As we prepare for the 2015 Austin A-List, we wanted to highlight some of our past A-Listers. The A-List aims to capture the breadth and depth of Austin’s innovation ecosystem for emerging, growth, and later stage companies. Our goal is to highlight as many great founders and thriving companies as we possibly can to help showcase Austin’s rich and diverse talent as we compete for global recognition and capital.

Today’s post features TrustRadius CEO, Vinay Bhagat. TrustRadius is changing the way that business software is bought and sold, by giving professionals free access to in-depth software reviews written by real users, curating reviews and data into valuable market reports, and providing a trusted vehicle for vendors to amplify their customer satisfaction.

\Why did you apply for A-List?

As an entrepreneur, I've chosen Austin as my base. It's a fantastic city to build a company and a great place to raise a family. My first company, Convio, thrived in Austin, employing 450 people, over 300 of which were in Austin at the time of our acquisition in 2012. As we built TrustRadius, we applied because we wanted to attract great talent and connect with Austin-based software companies that can benefit from being reviewed by their users on our site.

What do you think it means / what does it take to be the hottest start-up in Austin?

Being on the A-List was an important recognition for us and a great thing for our team members to share with their families. We want our team to be very proud of where they work. It came on the heels of being ranked the Fastest Growing Series A Backed Austin Startup by Mattermark. I believe that building a "hot startup" involves a few key elements. First, you need to be tackling a large, yet to-date unsolved or poorly-solved problem that can be monetized. Second, your proposed solution needs to be a good fit - that's probably the hardest thing to address and often takes multiple course corrections or pivots. Third, you need to build a great team that all excel at execution and work collaboratively together such that the sum of their contributions drives a multiplication effect. Fourth, you need to listen to your customers/your users, watch your competition and remain 100% intellectually honest about what's working and what you need to change.

How did A-List impact your business?

It's another arrow in our quiver to help attract great talent to join our team, and it's also been helpful in simply raising brand awareness in Austin.

How has your business grown since A-List? We've now collected over 13,000 detailed user reviews and ratings from authenticated software users across 1,300 products. Our traffic has doubled in the last 12 months with 137,000+ buyers running 92,500+ software comparisons every month.

Any advice for nominees this year?

Austin is a very supportive entrepreneurial environment. Find people you can learn from and give back as much as you can. Be responsive when others ask you for advice. Of course, you're running your business and that will take 99% of your focus, but raise your head sometimes and get other perspectives.