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Try partners and integrations. Whether it’s an integration in an app marketplace, or a partnership with a synergistic company, layering such opportunities together can create a nice, fat stream of customers that doesn’t require daily babysitting. For example, Wave and Wix (the website building company with the fun Superbowl ads) launched an integration last year. The partnership continues to develop, the customer volume is growing nicely, and we expect our integration to get deeper over time.

Lean trial and error are key: A few years back, one of our developers, built an integration with the Chrome web store on a whim. It opened up a tap for traffic and gave our top of funnel a healthy boost. So we doubled down and got ourselves into the Mozilla web store. It flopped for us. Test the waters in a small yet meaningful way before you commit to a deep integration.

Diversify. On several occasions, we’ve fixated on something bright and shiny to the exclusion of other opportunities. Nothing has ever turned out to be a silver bullet. Our 50,000 sign up month is the result of contributions from dozens of channels, built over four years in the market. The good news: We know that when (not if) a key channel goes soft on us, we have eggs in more than one basket.

No list would be complete without mentioning the most fundamental underpinning of all: Know your customers and build something awesome. Customer loyalty and old-school word of mouth is the best growth hack of all.

Kirk Simpson is CEO and co-founder of Toronto-based Wave (waveapps.com), a free small business accounting and invoicing software. As an entrepreneur and advisor to some of Canada’s largest media companies and financial institutions, he has created innovative online technologies for more than 15 years. Wave has grown from a bootstrapped startup to an international brand with 2.5 million users. Kirk Simpson is also a mentor with The Next 36.