The Hot 500 rankings are compiled with the help of the Corporate
Research Board, a research organization. Entrepreneur and CRB
started with CRB's database of more than 10 million U.S. businesses
and considered only those businesses that met the following
criteria:
- Must have been founded no earlier than 1998 and no later
than 2002
- Company sales in 2002 must be $1 million or greater; 2006
sales must not exceed $1 billion
- Must have positive job growth between 2002 and 2006
- Must have a minimum levels of sales growth or a sales growth
quantifier of 1 or higher between 2002 and 2006; the growth
quantifier is a measurement that combines percentage and
absolute growth.
To be eligible, the founder must be actively involved in the
company, the company cannot be a spinoff or a division of a larger
company, and the company sales for 2006 must be at least $1 million.
From this list, the Hot 500 was selected.
