5 Growth Lessons From the CEO of a 12x Inc. 5000 Company

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5 Growth Lessons From the CEO of a 12x Inc. 5000 Company

By Ali Donaldson | Inc Magazine | Feb 20, 2024

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AffiniPay, a company that provides professional payment services for lawyers, accountants, engineers, and architects as well as legal case management software, has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 for 12 consecutive years. Over the past three years–which was rough for fintechs as the industry seesawed from venture capital darling to valuation cuts and tepid deal flow–the company grew revenue by 182 percent. Still, after more than a decade of generating outsize returns, CEO Dru Armstrong says AffiniPay, which launched in 2005, has no intention of slowing that trajectory anytime soon.   Armstrong recently shared five of her growth hacks for other entrepreneurs and CEOs. 

1. Invest in a top-notch CFO.  Armstrong’s No. 1 piece of advice for other corporate leaders: Hire an amazing CFO. Any business strategy has to “pencil out” in terms of your company’s balance sheet, both in the short and the long term, she says. Product teams can gather all the market and customer data they want, but it’s not valuable without a CFO’s ability to harness the information toward the underlying financial goals: increasing revenue growth and profit margins.
2. Find customers through trusted channels.  Especially for other B2B companies, Armstrong recommends finding customers through their trusted channels. For AffiniPay, that means leaning on professional associations–both online and off. The company targets its digital marketing efforts toward social media industry groups, mostly on LinkedIn. Offline, the company got endorsed by 50 state bar associations and 42 certified professional accountant societies, and Armstrong says that has been a tremendous source of new clients.
3. Know when to build and when to partner.  “Our goal is not to be great at everything, but it’s to be great at this core financial system of record, business management capabilities, and then find other great partners that are solving similar problems, but in their swim lane,” she says.  Armstrong adds, “​​The challenge for startups is finding the specific use cases where you justify being a separate product.”
4. Be alert to acquisition opportunities.  Sometimes the answer is neither build nor partner; sometimes the right growth move is an acquisition. Armstrong decided to expand the company from financial management into full practice management, because the two areas were so intertwined for the company’s clients. 
5. Know when to leave.  One of the most difficult growth lessons that entrepreneurs can learn is knowing when to hand over the top job. Armstrong walked away from her own startup. That experience, she says, gave her a real sense of appreciation for how personal that transition process was for AffiniPay founder Amy Porter, when she hired Armstrong to take over as CEO.  “Oftentimes, the best founders operate on gut instinct, and when you’re a professional CEO coming in, sometimes what you can do best is actually bring data and data-driven strategy to bear to vet out some of the existing initiatives and priorities.”

3 key takeaways from the article

1. AffiniPay, a company that provides professional payment services for lawyers, accountants, engineers, and architects as well as legal case management software, has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 for 12 consecutive years. 
2. Over the past three years–which was rough for fintechs as the industry seesawed from venture capital darling to valuation cuts and tepid deal flow–the company grew revenue by 182 percent. Still, after more than a decade of generating outsize returns, CEO Dru Armstrong says AffiniPay, which launched in 2005, has no intention of slowing that trajectory anytime soon. 
3. Armstrong recently shared five of her growth hacks for other entrepreneurs and CEOs. These are: invest in a top-notch CFO, find customers through trusted channels, know when to build and when to partner, be alert to acquisition opportunities, and know when to leave.

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Topics:  Startup, Entrepreneurship