Inc. Magazine

Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures LLC, Inc. is the only major brand dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, with the aim to deliver real solutions for today’s innovative company builders.

Tales of Tenacity

YOU’LL NEVER TRAIN IN VAIN • The way to win in business is to mold your workers to fit your culture.

Summertime, and the Business of Shark Repellent Is Easy

The Jargonator • Swatting the buzzwords of business since 2014.

I Scream. You Scream. We All Scream for … Taylor Ham

Will A.I. Remake Business—or Destroy It? • Artificially intelligent machines could streamline a company’s operations. Or, as the doom-and-gloomers say, one day they could supersede human founders. To help Inc. figure this out, we called Iya Khalil, co-founder of an A.I.-powered health startup, and Louis Del Monte, a scientist who’s written extensively about A.I.

THERE’S A MARKET FOR THIS

Supply (Chain) and Demand • Manufacturing, you may have heard, is dying—but startups and small businesses across other industries are finding new ways to fuel American innovation and create jobs. Think cloud computing, software engineering, logistics, and even product design—arenas once dominated by large corporations. “Small- and medium-size-business owners can take advantage of technology that was previously available only to large companies,” says Jeremy Bodenhamer, co-founder and CEO of Santa Barbara, California–based ShipHawk, which makes and sells shipping software. He’s part of a new “supply chain economy” that’s creating more jobs, hiring skilled workers, and paying higher wages, according to recent research by MIT’s Mercedes Delgado and Harvard’s Karen Mills, former head of the Small Business Administration. Startups working in this supply chain “are innovative, and are creating an increasing number of high-wage jobs,” says Mills. “These are good jobs of the future.”

Salt Lake City • Why Silicon Slopes—the region between the Utah state capital and Provo—is bustling with hot brands and data nerds.

Helping a Business Get Up the Hill • Inc.’s legendary columnist Norm Brodsky spent some time talking business with Joe Nocella, founder of the Brooklyn-based 718 Cyclery. 718 Cyclery has established itself as a successful shop catering to the serious cyclist—but its growth has plateaued. Joe’s been searching for a good idea to help him jump-start sales. That’s when Norm came in, to hear Joe out and help him think through finding a new way forward.

HOW DID IT • Ten founders on what it takes to be great.

HOW I LAUNCHED MY COMPANY—AND LEARNED TO LET GO • Thanks to her unruly curly hair, Alli Webb knows how a good blowout can completely change the way a woman feels about herself. In 2010, she persuaded her brother and her husband—both bald—to help her launch Drybar, which focuses exclusively on blowouts. Eight years later, Drybar has more than 100 locations and over $100 million in revenue.

HOW I DECIDED TO SAVE MY OLD ’HOOD • Not long ago, Clifford Joseph Harris Jr.—the rapper, actor, and fashion impresario who’s better known as T.I.—took a hard look at the once-vibrant neighborhood he grew up in. By the age of 14, he’d been arrested several times on drug charges. To flip the script for kids like him, in 2017 he founded Buy Back the Block, a real estate venture that reimagines his old neighborhood one building at a time.

HOW MY COMPANY WENT FROM ZERO TO $125 MILLION IN FIVE YEARS—AND WHY I DECIDED TO SELL • Udi Baron was running a bakery and restaurant when someone brought him a recipe for gluten-free bread so good it made people cry. It became the linchpin of the company now called Udi’s Gluten Free, which immediately defined and dominated its market—so much so that not even Baron could believe it.

HOW LOSING MY MENTOR INSPIRED A...