“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.”
Loved this quote from one of our fastest-growing company top 10 recipients, Aydin CPA.
From reading the profiles of our top 10, it’s obvious that all of our recipients have pushed themselves beyond their comfort zones to pursue their dreams — and they’re seeing their businesses grow as a result.
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At the same time, it seems to me that they are well within their comfort zone when it comes to working hard and having a passion for what they do.
Still, running a fast-growing business takes more than passion. And this is where I was interested to see a couple of common themes among our top 10.
One was all around finding the staff needed to support growth and retaining those staff in today’s market. As Sampford Advisors says, “Being able to staff up with the right team members that fit the existing culture has always been our biggest challenge, but it was even more prevalent during COVID because of a lack of talent and how quickly we had to scale compared to previous years when we had time to anticipate staffing needs.” And this from Aydin, “Despite our excellent clientele growth, we didn’t have enough team members to meet the needs of our clients.”
Many of our top 10 recipients have shared great lessons learned on this topic.
Another theme was around culture. Food Cycle Science comments, “Maintaining our company culture is a crucial part of our growth strategy. We recognize that, as we scale, it becomes increasingly difficult to preserve the unique values and culture that helped to propel us to success in the first place.” Knak says, “We have a people first culture and have worked extremely hard to maintain this as we grow. We don’t want to lose what makes Knak such a special place to work.”
The importance of culture and its obvious ties to attraction and retention make for fascinating reading in these top 10 profiles.
Finally, there was the need for pivoting. The fast growth experienced by this year’s top 10 happened during one of the most tumultuous times in recent history: the COVID pandemic. Business models were changed on the fly and, as we emerge post-pandemic, must continue to evolve in fundamental ways. Purecolo says that, “As many companies are uncertain about the future in these market conditions, it has made it hard to grow, as we also need to grow responsibly and not just spend whatever it takes to grow.” Bushbalm adds that, “During COVID, the growth in e-commerce was rapid, but has reverted to the average in 2022. Our business was primarily focused on e-commerce, but we had to pivot to other channels.”
All these factors add up to a delicate balance. Hire fast, but maintain culture. Grow rapidly, but be prepared to change direction.
For our top 10, the comfort zone of hard work and passion is a beautiful place. But to truly grow at these exponential rates, they’ve had to step outside that zone and learn to manage whatever challenges come their way.
Here are six through 10. Tomorrow we’ll feature the top five.
6. Sidi.io
Growth rate: 426%
Last year’s rank: 7
Sidi.io is a performance and growth marketing firm focused on driving business results for clients.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
We have been focused on building the infrastructure to support our growth. The challenge we have faced is remaining nimble, efficient and people-centric while we grow. It is easy to get distracted by policies, procedures and processes. While those are necessary tools for building and maintaining a stable company, it is essential to put people, performance and profit at the core. With growth comes a slew of challenges and opportunities from which to learn.
What did you do to address it?
Remaining humble and maintaining a beginner’s mindset keeps us grounded, which is important to ensure we scale responsibly. We have levelled up tremendously as professionals by investing in training and leadership development. While it is imperative for any scaling company to build out its infrastructure, we have recognized that the people — our team, clients and partners — truly fuel our growth. We are doubling down on people and investing in their success, which in turn helps Sidi.io to thrive.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
As Sidi.io grows, it is of paramount importance for us to stay focused on our “why.” Our priority is to play a fundamental role in the revenue growth of our clients by effectively leveraging digital marketing to generate tangible business opportunities for them. By connecting our clients with their prospects, we are not only helping our clients to grow their business, we are also improving the quality of life of their customers. We have learned and are constantly reminded that being laser-focused on people directly correlates to rapid growth. The goal is to never lose sight of this as we continue to scale.
7. Aydin CPA Professional Corp.
Growth rate: 317%
Last year’s rank: new this year
Aydin is a small local CPA company in Stittsville.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
When we first started the business, it was mostly referral by word of mouth and demands were easily met as we were a small startup business. Once our company became more well-known over time, especially during tax seasons, our business development picked up speed with many new interested clients in our services, as well as current clients who are expanding in their operations with different needs. Despite our excellent clientele growth, we didn’t have enough team members to meet the needs of our clients.
What did you do to address it?
To meet the demands of our rapidly growing business, we expanded our team to ensure that our business would operate at its best. We worked hard and effectively, which is why we were able to accomplish this rapid growth. Being an entrepreneur requires love and passion because your performance will reflect these qualities. We have also fulfilled one of our goals to establish our own office to serve our clients to the best of our abilities. Determination has proven to us that goals can be achieved and that we will continue to achieve them as we grow.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
My biggest lesson learned is that life is full of surprises and the key to success and growth is believing in yourself to achieve your goals. When setting goals, it is beneficial to define a clear and concise vision and then define the mindset, behaviours and actions that will take you there. In order to do that, you must leave your comfort zone. As they say: “A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” Never allow failure to discourage your goals and always chase your dreams.
8. TryCycle Data Systems Inc.
Growth rate: 315%
Last year’s rank: new this year
TryCycle is a digital mental health software company.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Focus. As a company you have a really good feeling that you know you are doing the right thing in the right markets when your product has application in many other market verticals. The challenge is sticking to building out those use cases without being distracted and spreading yourself out to try and be everything to everyone. Those slight course changes can compound and send you off in the wrong direction.
What did you do to address it?
Number one was to listen to your core, key customers and find out how you can help them solve their problems. Being a great listener and attentively picking up cues for how we can be a creative solution provider really helps build out a product that is valued in your market vertical. As with most startups, you need to do what you can to extend the cash runway. Get creative with selling solutions, look at different avenues to get cash in the door from a variety of sources. Having a product that your customer values also has an advantage where they are willing to pay for customization and development.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
The team and the team’s belief in the mission is paramount. Having an engaged team that has low turnover allows you to continue your mission in your market with consistency. Building a culture that is exciting and people want to be a part of not only gives the benefit of continuity in your company’s mission, but also has the benefit of a group of people committed to the same mission. A large part of that belief in the mission comes from knowing you are providing value to customers.
9. Purecolo
Growth rate: 234%
Last year’s rank: 10
Purecolo is a no-frills co-location facility offering data centre space and uptime peace of mind to clients.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Uncertainty! With trades/materials in short supply and an elongated build window, we need to plan out demand months in advance. As many companies are uncertain about the future in these market conditions, it has made it hard to grow, as we also need to grow responsibly and not just spend whatever it takes to grow. Many companies will look to capture revenue at all costs, but it is important to run and grow things sustainably, a core fundamental of our business and mission.
What did you do to address it?
We have leaned on the resale market for a lot of our high-cost capital expenditures to ensure that we are getting the best bang for our buck, while also saving the environment by diverting equipment from landfill and not consuming new raw materials to make new appliances for our use. We also work closely with our clients to ensure that their growth is mapped and verified so that we have a very good line of sight on what current and future growth will be. While rose-coloured glasses work great for visionaries seeking a Series A, we prefer to run a fine-toothed comb through our projections to ensure they are real and not just a potential dream.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
One of the biggest lessons we learned this year was the importance of legacy planning. One of our trusted partner organizations had a “lynchpin” employee suffer a stroke and ultimately put some of our growth projects on a delay because all of the knowledge that person brought to their organization was lost. While this is only a minor headache to our growth, it stressed the importance of sharing the load and ensuring there are plans in place to move forward should the worst and unexpected happen.
10. Knak
Growth rate: 212%
Last year’s rank: new this year
Knak provides codeless email and landing page creation for enterprise teams.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in relation to the fast growth of your company?
Finding, training and retaining top talent is our biggest challenge. The talent market has gone through some volatility recently, which has made it more difficult to pull top talent from other organizations. With the fast growth that we have had at Knak, training at scale has become more difficult and we have had to put more time and resources into developing our training program. We have a big organization with a lot of teams that all require different types of training. Between the Great Resignation and the looming recession, we have been looking for new ways to keep employee happiness and engagement high to keep attrition low.
What did you do to address it?
We have hired internal recruiters and trained them on how to find top talent and widen their talent pools. We have implemented an automation tooling system to help us track our interviews and score our candidates better. We have also honed our interview process to make sure we are getting the best out of people to determine their talent and culture fit for our organization. Onboarding is critical here at Knak as it sets the tone for the employee journey. We are currently working on developing training programs for our executives and all people leaders here at Knak.
What has been your biggest lesson learned?
It’s all about the people. We have a people first culture and have worked extremely hard to maintain this as we grow. We don’t want to lose what makes Knak such a special place to work. That being said, working at a startup is difficult. There are many ebbs and flows and sometimes you need to make tough decisions for the betterment of the team.
Outside the comfort zone: Here are the top five fastest-growing companies
