These 8 DC-area tech companies made Entrepreneur’s top 360 list

Entrepreneur, the magazine that celebrates small business, recently released a list of what they consider to be the 360 best small businesses America has to offer. And wouldn’t you know — some of #dctech’s own were among the companies named.
The list is not meant to showcase only companies that are growing really fast (we see you, Inc.) — it’s more of a congratulations to companies “that keep all their parts growing in harmony.” As such, each company on the list has been evaluated according to the metrics of impact, innovation, growth and leadership.
The moral of the story, Entrepreneur writes in an intro to the list, is “a reminder that nobody is perfect, but any entrepreneur can thrive if they get the balance right.” Aww.
Here’s who’s getting the balance right in the D.C. area:

1. NotionTheory: The product development firm that unveiled the east coast’s first VR arcade in August came in at #310 on the list.
2. HireKeep: D.C.’s “eHarmony for sales recruiting” won a spot at #349.
3. Centripetal Networks: This Herndon, Va.-based network security company was #36 in the country, according to Entrepreneur’s ranking.
4. Cynet Systems: At #60, Cynet’s “team of technical visionaries” helps other companies with IT and engineering consulting.
5. Click2Mail: In 2003, C2M developed web-based tools to help make the conventional mailing process easier. Now at #203 on Entrepreneur’s list, they’re still at it.
6. Monument Wealth Management: Now this one’s not so specifically tech, but Monument does private wealth management for entrepreneurs in the area, among others. So we decided to include the company that came in at #228 here.
7. AreaProbe: This 1776-based real estate analytics company came in at #296. We wrote about the company here.
8. BlueCart: BlueCart makes tech tools for restaurants and their suppliers and is #304 on Entrepreneur’s list.

So what should we make of this ranking? First of all, we at Technical.ly are always happy to see local companies get a national shoutout. That said, the Entrepreneur list has some methodological shortcomings that we’d be remiss not to mention.
Foremost of those problems is the fact that any company that appears on the list needed to apply ahead of time to be considered. This makes sense because it would be hard for Entrepreneur to gather a complete list of all small businesses in America, but it also means that companies need to know about the list in order to appear there.
And we’ve got to imagine that there are a fair amount of growing, “balanced” companies in D.C. and across the country that have simply never heard of Entrepreneur 360.