Nevada’s presence wanes in Inc. 5000

Looks like Les Silver discovered a recession-proof business.

Silver is chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas-based Service Repair Solutions, a software company that helps auto mechanics troubleshoot diagnostic problems. Service Repair Solutions has assembled a list of 400,000 car symptoms and fixes based on six years' worth of calls befuddled technicians have placed to the company's hotline when they couldn't pinpoint the source of a car's troubles. The online database has grown popular with mechanics around the country who need advice on a repair.

And that's been a pretty good line of work in the last few years, says Inc. magazine.

Service Repair Solutions is one of 33 Nevada businesses landing this week on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies from 2005 to 2008. Sales for Service Repair Solutions jumped 310.4 percent in three years, rising from $10.3 million to $42.3 million. That performance made the company No. 986 on the Inc. roster.

Silver credited his company's success to three factors. First, cars come with more gadgets and computers than ever, so mechanics need some extra help with repairs. Also, consumers keep their cars longer, as they opt for repairs rather than purchasing new cars. Finally, the credit crunch and the recession have made it tougher for consumers to qualify for or afford loans on new cars, so drivers often must fix rather than buy.

Even if individual companies such as Service Repair Solutions still find growth opportunities in the struggling local economy, the overall Inc. 5000 list holds hints that growth here has flagged.

The number of Nevada companies on the Inc. 5000 has remained steady, coming in at 31 in 2007 and 33 today. But Nevada's presence in the rarefied top 500 has contracted noticeably.

Four Nevada companies made the Inc. 500 in 2007, while eight state businesses made the list in 2008. The latest edition features just two Nevada companies.

What's more, growth rates for Nevada's best-performing companies slowed considerably. Two companies saw sales rise more than 13,000 percent in 2008, and still more posted sales increases of around 2,000 percent. The average growth rate in 2008 clocked in at 4,690 percent. Compare that to 2009: The state's top grower, real estate brokerage Realty ONE Group, boosted revenue by 1,024.3 percent, from $101.7 million in 2005 to $1.1 billion in 2008.

The only other Nevada business to make the top 500 was HealthDataInsights, an information-technology business that helps insurers, health plans and Medicare recover claim overpayments. The company ranked No. 427.

Service Repair Solutions could see additional sales growth in coming years. The company has 700 car-dealer clients out of 17,000 dealers nationwide, and it serves 20,000 repair shops out of a national market of 200,000.

"There's still a lot of space for us. We've penetrated only a small part of the market," Silver said.

To qualify for the list, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by the first week of 2005. They also need to be privately held, for profit and independently owned. Revenue must have been at least $200,000 in 2005 and at least $2 million in 2008.

To see the complete list, visit www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/the-full-list.html

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.