It has not been easy, has it? This road toward birthing something and helping it grow and seeing it mature and succeed. That's especially true these days, which, with each passing month, seem, disturbingly, less like a pandemic-induced anomaly and more like a way of life.
And, yet, that did not stop you. You
made it to the peak. You are a 2022 Inc. 5000 honoree.
Congratulations, and salute, to BlockFi, the No. 1 company, to Kitrum, with offices in Ukraine, to the
revolutionary SnapNurse, to Castillo Engineering, and to all the others in
these pages or whom I've spoken to in the past months and the even more of you
found on Inc.com.
I know your struggle to get to this
place, to the top 0.07 percent of all businesses, only by association. I took
the easy way out, and gave up my attempt at successful entrepreneurship three
or four years ago and took the fork in that road that led me to the helm of
Inc. But in the time since, in talking to so many, I've learned your stories,
taken them to heart. The tough starts, the moments of doubt, the sleepless dark
nights only to wake and drive forward in the daylight. I admire your savvy,
grit, your refusal to give up on your baby, however long the odds might be.
Really, the only thing for me that can
compare to what you've done is my son, an 11-year-old named Luca. I know, it
might seem crazy to compare a business to a child, but ask yourself if it's
really a coincidence that many businesses get their start in an incubator? Or
that a newborn is something of a minimum viable product? Indeed, from IUIs and
IVFs, Luca's start was as rough as any fledgling business's. But after a long
labor and time in the NICU and some bumpy years, he finally got that spurt of
fast growth.
Recently, I dropped Luca off for his
first school dance, a dance not so much for dating but for celebrating--much
like what happens at the end of each Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala. He was
nervous, but he had a phone and he knew to text me if he wanted to leave. About
90 minutes in, I heard the phone ping. Uh-oh, I thought, and then glanced down.
"Feeling good, it's so fun!"
Maybe you know that feeling?
When I arrived to pick him up, he was
wearing glow sticks around his head like a sweatband, surrounded by a half
dozen girls--sixth graders, too, not fifth graders like him--and I even got an
accolade for my efforts as one of his, uh, founders. One of the girls said,
"Oh, you're Luca's dad? He's a good kid. A little short, but a good kid.
You should be proud of how you raised him."
Now, I'm not gonna call you short, but
as we celebrate the 5000 in this issue, and prepare for our Gala, I'd offer
that anything worth having is worth the struggle that comes with it, and I
agree with that sixth grader: You should be proud.
All of which is to say, here's to the
dance, however long, and by whatever methods it took to get here. May it be
joyous and include your version of ice creams and glow sticks and adulation
from whoever your fans are.
Source: incafrica.com