Just been digging through some solid growth stories from back in 2021, and honestly, the thesis behind these plays still holds up. The secular trends that were accelerating then—cloud computing, digital payments, online advertising—those didn't stop. Worth revisiting what made these best stocks for 2021 actually work.

There's something about identifying growth stocks early in their cycle that separates winners from the rest. Back then, everyone was chasing the obvious mega-cap tech names like Amazon and Alphabet, but the real opportunities were often hiding in plain sight among smaller growth plays that had just started their run.

Take Semrush as an example. This was a company solving a real problem—helping businesses dominate their online presence when digital marketing was becoming non-negotiable. They posted 58% YoY revenue growth to $45 million in that quarter, yet somehow SEMR wasn't getting the attention it deserved despite being up 40% in a month. The thing that impressed me was how they evolved from a point solution into a full platform. That's the mark of best stocks for 2021 candidates—companies that keep expanding their moat by adding exactly what customers needed.

Then there was Upstart. Personal lending through AI was still a novel concept, but their numbers were absolutely bonkers. Revenue up over 1,000% YoY. The kicker? They were already profitable while growing like crazy. Most high-growth tech companies burn cash for years, but Upstart was different. They even raised $400 million in convertible debt at just 0.25% interest—that's the kind of capital efficiency that lets you scale aggressively.

And NVIDIA was doing NVIDIA things—absolutely crushing it across data centers, gaming, AI workloads. Q2 revenue of $6.51 billion up 68% YoY, gaming segment alone up 85%. They were launching new platforms like Omniverse and expanding their AI enterprise offerings. When a company that size maintains triple-digit growth in specific segments, that's worth paying attention to.

The common thread? These weren't random picks. They were best stocks for 2021 because they had blowout earnings, strong balance sheets, and management teams clearly executing on long-term vision. The revenue acceleration, the margin expansion, the product innovation—all the fundamentals were firing.

Looking back, the real lesson isn't about those specific stocks. It's about how to identify growth stocks that actually matter. Strong fundamentals, secular tailwinds, management execution—that framework was solid then and it's still solid now. If you're building a watchlist of best stocks to buy, those criteria haven't changed.