Hyperscaling Hopin From $0 to $7.75 Billion in 2 Years
It’s insane to think that it’s been two years since the day I quit everything to join a developer named Johnny and help start a company called Hopin.
My life forever changed that day.
Back then, Hopin was just founder Johnny Boufarhat in London and a handful of contractors around the world.
I started talking with Johnny in December 2018. Hopin didn’t have any customers, pricing plans, or investors. Just a founder with a vision.
Read the full story here on Medium, including the experiences and lessons I’ve learned helping to hyperscale Hopin from 0 to 900 employees, $7.75 billion valuation, and 5 acquisitions in two years.
It’s a meaty piece (20 min read) and contains the following sections
Hypergrowth playbook: 19 steps to repeat Hopin’s first 6 months of rapid scaling
On being an early startup employee — impostor syndrome and “old-timer syndrome”
Tips for hyperscaling — acquisitions, roadmap marketing, and “be like water.”
Lessons on management and hiring — the early stage hiring pickle, org structure, and more.
How to be strategic — you’ll be hired over if you don’t.
Video marketing strategy — a lesson about authenticity
How to get lucky — one idea that led me to meet Johnny in the first place.
What’s next
The story isn’t over! The marketing team (where I serve) has grown to 50 people under CMO Anthony Kennada and we’re starting to build out our infrastructure and systems and processes to catch up to the team size (40 marketers added to the team in just 6 months, crazy!). We have multiple business units, each one with their own marketing teams and needs. I’ve been helping out StreamYard cofounder Geige Vandentop on the B2b marketing side of StreamYard with the launch of StreamYard Business, StreamYard’s inaugural sales-led offering for organizations.
Meanwhile, as we prepare for IPO, the master multiproduct brand of Hopin is being built out by the Brand team, the Revenue team is setting up robust marketing automation and demand creation systems, our Product team is always busy launching the new products and features our product and engineering teams are pumping out, and the Corporate team is scaling our events and customer initiatives. That’s just on the marketing side of the house. There’s so much more happening across the GTM, G&A, and technical teams.
Even though Hopin is a proper corporation now, and I come from a more entrepreneurial, early-stage startup background, I still love working there and learning from all the smart and talented people coming aboard. Getting to see a company scale this fast, from the very beginning to where we are and where we’re going, is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m deeply grateful and humbled.
Thanks for reading.
Dave
