President Bill Clinton addresses @inc500 conf thru video
5:42 AM Oct 1st via TweetDeck

Gary Hirshberg CEO – Stonyfield Yogurt

Should be good! RT @inc5000: Today’s 1st session is starting! Gary Hirshberg, the CE-YO from Stoneyfield at #inc500conferenece!

Stonyfield Yogurt is up to $360 million in sales now. Gary going to go over his philosophy on triple bottom line.
5:47 AM Oct 1st

Churchill quote “success is the ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”
5:49 AM Oct 1st

If the rest of the world adopted USA energy and total consumption, we’d need 5 Earths to be able to handle it.
5:52 AM Oct 1st

67% of Americans are obese or overweight. Just like the environment, unintentional actions lead to disastrous effects.
5:56 AM Oct 1st

Stonyfield first 9 years to get to $4m revenue and barely unprofitable. Never got venture money. Grew with cradle to cradle thinking.
6:04 AM Oct 1st

9 carbon footprint teams – transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable packaging, etc
6:08 AM Oct 1st via TweetDeck

Real sustainability is about innovation not just Eco efficiency
6:11 AM Oct 1st

@inc5000 Gary hirshberg, stonyfield yogurt CEO. Cradle to cradle = no waste. Highly profitable, requires a little investment up front.
6:15 AM Oct 1st

Organic cows live twice as long as conventional cows. Whoda thunk that?
6:21 AM Oct 1st

The challenge: stonyfields gross margins are 10 percent less than competitors. Better net margins from less advertising.
6:25 AM Oct 1st

Stonyfield lids talk about their causes. Huge customer loyalty. Advocacy.
6:27 AM Oct 1st

Stonyfield is deeply engaged in PR and social media. This year- 4 billion media impressions.
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:33:56

Mollusks take calcium carbonate from their environment to make their homes. Humans will need to do this with carbon.
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:38:33

Kevin Surace CEO – Serious Materials

@inc5000 next speaker Kevin Surace of Serious Materials rethinking an industry retrofitting homes and building with Eco drywall
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:44:24

Kevin surace – Inc. Magazine entrepreneur of the year. Need to identify a big problem. For him: climate change.
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:51:34

Today- only 0.4% comes from wind and solar. Everything else is coal, oil, and others.
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:54:45

Ecorock tackles the problem that 40% of total world energy usage is in building energy inefficiancy.
Fri Oct 01 2010 06:57:33

QuietRock is 5x more than drywall but total installed cost was actually quite a bit less.
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:02:39

People advice- look at hiring people outside your industry who look at a problem differently. Take company to next level
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:04:37

Your customers will not go with you just because you are green. Got to save them money. Most important.
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:07:22

Serious Materials replaced out all windows on the Empire State building with high Rsquared value windows. 6500 windows, saves $28m.
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:09:53

Everyone says they are innovative, but to truly disrupt an industry is really really hard.
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:11:47

Apple is most well known example as a disruptor. iPod was 50th digital music player in the market, but did it uniquely.
Fri Oct 01 2010 07:13:44

Serious Materials CEO is PR genius by buying shutdown doors and windows manufacturing plants and partnering with unions. Moving fast.
7:27 AM Oct 1st

Tim Westergren Founder – Pandora

Pandora founder Tim Westergren speaking now @inc5000 conference. Very psyched to hear his story of going broke then $100m rev this year.
7:36 AM Oct 1st

By end of 2001, over 50 Pandora employees worked for free. It stayed that way for 2 years. Founder had $200k personal debt. Got $9m VC in 04
7:46 AM Oct 1st

Tried it as a subscription model, but people didn’t want to pay. Pandora now has 65 million users in US. 100k new users per day @inc5000
7:49 AM Oct 1st

@pandora – your founder talking now about responsiveness to real human listeners. Do u engage on Twitter?
7:55 AM Oct 1st

Washington dc political process nearly shut down pandora due to Internet levy on streaming music. 400k faxes to congress in 3 days. Saved.
8:04 AM Oct 1st

Radio is 85% of how people consume music. Biggest $ part of industry. Pandora makes money thru advertising. Cash flow positive, but not prof
8:10 AM Oct 1st

Pandora 90k artists. 70% independent. @inc5000
Fri Oct 01 2010 08:12:44

@inc5000 panel “inside the mind of an investor”. Only 500 actine VCs in country. As entrepreneur, still need to be selective
Fri Oct 01 2010 09:19:41

Danny Meyer – New York City restaurateur and CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group

@inc5000 current speaker is Danny meyer of the famous NYC restaurant Gramercy Tavern
Fri Oct 01 2010 11:58:01

51% of your success is how you make customers feel. 49% is the technical delivery of your products and services. Hospitality is adapting to
Fri Oct 01 2010 12:19:48

Jean Chatzky – Author of “The Difference”

@inc5000 speaker now is Jean Chatzky, author of “the difference”. Anyone can prosper even in toughest times.
Fri Oct 01 2010 12:48:23

As an entrepreneur, Jean knows company owners think often about finances, but how structured are we in our thinking?
Fri Oct 01 2010 12:58:47

#inc500 Human nature in personal finance is to be over-confident about our future finances.
Fri Oct 01 2010 13:03:12

3 traits of financially secure people: Habitual savings, diversified investing, and …
Fri Oct 01 2010 13:11:34

Money doesn’t bring happiness. Statistically, happiness attracts money and success in all stages of life.
Fri Oct 01 2010 13:18:53

Saturday, Oct 2 – Day 2
#inc500 First session on virtualization and cloud computing is a bit of an infomercial for Dell.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:11:29

RT @IncMagazine: “Giving entrepreneurs better access to capital would have been No. 1 way to get us out of the economic downturn.” S. Felice
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:12:54

Steve Felice word of advice is to not wait so long to get international experience. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:41:03

John Gerzema says the great recession could be the best thing for america. Underlying sense of optimism. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:43:31

Based on a huge study on American spending habits, there is a major shift from mindless to mindful purchases
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:44:51

Author of “Spendshift” says American consumers collectively saying “if you want to sell to me, you better have my back”.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:46:51

Shift happened in 2005 from superficial stuff to authentic, craft-driven meaningful products. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:48:23

RT @IncEvents: Final Day @ Inc. 500 conference! Listen to @johngerzema talk about Decoding the New Consumer right now.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:49:57

Trends since 2005 – fewer logos on new clothing, more volunteerism, retooling empowerment betterment, people becoming self-reliant.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:52:38

Lots more Americans, even in Dallas, have backyard chickens. Fascinating that this defines a trend.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:54:44

Time banks is a cool concept. You give time as a guitar teacher and I give back by doing yardwork. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:56:23

Spend Shift trend – badge of awesomeness – creativity but keeping it simple and frugal and Eco. Nimble, adaptable.
Sat Oct 02 2010 06:58:54

50% of mellenials don’t have a land line, bookrenter.com, neighborgoods.com. Use hulu.com and don’t pay for tv cable #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 07:02:40

Recyclebank – works like frequent flyer miles for rewarding recycling. Trend towards uber-local support #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 07:06:43

Simplicity example – Shoebox banking. Put all your personal financial statements in a shoebox and bank figures it all out for u #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 07:08:52

We are moving from a credit to a debit society. The $ that we are spending today is really ours. More selective, mindful consumption.
Sat Oct 02 2010 07:13:34

America is an emerging market for values-led innovation. Future is bright. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 07:14:41

Hilarious zappos video about the “happiness bus” playing at #inc500conferenece. 3 month happy bus tour
Sat Oct 02 2010 08:54:06

I gotta check out the happy bus outside the Gaylord resort Hotel here #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 08:57:55

Tony Hsieh CEO – Zappos

Tony Hsieh speaking now. Glad he is adapting his presentation from last year #inc5000. Happy bus coming to Portland in 6 weeks
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:02:27

RT @IncMagazine: “I sold LinkExchange because it wasn’t fun anymore…the company culture went down.” says Tony Hsieh @zapppos #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:02:40

New zappos record for longest phone call. 7 1/2 hours. What if you need to go to bathroom? #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:10:44

Zappos Call center people are trained to check pricing with 3 competitors and tell customer to go with less $ competitor product
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:13:04

Nice! RT @sandydlc: #zappos saved me for inc conference gala outfit. Ordered sandals Monday, arrived Tuesday, flight early Thursday #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:16:02

Growing zappos brand over next few years – clothing, customer service, culture #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:17:45

Two books in Zappos giving library – Good to Great, Tribal Leadership. Important findings #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:20:37

Commitable core values – doing a google search on any 1 of 10 core values – zappos shows up #1. Unique. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:23:39

Luck is really about being open to opportunities. More perspective than fact #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:25:29

Zappos has 1500 vendors that have total access to info in zappos extranet #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:28:31

Great companies had really strong cultures and all had a higher purpose. Chase the vision, not the money #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:33:27

Zappos took the high human touch approach, not high tech approach.
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:37:35

2009 timing of when zappos vision became broader to “delivering happiness”. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:38:48

What is your goal in life? Ultimately, it’s to be happy and fulfilled. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:49:42

Happiness framework – perceived control, perceived progress, vision #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:51:37

To build enduring, great companies, you need profits, passion, purpose. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 09:55:46

Norm Brodsky #inc5000 talk on sales -listen to your customer, take responsibility, everybody sells
Sat Oct 02 2010 11:31:31

Learn from others. What you like. What you don’t like. Borrow others ideas and embellish them. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 11:33:46

Hire salespeople who want to stay with the company forever. Right attitude is everything. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 11:46:04

Norm Brodsky – some of the best suggestions come from employees. Put up a suggestion box and use it! #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 11:54:02

The real question is “why are we doing this?” prioritize. Need to write down your life plan. Do that with your wife. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 12:06:18

Norm says you have 48 hours to put things you’ve learned into action or you won’t do it. #inc5000
Sat Oct 02 2010 12:12:58

Great black tie #inc5000 awards ceremony tonight!
Sat Oct 02 2010 17:02:43

One more photo from Gaylord resort in wash dc. Schwanky. http://yfrog.com/16vonyj 5:57 PM Sep 23rd from Tweetie

#inc5000 conf starting now. Largest attendance ever at 1,700 of us. Aggregate rev of $214 billion http://yfrog.com/0nxn1jj 6:14 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Tony hsieh of zappos.com about to keynote on topic of the science of happiness. Transformative to hear it at #sxsw. Now at #inc5000  6:20 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@zapposceo telling story of pizza co to online advertising to investing in startups, bored with investing, took on CEO role at zappos  6:25 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

All about customer service. Marketing dollars mainly go to cust svce so customers spread love via word of mouth  6:28 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@zappos did over $1 billion last year. All about delivering wow. Lots of surprise overnight ups upgrades. Package shows up 8 hrs later  6:31 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

50% of performance review is about fit with company culture and values @zappos  6:33 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zappos is about delivering happiness in a box to employees and customers. Core values shouldbe something you base hiring and firing  6:39 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Luck is about being open to new opportunities  6:40 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Book recomendation- Tribal Leadership  6:43 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

The big question: what is your goal in life? Ultimately to be happy and fulfilled  6:50 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Perceived control, progress, connectedness, vision and meaning  6:56 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zappos.com Tony Hsieh @zappos says you can email him for the pres but you can DL it from inc500conference.com next week (via @IncEvents)  6:58 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Randall grahm describes how everyone told him not to do wine cafe in his vineyard but he did it. Great intimate connections with customers  7:21 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Robert Johnson who sold BET for $3 billion a few years ago. Speaking about what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur  7:23 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 Robert Johnson talks about a cool concept in philanthropy called clubcharity.com  8:48 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 panel innovation: fostering it, managing it, profiting from it. David freedman moderator  8:51 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Founders of Emotiv, Atari, chuckie cheeses, and Heartland Robotics #inc500. Excited for this innovation panel  8:54 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

So many innovative projects fail because people fall into trap of taking negative feedback from nearly everyone because couldn’t visualize  9:05 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Panel pic Nolan says politics is the killer of innovation. So easy to say no. Need to breed rebels http://yfrog.com/0git2hj  9:27 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Without a champion, ideas are worthless. Need to share ideas openly because it’s all about implementation  9:39 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Ian and cal with Wexley School for Girls on stage now. Old agency model is dead.  11:50 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Don’t worry first about Twitter or facebook or radio buy. Worry about spending 90% energy on the idea  11:54 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 Ian and cal showing short film winner take steve. Classic. Not sure if random humor lost on this crowd. Regardless, great stuff  11:59 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Scott Griffith of Zipcar tells a story of transformation #inc500 http://yfrog.com/0snpbj 12:02 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zipcar transformation all about turning a political movement into a big company. Car sharing really gaining steam #inc500  12:05 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Bob williamson describes a really rough first 24 years of life, then went on to start 9 companies, sold Horizon software for $75M  1:37 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 williamson got started at the bottom in the paint industry. Alcholic and drug addict. Credits his success to faith and work ethic  1:40 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Life is like a ping pong ball. It goes up and down. Williamson. #inc500  1:42 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Jill Strahan of Tastefully Simple advice: just start, know where you’re going, don’t stop. #inc500  1:53 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Share your dream with your customers. For Jill, it was being as large as pampered chef. Dream it. Believe it. Work it.  1:56 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Fear is the gatekeeper to strength. It’s like building muscle. Rip it down, then grows stronger after day of rest. Repeat.  1:59 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

The soul will not show us what we cannot handle. Jill Strahan. #inc500  2:00 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Hang out with the sunshine people  2:02 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Listening to Herman chinery-Hesse, the bill gates of Ghana. Many ghanians didn’t believe it was possible to start software co there  2:09 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Herman started with small business clients. Some told him to go to hell. He proved the biz model and grew fast with multinational orgs  2:11 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@mark_lawler thx holmes. Definitely getting inspired and learning a lot @inc500  2:13 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie in reply to mark_lawler

#inc500 Jim Collins dynamically takes the stage. How to thrive in these crazy times http://yfrog.com/0hvjlj  5:52 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jim Collins is so engaging that I can’t tweet fast enough. I will blog it later  6:01 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jim Collins – best presenter I’ve ever seen. Wow. Hugely relevant and powerful conversation with this passionate audience #inc500   7:23 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

What is the secret to success? What is your definition? Barry Griswell, the adversity paradox, Principal Group CEO. #inc500  7:31 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Adversity is like a crucible. Going thru it often builds character. The adversity paradox – self accountability, be positive, and then some  7:34 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Who you are matters most. No substitute for hard work. Purpose takes the work out of work.  7:40 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

The power of knowledge and lifetime learning is transforming. A mirror is the most important tool. Introspection  7:44 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

David Neeleman, founder of jet blue airways and CEO of Azul now takes the stage #inc500  8:17 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jet blue was founded to be a customer service company. Key is flawless execution. David emailed all customers to apologize for 6 min wait  8:25 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Your people need to love, absolutely adore where they work. Takes enormous amount of focus on culture to create employee evangelists

Customers feel that tangible element of employees loving that company

Make it right with the customer even if it’s more expensive to fix the mistake to keep the loyalty there

The 6 hour delay on icy NY tarmac. Jet blue got all the bad press because people expected more of jet blue. $34 million in free flights

Does your company matter? If it was plucked from the earth, who would care?

I am a Z. #inc500. Scary

Keith Ferrazzi is damn good on stage. Everyone in the room is in sales.

This year, we achieved #1,876.  It’s hard to believe that we have grown 169.7% over the past 3 years.  Actually, it’s not that much of a stretch – we’ve worked our asses off to do great work and push the ball forward.  We were also awarded #30 in the Portland Metro Area, we share the list with others like EthicsPoint, R2C Group and even Papa Murphy’s International.

The top 10 ranged from advertising & marketing to logistics & transportation but the business who earned the crown was insurance.  Miami’s Northern Capitol Insurance topped the list with 19,812.2% growth and $95 million in revenue.  Their business model changed from one of accommodating a more narrow margin of well-off home buyers to one that was focused on managing risk for large groups of re-insurers.  The foresight to change their path greatly helped them achieve the #1 company status.  Another great example of working to the market was #3 Harley Stanfield.  They used a model of sustainable housing and flexible ownership for the unstable housing market.

This September 24-25, I’ll be in Washington D.C. at the Inc. 5000 Conference – I know some friends of mine from Brass Media and Ethics Point will be there.  How about you?  Let me know if I’ll see you there.  It’s my 3rd time going to this conference and get a ton of value from it every year.  I highly recommend it.

Panasonic & fly a plane on AA batteries
One woman’s comment: Even of if I was the biggest Panasonic competitor, I’d want that plane to fly

Doing good begets doing Good.

Patient Experience – fully get into shoes of customer

1) Happy People unabashedly doing Happy Things
Teamuriggly-putting smiles on people’s faces, no consequences

2) Zappos core values, twitter, zappos.com (After two weeks, offer $2,000 to quit)

Best Buy- like TiVo for your work. Employees are being given permission to be people

1) You need to create a culture of contribution

2) Forget symphonies. Enable jazz= improvise + create your own melody

3) There is no B2B or B2C. Become P2P (person to person); small allows you to behave like human beings.

Going off script and doing something HUMAN
– Start obsessing about ROC (Return on Customers)
– Welcome to the Zappos Experience
– Change one part of your language. Track it “re-schedule appointments” to “broken promises” – 10% down to 3%

Community, Family, Team, Collaboration (NOT Staff, Policy, Training)

Bhutan created the Gross National Happiness Index – super important

Traditional Green perspective – The more eco-friendly, the more expensive
The larger stores like Walmart & Target are leading the way for more than Whole Foods, etc.

Bottles (Plastic)
Revsed Virgin 30% Recycled Compostable
$0.02 $0.05 $0.07 $0.15

Our products must be: Better, Cheaper, Greener

Pre-Consumer/Post-Consumer (overprint CDs/DVDs), 75% of gift cards never leave warehouse

70lbs waste was produced to make 1lb of waste

99% of what you buy is waste in 6 months

Waste is America’s biggest export

Key is to separate waste

CapriSun- 4.5 billion drink pouches per year

Terra Cycle gets paid to collect the waste (profitable) becauses it is branded

Sort, Sanitize, Waste in Trenton, NJ – then gets flown to Mexico & gets sewn there

Revenue: 3M -> 8M -> 15M

What are the solutions for retailers for greent?
Working with big brands to create creative solutions

You have to evaluate on first two- Better, Cheaper (prove ROI) BTW-it’s Green

Do NOT sell on the virtue of being green. Green is the assumed baseline now. It’s the gravy on top.

Recycle Bank- give credits/$ coupons for recycling more. They’ve increased recycling rate from 20% to 90% in some small cities.

If I can collect enough of 1 thing, it creates value. Lock up I own these waste streams.

BILL McDONOUGH- Cradle to Cradle (Upcycling vs. Downcycling)

Natural Foods Tradeshow, Expo West, Expo East
• Tiny consumer products & companies inspire to be in Whole Foods
• People who are authentically green who don’t work with big brands/retailers

Question: In Germany, charge a lot for garbage to consumers and retailers

Clorox – Green Works – owned the market by being same low price and green

All purpose cleaner- same exact stuff as all the other stuff

So, here’s what we had to say in our press release:

“eROI Ranks No. 1142 on the 2008 Inc. 5,000 With Three-Year Sales Growth of 327.6%

NEW YORK, August 20, 2008 – Inc. today ranked eROI No. 1142 on its annual ranking of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country. The list is the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy – America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Taken as a whole, these companies represent the backbone of the U.S. economy.

“Our second annual Inc. 5000 continues the most ambitious project in business journalism,” said Inc. 5000 Project Manager Jim Melloan. “The Inc. 5000 gives an unrivaled portrait of young, under-reported companies across all industries doing fascinating things with cutting-edge business models, as well as older companies that are still showing impressive growth.”

eROI provides online resources for marketing strategies–including websites, email campaigns, blogs and social networking sites–to small businesses as well as Fortune 500 marketing managers. Why are they growing so fast? eROI extends itself to work with clients even after the job is done by giving them the online tools to continue their efforts on their own. Oregon Business magazine named CEO and founder Ryan Buchanan one of the 50 Great Leaders for Oregon. Buchanan is also President of the Board of the Portland Advertising Federation.”

Read the full press release on eroi.com >>

See the eROI profile on inc.com >>