The fintech landscape—like other subsectors within the tech industry—can see growth incentives generate adverse social outcomes. A focus on rapid expansion can encourage leadership teams to prioritize scaling over sustainability; it can even drive some leaders to commit fraud to inflate membership ranks, as student-loan startup Frank has been accused of doing.

Most fintechs are far from fraudulent, but centering social outcomes in sales pipelines isn’t exactly second nature for most fledgling startups, either. Those leading the charge tend to keep these three variables front and center when drafting their growth strategies:

Growing sustainably—and defining it

Equity-focused fintechs may start by defining the desired outcomes of their work, and then reverse engineering their sales strategies from there. For example, a housing equity-focused fintech may start by identifying the social gaps—not just market gaps—their research highlights, building out solutions that address those inequities, and starting off with longer user research and testing periods in order to mitigate social risk before scaling.

Developing customer trust matters in all contexts, but it especially does when conducting business with historically marginalized communities. Long histories of exploitation understandably generate mistrust, meaning mistakes, unnecessary risks, and a lack of communication can create irreparable ruptures.

Work with and by communities

Consciously including, consulting, and hiring community members is a crucial way to mitigate these potential shortcomings. Employing people who share the lived experiences of potential customers—across verticals and leadership levels—can help align a startup’s products, communications, operations, and sales with the needs and sensitivities of consumer groups.

Successfully executing such a hiring strategy requires thoughtfully building out leadership and recruitment teams with demonstrated success in hiring and retaining employees from underrepresented groups.

Working with regulators

Finally, equity-focused fintechs often work at the cutting edge of regulation, and have the opportunity to meaningfully shape the legal future of key financial instruments and practices.

For instance, startups focused on alternative credit can influence the metrics, storage, and collection practices that will become standard practice in the coming years. This is especially true for the market players emphasizing proper data collection and research development while building out their products.