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No. 10
Revenue growth FY 2021 to 2023: 143.1%
2023 revenue: $18.9 million
The motto this year for GroundBreakers Hydrovac Excavation, President Andrea Sloan says, is “big enough to serve, small enough to care.” The company’s pace of growth has landed it on the Fast 25 for the second consecutive year. The company has expanded into Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois, with further growth on the horizon. Still, Sloan strives to work closely with her employees. “One of the things I always start off every meeting with is letting people know that I really appreciate everything they do day in and day out,” she says. “And if they ever need anything, my door’s always open. My phone is always on.”
Delivering more: Sloan credits part of the company’s success to relationships it has built with some key clients, including F.A. Wilhelm Construction, Duke Energy and AES Indiana. She says they appreciate the level of service GroundBreakers provides. In fact, some clients had a need for services Groundbreakers didn’t provide, such as hydro-jetting to clean drains and sewer lines and using CCTV cameras to inspect pipes. So Groundbreakers provides those services now, too.
The flywheel effect: Sloan points to what “Good to Great” author Jim Collins calls the flywheel effect for her company’s recent surge, despite being in business since 2011. The process of building a great company, Collins says, is like relentlessly pushing a giant flywheel, turn upon turn, until a point of breakthrough. You build a great culture, says Sloan, who became the company’s sole owner in 2021. You build a great reputation. You hire good people. “You’re pushing through, and then all of a sudden, it just becomes a flywheel,” she says. “And the momentum starts to pick up, and that’s really, I think, what we did.”
A “Pretty Woman” moment: Expansion has required capital. Each truck costs at least $600,000. When Sloan became majority owner in 2019, the company had nine trucks. It now has 42. Banks initially were reluctant to lend to her, she says. But she was persistent. Now, she says, banks approach her, which she says reminds her of the Julia Roberts shopping moment in the movie “Pretty Woman.” “I always want to go back to those banks and say, ‘You work on commission, right?’” … Big mistake. Big. Huge.•
Check out more of IBJ’s ranking of Indy’s fastest-growing companies.
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