The seed for making the Inc 5000 was planted in an evening class at the Walton College of Business in the fall of 2007. Mark Zweig held up a copy of the magazine, encouraged all of us to subscribe, and said any venture you start should strive to make this list. I went home that evening and subscribed to Inc. Magazine.
At some point over the last two decades, I canceled that subscription. I spent eight years in the workforce before stepping out on my entrepreneurial journey in 2017. In the early days, I wasn’t thinking about the Inc 5000. I was thinking about how I was going to allocate the last $5,000 in my bank account and praying a client would finally pay their bill. Over the years, I got so caught up in surviving that I forgot the maxim Mark had once shared.
Two years ago, I fully embraced my journey to get out of my business and start working on it. I started hiring talent to help me instead of trying to make the people I could “afford” work. Somewhere in that metamorphosis, I remembered the Inc 5000 and finally applied.
I was hopeful we would make the list, but I really didn’t know what to expect. The application period measured 2021 to 2024 growth. Our first large growth period came in 2022, so I felt like we had a good chance. We found out we made the list this summer, but you don’t get your actual ranking until a big reveal call a week before the issue is released. My team was sitting with me watching it. My husband’s favorite number is 333, so he guessed we’d be 3,333. I guessed we’d be in the 2,000s. When our rank was revealed as 1,662, I was speechless. Then to see we were #56 in logistics, #2 in Mississippi, and #2 in the Memphis Metro, I was even more impressed.
As a founder, it often feels like you aren’t doing enough. Every win just moves the yardstick further. I immediately started thinking, “How are we going to make the list again next year?” 2022 was our major growth year. To rank on a three-year growth rate from 2022 to 2025 is not going to be nearly as impressive if we don’t land some new accounts. 2023 and 2024 were my metamorphosis years where I focused more on stability and operations than sales. We still grew, but not at the rapid rate we had before. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was living in the gap.
Several months prior, my husband had given me The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. He had read it and highly recommended it, but I never made the time to pick it up. A few weeks ago, I finally started it. That was when I realized I had just achieved this huge honor I’d been working toward for nearly 20 years, and instead of appreciating and celebrating it, I was already focused on how to get on the list again next year. I was in the gap instead of recognizing the gain.
I’ve come so far in eight years. The company I purchased looked nothing like the one I own today. We are a successful bi-coastal 3PL built on values and committed to delivering exceptional service, savings, and scalability to our clients. Our status on the Inc 5000 doesn’t change that. Maybe we’ll make the list again next year, and maybe we won’t, but we did make it this year and that’s something worth celebrating.
– Kelsey Hensley