PEAK PERFORMANCE
TRIPLE TRIPLE DOUBLE DOUBLE DOUBLE
That’s the formula CEO Todd Olson followed to drive Pendo, the cloud-based software platform he co-founded in 2013, to $20.9 million in sales in just five years. Olson learned it from a VC who told him that category leaders—the kinds of companies that go public—triple revenue in the first two years after hitting $1 million, and then double it in each of the next three. “I can tell you that second triple was incredibly challenging,” says Olson, who pulled it off by restructuring Pendo’s team and rethinking his product marketing.
Now Olson, a serial entrepreneur with two prior companies under his belt—one failed, one acquired—has landed Pendo on the 2019 Inc. 500. It debuts at No. 73, with 4,267 percent three-year growth, and Olson wants to keep coming back. “People ask me, as CEO, what do you lose sleep over?” he says. “Growing slow.”
’s annual ranking of the country’s 500 fastest-growing private companies is like one of those cameras that capture light in motion. The 2019 class, which represents some of
