Past Entrepreneur 360 Honorees Share Their Best Success Advice and Growth Strategies The fifth annual Entrepreneur 360 List will be released Oct. 1. This week, we're looking back at last year's honorees.

In 2015, Entrepreneur launched an annual search for the most entrepreneurial companies in America: the Entrepreneur 360™. It was an ambitious undertaking: inviting companies to apply, factoring in their impact, innovation, growth, leadership and value and creating a proprietary algorithm to rank them based on not only revenue but also the degree to which they're well-rounded. The list aims to spotlight the foremost leaders among entrepreneurs today. In 2018, it expanded to Singapore and India.

In honor of the fifth year of Entrepreneur 360™, we're focusing in on all the things that make a small business fully dynamic -- a 360-degree operation, both in terms of revenue growth and company culture. To do that, we're looking back on honorees from last year and asking them about their definitions of success, their best strategies for retaining both employees and customers and the challenging obstacles that turned into business breakthroughs.

"Our annual evaluation of vetted data offers a 360-degree analysis of top privately-held companies across a multitude of industries," said Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur. "They are deemed successful not only by revenue numbers, but by how well-rounded they are. The companies that make the list have pushed boundaries with their innovative ideas, fostered strong company cultures, impacted their communities for the better, and increased their brand awareness."

For one 2018 honoree, bedding company Malouf, a strong social mission is key to customer and employee loyalty. "The same principles of how we treat people inside the organization apply to how we treat people outside the organization," said co-founder and CEO Sam Malouf. "To keep consumers invested in your brand, stand for something that's bigger than business and bigger than money."

Anil Sharma, CEO of another 2018 honoree, IT service firm 22nd Century Technologies, said that hiring people that you deem more talented than yourself is key to success: "I follow the principle of leaders creating more leaders."

Keep an eye out for the fifth annual Entrepreneur 360™ list, scheduled for release on Oct. 1, 2019.