What Best Growth Stories Have in Common
Although it is true that each company is a unique story, with its own challenges, there are some things they have in common. The obvious ones are a lot of hard work and perseverance. The ability to overcome failures and stay on course is what sets apart winners from losers.
Almost all of the companies on our list have had their share of ups and downs, yet by staying the course, they were able to weather all storms and come through to the other side. Another thing they have in common is that they all have embraced digitalization. It allowed them to expand their reach, increase efficiency, and vastly improve communication with their customers. Combined, these effects of digitalization have helped them immensely to grow into successful companies.
Page One Consultants
When the founder of a company wins the Woman-Owned Small Business Person of the Year award, you can safely say that the company has a successful growth story. Engineering and construction consulting is a field dominated by men, making Sheryl Page’s story even more astonishing. She didn’t get there overnight, though.
She started her company in 1993 but had little success in the early years. Through perseverance and sometimes sheer stubbornness, she pushed on. There was a time when she used 15 credit cards just to keep the company afloat. Things changed in 2003 when she was able to obtain a loan. Soon, her income tripled and she now employs more than 30 people. For a company that was running by maxing out credit cards, it is an amazing step forward.
NetPicks
One of the most important assets a company can have is the ability to evolve with the times. NetPicks is the perfect example of that. When the company was founded in 1996, online stock trading existed only in SF books and movies. Today, it is one of the largest training platforms for online trading on the Internet.
Mark Soberman, the owner, recognized the potential of emerging new technology and decided to pursue it. It is also important to note that NetPicks’s employees are all actively involved in online trading. In other words, they do what they preach, which is a great way of establishing trust with their users. They don’t suggest risks they aren’t ready to take on themselves. That is why it is one of the most trusted companies today.
AskGamblers
From a small side project to one of the industry leaders, the success of AskGamblers has often been cited as one of the best examples of company growth stories. Igor Salindrija, the founder, was a law student with the aspiration of becoming a web designer. As most students do, he struggled to make the ends meet, so he got a job in a local casino as a bartender.
By his own admission, he was the worst bartender in the world, often serving customers with wrong drinks. One time, he was caught making a website on his laptop during his shift. One of the owners called him to the office and Igor was convinced he was going to get fired. Instead, he was offered a job in the casino’s fledging web department. There he learned the ropes and soon started a side project, gathering users’ reviews and posting them on his site. It soon became one of the most visited sites in the industry and he sold it a few years later for $15 million.
By Anna Stinson