos to TBJ for creating a “contest” that captures the how employees feel about their company.

Here is Atlantic BT’s founder and CEO Jon Jordan’s Facebook note after TBJ’s 2nd Best Places To Work award:

“In my opinion one of the best local awards to win! Definitely the one I’m most proud of. Congratulations to our hard working managers and employees for winning Best Places to Work in the Triangle for the second straight year!”

Kudos for Atlantic BT

Kudos for Atlantic BT are arriving from many directions. After growing the company’s web design and software development business consistently since its founding in 1998 Atlantic BT is up for a rare 5th straight  Inc. 5000 award, an award less than 10% of companies achieve because consistently growing for five years straight is a hurdle most small businesses can’t get over.

Atlantic BT also earned Best Web Designers In The Triangle from The Independent’s (Indyweek.com) annual survey. Atlantic BT isn’t alone. We are lucky to have great entrepreneurs and companies in our triangle of North Carolina. Atlantic BT supports and has been supported by many “Best Places To Work” on TBJ’s list including:

Brooks Bell
Netsertive
ChannelAdvisor
Vamp Communications
CAPTRUST Financial Advisors
Magnus Health
Hill, Chesson & Woody
Netsertive

TBJ’s Best Places also showcases several Atlantic BT web designs including:

Hire Networks 

Parata Systems

To echo Jon’s note, Atlantic BT is a “Best Place To Work” because of our great team and awesome customers. We love customers who bring web design and marketing challenge, creativity and passion to the Atlantic BT Center (right across from Macy’s Crabtree Valley Mall) daily.

Congratulations to every Best Places To Work company. Together every company on Triangle Business Journal’s list (and several great startups, universities and companies not mentioned) make the Triangle one of the most innovative and exciting places to live and work.

Join and Follow Atlantic BT

Follow @Atlanticbt on Twitter.

Like Atlantic Business Technologies on Facebook.

Follow @Scenttrail (Marty) on Twitter.

Independent Best Of Award

Atlantic BT is honored to be voted Best Web Designers in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill in The Independent’s 2013 poll. We have great admiration and appreciation for one of the country’s leading independent publications. The Independent and their website Indy Week are great examples of how a creative team can develop exciting new ideas.

The Indy’s “Best of The Triangle” is an annual poll with over 10,000 votes this year. This well established survey identifies great eateries, music venues and now web designers. Atlantic BT is proud to be voted “Best in Web Design” and recognize greatness in our competitors too including Thee Design, The Splinter Group and many other Triangle web design companies not mentioned in the Independent’s poll.

As I noted in “Understanding Your New SEO Ecosystem” we are lucky to have several great web design companies in the Triangle.  Web design and development is never only one thing. It takes a village to be great. We appreciate recognition of hard work and recognize awards are our community’s kudos for helping great clients achieve their online goals. Thanks!

Link to page 4 where Atlantic BT is listed as tops in the Triangle in web design on the bottom of the page.

Atlantic BT Honored with Fourth Inc. 5000 Fastest Growth Company Award

For a fourth year, the software and web development company Jon Jordan started with a few friends in 1998 and that has grown to almost 70 employees is included in Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 Fastest Growth companies. While preparing a press release about the achievement, I asked Jon about the fuel driving Atlantic BT’s growth.

Jon’s answer focused on three things: values, team and great customers. I concur, and it is easy to see expressions of Jon’s triptych from the crazy cultural events such as Beard Off and Egg Drop to amazing work for great customers and fellow Inc. 5000 Fast Growth Companies such as StrikeIron, Intelligent Access Systems and HireNetworks.

Jon’s creation of our CQS (Continuous Quality Score) and its sister EQS (Employee Quality Score) is one of my favorite innovations during the last year. Jon, Mark and the management team saw a need to ensure that connection with customers remained strong over long projects. The answer was a single question distributed weekly. CQS, based on the Net Promoter Score idea, asks if, based on the work performed, customers would recommend Atlantic BT. Our average CQS is currently in the 8 to 9 range.

When a customer posts a low score, everyone in the management team knows immediately. We connect, triage and fix the problem.

Similarly, each week I fill out an EQS asking if I would recommend working at Atlantic BT to my friends (Yes is the answer!). CQS and EQS are great ideas created as an expression of Atlantic BT’s core values.

Atlantic BT sends congratulations to our 126 fellow North Carolina companies on the Inc. 5000. Together we are creating a new, faster growing North Carolina, a.k.a. the Austin, TX of the eastern seaboard.

Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing 5000 Fun Facts
Top of the Inc. 5000	Press Release	Inc. 5000 & NC	Infographic
What does it take to rank in the top of the Inc. 5000?	Named to Inc. 5000 for 4th time.	NC Companies in Inc. 5000 by category.	Atlantic BT and North Carolina Inc. 5000.

Clicking Inc. 5000 Badge returns to main Inc. page.	Atlantic BT Joins 126 Other North Carolina Companies As Inc. 5000 North Carolina is becoming an entrepreneur’s dream. North Carolina ranks 15th in population and 12th in the number of college students in the state. Great institutions help create support systems needed to rank in the Inc. 5000 top 18 states. North Carolina is tied for 15th with Washington with 127 companies included in the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America. We thought it would be interesting to take a look at the North Carolina Companies that made the Inc. 5000 and see if we can determine a secret success pattern.
Top of the Inc. 5000	Press Release	Inc. 5000 & NC	Infographic
North Carolina And Inc. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing
Charlotte Charlotte has 33 Inc. 5000 companies.	Raleigh Raleigh has 22 Inc. 5000 companies.	GWH Greensboro, Winston, High Point has 16 Inc. 5000 companies.	Durham Durham has 6 Inc. 5000 companies
Cary Cary has 4 Inc. 5000 companies.	Chapel Hill Chapel Hill has 3 Inc. 5000 compaines.	Other From Ashville to Wilmington 43 other Inc. 5000 companies.	Washington State NC’s 127 Inc. 5000 companies ties with WA.
Biz Services Biz Services #1 Revenue $320M, 35% Total Top 5.	IT Services IT #2 Revenue $227M, 25% Total Top 5.	Health Health #3 Revenue $163M, 18% Total Top 5.	Ad/Mkt Ad/Mket #4 Revenue $106M, 12% Total Top 5.