Astutant Group

Arun Parameswaran, 24, and Arjun Parameswaran, 22
www.astutantgroup.com
Fort Myers, Fla.

Then:
Arun Parameswaran and his brother, Arjun, had acquired different accounting firms and outsourced much of the work to India. Arun estimated that the various services, such as accounting sites Budgetax.com and Astutant.com, along with medical billing firm Accumed, would bring in $4 million in revenue for 2008, and he set his sights on $100 million in revenues by 2014.

Now:
"Not a lot has changed," says Arun, now 24. Internally, the business has focused on converting its accounting operations into a more efficient systems-based model that relies less on individual people and more on a standardized method—think accounting meets McDonalds, he says. Also, with health care and payroll costs going up by about 15% a year, Arun says that he has been moving several of his U.S. employees up to do higher-level jobs, while still outsourcing the more basic work to lower-cost employees overseas. He's on target for 2008 but has revised his target date for $100 million in revenues from 2014 to 2015, adding: "I'm still enjoying my business as much as I did five years ago."

next slide previous slide