Are You Stuck Working "IN" Your Business?
Free Up Time & Scale Faster →As we announced a few days back, 2X has secured a spot on Inc. 5000's list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. for 2022.
Now I pride myself on not needing external validation. But I was on a boat with some friends when the email came through — and I think they thought I'd cracked up, because between me and you… I may have shed a tear or two.
We'd gone through an extended period where the business wasn't fun. We weren't growing. We didn't have leadership alignment. We lost a huge portion of our profits. And importantly, we weren't making the impact I wanted to have.
It felt extra great to get the momentum back — and then get it validated with the Inc. 5000 win. So I've set us an ambitious target: get 20+ of our private clients on the list next year too.
Want to know how you can get on the Inc. 5000 in 2023? Well, you're in the right place. Because I'm about to reveal that exact framework right here.
Application details for 2023 haven't been released yet, so I'm basing this on the criteria we went through for the 2022 list. To be eligible, you'll generally need to:
- Have generated revenue by March 2019
- Have generated at least $100,000 in revenue in 2019
- Have generated at least $2 million in revenue in 2022
- Be privately held, for-profit, U.S.-based, and independent (not a subsidiary or division of another company)
Eligible companies are then ranked by overall percentage revenue growth from 2019 to 2022. Our percentage growth for our qualifying period was 248% — and that put us at #2361 in the rankings.
All clear? Good. Now let's get to the good stuff.
When thinking about strategy, most new and six-figure entrepreneurs jump straight to tactics. They get drawn in by the "guru" promise of a marketing hack, an advertising trick, a new fancy funnel, or the latest shiny tool.
But if you've tried those things, you already know they're not the answer for sustainable growth. The real answer is a killer strategy. This is the 80/20 of everything. At 2X, we define strategy as three things:
- The structure for your business, and how it's set up to scale (your business model)
- Your go-to-market plans — what products/services you'll offer, to who, and how you'll reach them (achieving product-market fit)
- A well-thought-out, simplified plan of action — including your order of attack and key levers
The right structure combined with the right plan of action adds rocket fuel to your growth. Most entrepreneurs haven't thought strategically about any of these three — which is exactly why things feel harder than they need to be.
At 2X, we get your strategy right by going deep into what we call our Model ONE framework. There are five elements to Model ONE, and they all fit into a single question:
Put another way: you need your target market, offer, price, positioning, and fulfillment to be clear, effective, and scalable. Get this right and you're off to the races. Get it wrong, and you'll stay stuck pushing a boulder uphill — knowing it should be easier, but never figuring out why it isn't.
Most entrepreneurs never slow down long enough to truly nail their strategy. They keep adding tactics on top of a shaky foundation. Model ONE is the first thing we work through with every client — because until it's tight, nothing else works as well as it should. It's not glamorous, but it's the highest-leverage thing you can do.
Here's a simple fact: you can't scale what's broken.
Sounds obvious, right? Yet nearly every business owner who comes to 2X thinks they're ready to go straight toward growth. And 100% of the time — without exception — we identify multiple critical items that need to be fixed before they can scale to the next level. This is even true of businesses that come to us with seven- or eight-figure revenue already.
When entrepreneurs ignore this and try to scale right away, they end up like most businesses:
- Creating more headaches, fires, and longer task lists
- Stressing out their team even more
- Wasting hard-earned profits on marketing agencies or advertising
- Chasing new idea after new idea, wondering why nothing is working
I'll share something I was taught by my first mentor — a man who is now the CEO of a $6 billion pipeline company. One day he sat me down and asked me a question that changed everything.
He mapped a complex business into a few simple high-level steps. He didn't need to be in the weeds. He could see the big picture at all times — easily identifying what's working, what's not, where to focus, and what to fix. This top-down view forever changed how I see business. It's now at the center of everything we do at 2X.
We call the framework we use to achieve this vantage point the Value Chain. For each business we work with, we map out the key steps from someone not knowing you at all all the way through becoming a raving fan.
The three high-level steps in your business are marketing, sales, and fulfillment. Marketing generates qualified leads. Sales converts those leads into customers. Fulfillment turns customers into raving fans for life. With this view and the right metrics for each phase, you can identify exactly where the bottleneck is — and focus there.
To turn your business into a true machine, we take this Value Chain and apply four key elements to each phase:
Do you have the right strategy and plan of attack for each step? Can you make it simpler or more strategic to drive the desired result?
Let's say you want to double your leads. Ask yourself: "What's the simplest and most direct path to achieve that result?" Getting strategic and intentional with each phase is the key starting point. Once that's clear, you'll know exactly what you need for the next three elements.
At the beginning, you probably own marketing, sales, AND fulfillment. But to scale to multiple millions, that can't continue. One by one, we need to get you free from the day-to-day — and ideally into only the CEO role.
For now, it's fine to own one or two elements as you scale and generate more cash flow. But identify which role you'll fully remove yourself from first — and make that your primary focus.
What are the metrics that matter most for each step? What are the conservative targets you need to hit your goals — and where are you now?
List those out so you can see which parts of your business are strong and which are weak. These metrics are your guide to what's working, what's not, where to focus, and what to fix. Most entrepreneurs struggle enormously to track and manage the right numbers. Start small — just a couple of key metrics per phase — and build from there.
As we say time and again: systems are your secret weapon. They drive consistency, repeatability, and scalability. You don't need a thousand systems — but a few key systems for each step will be revolutionary for your business and your team.
List the top three to five systems per stage that will drive more consistency, higher performance, and free you up to work on even higher-impact activities.
Every client who comes to 2X thinking they're ready to scale immediately — we find gaps. Every single time. The businesses that grow fastest are the ones willing to invest time in fixing the machine before they floor the accelerator. When operations are tight, growth stops being painful and starts compounding on itself.
Once you have the foundations in place, you're ready for the exciting part. That hockey stick growth everyone's after.
Now — this is contrary to what most of the "gurus" will tell you. But if you don't have a clear strategy, an irresistible offer, fulfilled operations ready to scale, freedom from the weeds, and clarity on your numbers — then marketing tactics will not give you the sustainable growth you're looking for.
You might grow fast, but you'll crash even faster. You can't scale what's broken.
If you implement growth tactics too early, they'll work against you. They'll give you the illusion of momentum — but soon you'll burn out, your profit margin will get eaten, and your cash flow will suffer.
Marketing is the final piece of the puzzle. Once your foundations are in place, you can confidently turn on your growth engines — knowing your business is optimized to handle every lead you can throw at it. That's when compounding kicks in. That's when you build the kind of growth rate that gets you on the Inc. 5000.
The moment a business has the right strategy, a clean operational machine, and a team that owns their lanes — growth becomes almost inevitable. We've seen it hundreds of times. It's not magic. It's sequence. Strategy first. Operations second. Growth third. In that order, every time.
Getting on the Inc. 5000 isn't reserved for some special class of entrepreneur. It's the result of following the right sequence — in the right order — with the right support behind you. Build your elite strategy. Optimize your operational machine. Then and only then, scale aggressively.
2X made the list in our first year of eligibility. We built our business using the exact same methodology we use with our clients. And our goal is to get 20+ of our clients on the list in 2023.
If you're ready to stop working on the wrong things and start building a fast-growth machine — we're here, and we've got the roadmap.
Ready To Become One Of America's Fastest-Growing Companies?
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