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Rosslyn-Based Advertising Firm Ranks As 13th Fastest-Growing Company in U.S.

By Anuj Khemka

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

(Updated 2:55 p.m.) Thirty Arlington companies made Inc. Magazine’s list of America’s 5,000 fastest-growing private companies, including one advertising firm made the top 15.

The featured companies had a median 3-year growth of 181%. There were 31 companies on the list last year.

Rosslyn-based advertising agency Olympic Media led the way, placing 13th. The company was founded in 2018 and has grown by 20,330% over the last three years. Olympic’s explosion in growth makes it the fastest-growing company in Virginia and the D.C. area, as well as the No. 1 advertising and marketing company on the list.

“We are honored to be included in such an esteemed list which serves a ‘who’s-who’ of American business,” said founder and CEO Ryan Coyne in a press release. “We started as a one-man operation in an office the size of a closet. Now we have over thirty employees making up four departments, all dedicated to our diverse clientele and to each other.”

Olympic Media CEO Ryan Coyne (courtesy of Olympic Media)

Olympic chalks its success up to its team and its business model. The company’s clientele consists of businesses, advocacy groups and conservative political campaigns.

“There is no getting away from the talent and dedication of the team we have been able to build — as cliche as that may sound,” Coyne said in a statement to ARLnow. “We really do emotionally invest in the success of our clients. Second to that, I think it’s a combination of our unique business model that better aligns incentives between ourselves and our clients — as well as word spreading about the success our clients have had.”

The team deserves being recognized as 13th on the list, given their success and dedication, he said.

“We had gotten some indication that we would be fairly high on the list (including some fairly invasive financial disclosures) but being the No. 1 Advertising & Marketing company in the nation was certainly higher than I had expected,” Coyne said. “It’s both a validation of our business model and work quality as well as a challenge for the team to keep pushing boundaries, taking risks and raising the bar.”

Olympic Media made local headlines in Maryland politics earlier this year for a viral ad campaign it promoted for Kimberly Klacik, a Republican Congressional candidate from Baltimore.

Klacik raised $8.3 million in donations. Citing campaign finance filings and her campaign manager, the Washington Post said Olympic charged $3.7 million for its services. Klacik later said the fees were for advertising on YouTube and Facebook, the Daily Caller reported. Olympic told the Daily Caller that anyone arguing the company itself pocketed that much money from the race is “a competitor, a moron, or a writer for the Washington Post.”

Of the other 29 companies, some have been featured in ARLnow, such as HUNGRY, Ostendio, C3 Integrated Solutions, SweatWorks and ThreatConnect, most of which made the list previously. It was the debut, however, for Ballston-based Hungry, which managed to grow despite the pandemic being a major headwind for its office and events catering business.

“Not only is it an incredible honor to receive a spot on the Inc. 5000 list, it’s a true testament to the hustle, grit, and smarts our team has displayed over the last year and half,” said HUNGRY Co-Founder and CEO Jeff Grass said in a press release. “Despite all the challenges we faced due to the pandemic, we’ve defied the odds — relying on great teamwork, superhuman accomplishments by many people across the team, and by staying true to our Core Value #4: Positivity.”

Other repeat honorees include 540.co, Enterprise Knowledge, Sehlke Consulting and IDS International Group.

The full list of Arlington companies is as follows:

MONA, Local Community Groups Scramble As Yahoo Groups Shutters

By Kalina Newman

Local groups including Mothers of North Arlington (MONA) and the Alcova Heights Community Association were left scrambling last week after Yahoo announced it would be shuttering its still-widely-used online messaging tool, Yahoo! Groups.

“This listserv was very valuable to the neighborhood,” said Mark Wigfield, the moderator for the Barcroft School & Civic League chat list (Bsclchat). “People [used it to] chat back and forth about hiring plumbers and carpenters, local issues, crime reports, ‘curb alerts’ for stuff they’re putting out on the curb for the taking, and more.”

As of today, some affected Arlington groups are steadily figuring out how to transition their organizations out of Yahoo and onto other platforms. Alcova Heights, for example, has already converted to using Google Groups.

Over the weekend, MONA board members unanimously voted to move their forums over to the email platform groups.io. MONA had used Yahoo! Groups since 2001 and has over 2,300 members.

“After a rigorous testing of groups.io by a special testing group we set up, we are confident and comfortable in our choice of the new, enhanced platform and feel this will be a change for the better,” said MONA President Mrinal Oberoi.

In 2014, MONA’s then-president resigned amid a backlash over transitioning the organization away from Yahoo! Groups.

Yahoo announced last week its plans to shut down its forums, giving its hundreds of thousands of members until Monday, October 28 — the original announcement said it would happen on October 21, but that date was later changed — to use the service. Users will then have until December 14 to access archived messages. Email functionality will remain, for now, but without attachments, archives and other features.

“I’m a little reluctant to let our archives disappear into the ether — I think [the] Bsclchat has been around for at least 20 years, so that’s a lot of history,” said Wigfield.

Across Arlington, social and community groups utilize listservs like Yahoo! Groups as a way to communicate and encourage discussions with residents and members. The message board functionality allows discussions to take place without a deluge of emails to subscribers.

Three Arlington Companies Break Top Ten in Washington Post Workplace Rankings

By Melanie Pincus

(Updated at 5:10 pm) Three Arlington Companies are among the top 10 midsize workplaces in the D.C. area, according to new rankings compiled by the Washington Post.

The companies — Promontory Interfinancial Network, Applied Predictive Technologies and Halfaker & Associates — were ranked based on feedback from a survey of employees.

The full list of Arlington companies on the Post’s annual rankings is below.

Large:

Midsize:

Small:

Appian, a Reston-based software company that ranked 57th among midsize companies last year, shot up to the number one spot for large companies.

Pupatella Named Best Pizza in Virginia

By ARLnow.com

Pupatella (photo via Google Maps)Pupatella is getting accolades for its Neapolitan style pizzas. A recently released list puts it at the top, compared to all other pizza joints in the state.

FlipKey.com, a TripAdvisor company, put together a list of “Best Pizza Worth Traveling For” and chose one pizza place for each of the 50 states. Arlington’s own Pupatella received the honors for Virginia.

A representative for FlipKey said the winners were chosen based on market research and traveler feedback.

The full list of the best pizza worth traveling for in each state is available online.

Last year, Pupatella won another ABBIE for being named the best pizza place in Arlington, and also made the Washington Post’s list of “40 dishes Washingtonians shouldn’t live without in 2013.”

Arlington Named One of the ‘Gayest Cities in America’

By Katie Pyzyk

LGBT rainbow flag (image via Wikipedia)Arlington is one of the most LGBT-friendly places in the country, according to The Advocate. The county has come in at number 10 on the magazine’s list of “Gayest Cities in America.”

Although it may seem surprising that Arlington would be ranked above areas with larger gay populations, such as San Francisco and New York City, it might make more sense when considering the non-traditional scoring process. The list compilers even note they looked for “hidden factors that give a city its queer cred” and that “It’s not all piano bars, gender-specific music festivals, and giant disco houses.”

Arlington scored low in a number of categories such as “Lesbian couple-headed households” and “Mariah Carey concert dates” but picked up a point for having a nearby Gay Rodeo association. Arlington also picked up three points for having gay local elected officials and 0.1 points for having gay state elected officials.

Additionally, The Advocate noted that Arlington is home to “popular gay bar and brunch spot Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant and gay-popular divey beer bar Galaxy Hut.”

The top three regions on the magazine’s list were Washington, DC; Pasadena, CA; and Seattle, WA. The full list can be found on The Advocate’s website.

Image via Wikipedia

Arlington Ranks as 7th Highest-Income County in U.S.

By ARLnow.com

MoneyArlington has the 7th-highest median income among U.S. counties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

At $99,255, Arlington’s median income ranked 7th out of 3,142 counties. However, Arlington ranked lower than some Washington area neighbors: #5 Fairfax County ($106,690), #4 Howard County, Md. ($108,234), #2 Loudoun County ($118,934) and #1 Falls Church ($121,250), which is an independent city but counted as a county by the Census Bureau.

“Metropolitan counties along the East Coast continued to have the highest median household income and lowest poverty in the country,” said the Census Bureau’s Lucinda Dalzell, in a press release. “Northern Virginia alone accounted for about one-fifth of the nation’s 50 highest-income counties.”

Last year, by a different Census Bureau survey, Arlington was ranked third in the nation for median household income, at $100,735. Earlier this fall Arlington ranked as the richest county in America in terms of median family income, at $137,216.

Arlington Ranks as Richest County in America

By Ethan Rothstein

MoneyArlington is the richest county in America, according to one metric measured by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Arlington’s median family income in 2012 was $137,216, putting the county comfortably in first place over the country’s second-richest county, Loudoun County (Va.), at $127,192.

Arlington’s median family income grew by more than $5,000 since 2011, when it stood at $131,890, and more than $10,000 since 2007, when it was $127,179.

Howard County (Md.), is the third-wealthiest county in America at $125,152, according to the Census Bureau, and Fairfax County (Va.) is fourth at $124,831. Montgomery County (Md.) ranks seventh, with a median family income of $113,588. In all, nine D.C. area counties had incomes above $100,000, the highest of any metropolitan area.

Arlington’s income data does come with the caveat of a $10,561 margin of error.

The census data differs from another commonly used ranking, median household income, which placed Arlington third in the nation, well behind Loudoun and Fairfax, based on 2011 data.

Report: Arlington Drivers Among Country’s Worst

By Katie Pyzyk

Arlington drivers are bad and getting worse, according to a new insurance company report.

Allstate released its annual “America’s Best Drivers Report,” which ranks the country’s 200 largest cities in terms of frequency of car collisions. The report is based on Allstate claims data.

Arlington ranked 12th on the worst drivers side, coming in at 53% more likely than the national average to be involved in a collision. That’s up from 14th worst in 2011 and 20th in 2010.

Some surrounding areas fared even worse, with Washington, D.C. topping the worst drivers list, Baltimore coming in second and Alexandria ranking at number seven.

The full “worst drivers” list can be found on Forbes.

File photo

Arlington Ranks as #11 ‘Top-Earning Town’ in U.S.

By ARLnow.com

Arlington is the 11th “top-earning town” in the nation, according to a new list compiled by CNN Money.

The ranking is based on Arlington’s $132,580 median family income. Arlington’s median home price is $485,000, according to CNN Money.

Two other D.C. suburbs ranked higher than Arlington. Bethesda, Md. was #1 with a median income of $184,606 and a median home price of $740,000. Ashburn, Va. is #6 with a median income of $146,093 and a median home price of $345,000.

As of 2010, the median annual household income in the U.S. was $50,221, and the median annual household income in Virginia was $59,330.

Arlington Listed High on “Creative Class” List

By Katie Pyzyk

(Updated at 3:05 p.m.) Arlington is near the top of a list highlighted in “The Atlantic” that features America’s top counties for the “creative class.”

The list is an excerpt from a recently released book, written on the belief that the role of creativity is on the rise in American society. It asserts that the creative class consists of around 40 million workers, or more than one-third of the total workforce. Examples of fields with high numbers of creative class professionals include management, education, science, architecture and media.

The list charts the concentration of the creative class by county (although several independent Virginia cities also made the list). Arlington County came in at number two, second only to Los Alamos County, New Mexico. A number of D.C.-area locales also made the list, including:

3. Falls Church, VA
4. District of Columbia
6. Alexandria, VA
8. Fairfax County, VA
9. Howard County, MD
10. Loudoun County, VA
11. Montgomery County, MD
12. Fairfax City, VA
15. Albemarle County, VA

The region also fared well on the list of states with high numbers of the creative class. The District came in first, Maryland is third and Virginia came in fifth.