Orum’s Path to Enterprise: Navigating the Shift from API Product to Strategic Infrastructure Partner
Most infrastructure startups face a critical choice: focus on smaller, innovative customers or pursue large enterprise clients. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Orum founder Stephany Kirkpatrick revealed how her team chose both – and developed a unique “barbell strategy” for serving the entire market.
Starting with a Dual Market Vision
Orum’s approach challenges conventional wisdom about market focus. As Stephany explains, “We have a barbell strategy that says, hey, if we take on enough bigger, larger fi, we can also take on all the small brand new innovative things.”
This strategy allows them to serve everyone from “some of the largest financial services providers. Think like Fidelity, e Money, the biggest bank in the world is a partner of ours, all the way down to some of the most innovative gaming, crypto, new services platforms that are popping up.”
Building Enterprise-Grade from Day One
The key to this strategy was establishing enterprise credibility early. As Stephany notes, “We spent a lot of time in stealth mode. So our private beta came out at the beginning of last year and that allowed us to really cultivate a very strong platform.”
This extended stealth period wasn’t about perfectionism – it was about building the reliability enterprises demand. As Stephany explains, infrastructure products require a higher standard: “We might apply the Minimum Viable Product MVP concept to it, meaning it doesn’t have parity with a bank, for example, but it’s also not supposed to, but it also can’t stop functioning.”
Evolving the Partnership Model
As Orum grew, they discovered that enterprise customers needed more than just technology. “Payments is actually a very deep form of innovation,” Stephany notes. “And so as we’ve been able to help figure out how to help our customers optimize what they’re building, the growth trajectory of how we sit alongside our customers and help them actually grow their core business is really a feedback loop into our growth.”
This led to a more consultative approach: “We spend a lot of time making sure that people know not just under the right kind of instant payout feature, but how to truly optimize it. So we’ll do marketing campaigns together, we’ll do webinars so that their customers can understand features.”
Continuously Refining the Model
Even after establishing enterprise traction, Orum continues to evolve their approach. “Even recently, I would say we’ve learned a lot about how we, one, we’re structuring pricing, and two, how were positioning it. They’re two different things,” Stephany shares.
This ongoing refinement reflects the challenge of pricing infrastructure that enables entirely new capabilities. It’s not just about transaction fees – it’s about capturing value from enabling business transformation.
Looking to the Future
Orum’s vision extends beyond being just an infrastructure provider. As Stephany explains, “Our vision is to power a better financial system where everyone has the freedom to build to their potential. We think that we’re building the scaffolding required to rethink today’s existing constraints and empower real change in the way that financial system works.”
This ambitious vision resonates with enterprise customers who aren’t just buying technology – they’re investing in transformation. As Stephany concludes, “We want to be always that first phone call that you make when you’re thinking about building a company and you know you’re going to do payouts or you’re going to do money movement because everything else that you’re building should go faster as a result of working with a partner like Orum.”
The lesson for infrastructure startups? Enterprise success requires more than just robust technology – it demands a strategic partnership mentality and a vision that aligns with enterprise transformation goals.