I do find the Inc. 5000 fascinating to review every year it comes out. It’s such a great place to review your business against the high flyers (well at least in terms of growth). Ask yourself the following questions and then go find answers using the link below:

  1. Who is doing well in your sector?
  2. Who is doing well in your region or state?
  3. How do my sales/employee indicators stack up?
  4. Check out some of the web sites, what are they doing better than you?
  5. Look for strategic alliances. Perhaps you are in the Software sector, content quality pace and you notice someone in an adjacent space in say data mining – could be an interesting chat!

So I had a look at Massachusetts based software businesses in the Inc 5000 and pulled out some interesting facts:

  • Some companies are 12 times bigger now than they were in 2005
  • Only MediaSpectrum made in to the Inc 500, at 166. (LogMeIn would have been 126th but went public)
  • Sales per employee are relatively weak – target? – $300k and above
  • No overnight successes
  • Still very few companies reach the $50m level

Full tables are here at Inc 5000, have fun!