Suffice it to say that Justin Miller is no fan of HB2.

Fast-growing Raleigh startup WedPics, which provides a variety of services for newlyweds, soars past the 1 million mark in weddings published. But Miller, its CEO, says growth would be faster if not for what he calls the “idiotic rule.”

While the North Carolina General Assembly continues to discuss modifying the controversial lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) legislation rushed into law earlier this year, Miller is among the many business operators large and small who have complained the bill is hurting business.

2016 would be a “critical year” for the startup, Miller told WRAL TechWire after raising new funding last December. Then came HB2.

So after seeing Miller’s Tweet that WedPics had soared past the 1 million mark and became one of the few such providers to do so, The Skinny reached out to talk to Miller about the state of business – and HB2.

“Has HB2 had any impact on business? How about in hiring?”

“Yep, we’ve lost customers to it (specifically addressing the fact that we’re an NC based company as the reason they won’t support us,” Miller says, “and it has come up in the hiring process.

“We are firm about our stance that it’s an idiotic rule.”

Miller was one of the startup CEOs WRAL TechWire talked with shortly after the bill was passed who insisted that HB2 was not a distraction from doing business. They would fight it, believing justice and equality demanded it.

Despite HB2, WedPics remains on the fast growth path.

“What’s 1 million mean to you and the firm?”

“Few companies in our space have hit this milestone and those that have are the big boys (the Knot, David’s Bridal, Wedding Wire),” he says. “Considering the size of the annual wedding markets (US alone has about 1.3M applicable) brides, we’re continuing to show exceptional bridal adoption.”

Interestingly, Miller points out that he will put on the “throttle” if needed in order to make sure growth is manageable.

“Is growth rate increasing?”

“Increasing, but the rate is contingent on how heavy we throttle it,” he explains.

“We’ve been doing a lot of marketing experiments this year to determine things like true organic growth (where we turned off marketing entirely for three weeks to set the baseline – which is between 400-500 brides/day at no cost). Since then we’ve continued to test paid acquisition strategies on top of organics, daily.”

That marketing is the big factor driving growth, he adds.

More capital?

Then there’s revenue – and fundraising – to discuss.

“How about revenues – growing?”

“Very much so. This year we’ve shifted our company focus from solely concentrating on user acquisition and retention to monetization.

“We’re testing several facets from various printing opportunities to our most recent implementation: in-app purchases.

“Where we give couples and guests the ability to buy add ons to the platform to further enhance their WedPics experience.”

The company has grown to 31 full-time employees, with 25 based at WedPics’ HQ Raleigh headquarters.

“No new hiring right now but always keeping an eye out for solid talent,” he says in a message to job seekers.

“Any new products/offerings?”

“In-app purchases are main focus,” Miller responds.

“And any plans to raise additional financing?”

“We’re a startup, dude, always “