Houston banking company Allegiance Bancshares may have burst onto the national stage with an IPO in 2015, but founders George Martinez and Steve Retzloff want the company to focus on doing business in Texas. Allegiance operates almost exclusively in the Houston metropolitan area. The company deals primarily with small and medium-size businesses and consumers. Staying local has worked out well so far, but should Houston’s economy take a hit (as it has in early 2016 from falling oil prices), the company could find itself in trouble. To grow its community footprint, Allegiance is directing its efforts toward identifying and acquiring other banks in Houston. Note: employee count as of Dec. 31, 2015

This eleven-year-old file-sharing and content-management company was Inc.'s 2013 Company of the Year--and now it's made the 2017 Founders 10 list by keeping its focus narrow. With more than 71,000 enterprise customers, the Redwood City, California-based company innovates by carefully picking its targets and listening to a select group of customers. "We have a very fast feedback loop with that small set of customers," says co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie. "And as they adopt the next innovation, it will ripple through the customer base."

In 2005, Frank Sorrentino III founded North Jersey Community Bank (now known as ConnectOne Bank), which provides a variety of commericial and consumer banking services. The company emphasizes its community roots, billing itself as "a better place to be" for its local customers, who are predominantly in New Jersey. However, doing business primarily in one state has its drawbacks--especially when the state is hit hard. For example, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the company saw an increase in loan delinquencies. But the company believes that by continuing to emphasize high-quality service, it will maintain a strong and loyal relationship with its customers. 

Larry Webb, Wayne Stelmar, Joseph Davis, and Tom Redwitz founded their real estate development business, the New Home Company, in August 2009, just as the U.S. housing market was beginning on the long road to recovery from the recession of the previous two years. New Home Company designs and builds homes across California and Arizona, and says the key to its success has been its knowledgeable management team (each of the co-founders has at least 20 years experience in the real estate business). But operating mostly in California has its risks--should the local economy take a hit, New Home Company could find itself in a crisis of its own. To protect itself against a downturn, the company says that it is taking a "disciplined" approach to acquiring land for new developments. Note: employee count as of Dec. 31, 2015

Ad tech firm TubeMogul, co-founded by Brett Wilson and John Hughes, provides an all-in-one platform for clients who wish to create video ads and then track the success of those advertising campaigns across desktop and mobile devices. As more consumers watch videos on devices other than televisions, TubeMogul believes that its ability to provide real-time analytics will set it apart from other video ad tech competitors. However, for most of the company's history, the majority of TubeMogul's revenue has come from advertisers who are creating ads for desktops; the company could soon find itself needing to catch up with competitors who already focus on mobile. TubeMogul hopes to increase its revenue over the next few years by adding digital advertising capabilities for other formats, such as social media. Note: employee count as of Dec. 31, 2015