Yesterday was my last day at
@Hopin
.
I’ve known this day was coming for a while now and I did my best to be prepared but I’m still struggling to put into words what the last 5 years have been like.
As Hopin comes to an end, my time here (there?) ends with it. I’ve been
2 years ago today I joined
@Hopin
. It was pre-revenue, pre-investment. Just
@johnnyboufarhat
& a beta platform. Today, Hopin has over 800 FTEs, 5 acquisitions, and a valuation of $7.75B. To celebrate my two-year anniv, I wanted to share a few lessons:
@timkellernyc
His books Reason for God and Every Good Endeavor and countless sermons had a significant impact on me and how I see the world today. Tim Keller was truly one of the great leaders of the Christian faith and has left very big shoes to fill. Can't wait to meet him one day.
We’re hiring! Full-time, remote, work at a fast-growing global tech startup — we’re looking for smart people who can learn and teach the Hopin platform forwards and backwards and help clients run awesome online events. Jobs
@hopin
.to
I'm launching a new startup. I work from home. And I have 3 kids: 5, 2, and 1 years old.
People ask me WTH are you doing?
To which I say, "I know. I may not able to put in the same hours as a single or at least no-kid founder living in NYC or SF or London.... BUT"
There are a
Anyone run
@beehiiv
newsletter? Let's get you more subscribers.
Drop a link to your sign-up page so we can subscribe👇
Also, we can set up recommendations/boosts for each other's newsletters as well 👍
#newsletter
#community
#growth
A Brief History of Growth
from
@dharmesh
1. Sales Led Growth - consulting closes deals
2. Marketing Led Growth - content closes deals
3. Product Led Growth - code closes deals
4. Community Led Growth - connection closes deals
All important, but CLG is the new kid on the block
Some personal news from me. It’s not a terribly big change (I’m still happily at
@Hopin
) but I’ve joined the awesome folks at
@streamyardapp
to lead the marketing team and do what I love doing most—super early-stage building.
Hopin just crossed 500 employees, making it bigger, for comparison, than Zapier. We just added 31 new joiners THIS WEEK alone.
Working in an org that grows from 2 people to 500 people in less than two years — let’s just say I have to pinch myself sometimes.
Favorite podcast right now? Mine’s
@HarryStebbings
. He’s a startup whisperer who asks all the right questions about growth and PMF and I get to apply what I learn that same day.
Gosh, I'm featured in
@beehiiv
's Creator Spotlight today!
It's neat to see an overview of my career all in one place. Great job to the writers, designers, and editors of this piece.
I'm a big fan of the beehiiv team and truly believe it's one of the best products on the web
James Altucher just mentioned a personal writing rule for himself in his latest podcast.
“I don’t publish a story unless I’m afraid I’m sharing too much.”
He counterbalances this intense vulnerability with another one:
“Don’t try to hurt anyone.”
@jaltucher
#writing
#rule
@sriramk
The art, science, application, and eventual mass education of how to craft AI prompts — it is the next resume skill that will change the nature of how we work in the next 4-5 years.
The last email in the automated funnel that made
@ramit
from
@thisisgrowthlab
allegedly $400,000 is 1,434 words.
That is an ENORMOUS email. Seriously.
His 2 rules for email are:
1) provide value in every email &
2) sell unapologetically
Merry Christmas from our family of 5!! Yep, that’s right!
Emery Julep Schools joined us just before midnight on 12-22-22. We brought her home today on Christmas Eve morning just in time to celebrate. Momma and baby are healthy and happy and all of us are excited to be together.
Yet another day where I wake up and have to pinch myself to make sure this is real life.
@Hopin
, now with its Series D of $450m, is worth $7.75b. I remember the days when we were pre-customer, pre-revenue, pre-investment...
I'm thrilled to announce
@entrehandbook
is now LIVE on
@beehiiv
!
Read:
-How we started on
@Medium
-Why we're not leaving Medium
-Why we're launching on beehiiv
-Why we're updating our brand
-Why the world needs a publication like EH now more than ever
Exciting news!
Entrepreneur's Handbook
@entrehandbook
is partnering with
@Medium
to host a community AMA and awards LIVE EVENT for our writers.
Very excited to meet founders, answer questions, and recognize our top writers over 7 award categories:
What's the best way to get the word out about
@Hopin
's new meeting and webinar software Session Pro costing only $49/month when Zoom equivalent costs $250/month?
I've been at
@Hopin
since the early days in 2019.
Pre-revenue, pre-funding, pre-pandemic.
This week, I celebrated 3 years at the company.
Every year, I write an update on the overall story of Hopin, how it's going, and lessons learned along the way:
“Wrong” is a conclusion, not a rationale. Any words or thoughts denying the existence of uncertainty should be a signal that we are headed towards a poorly calibrated decision. “Wrong” deserves its own swear jar. —
@AnnieDuke
, Thinking In Bets
My mom graduated with a masters degree at age 57. Poverty, divorce, and cancer couldn’t stop her from non-stop learning, growing, and overcoming. I am so proud.
The commencement speaker also said something profound.
Extremely proud of my team for producing our THIRD 10k+ person event in only 3 months
@Hopin
@streamyardapp
Tomorrow is
#SYsummit
- we're over 15k RSVPs already.
You're invited! Come join a fully LIVE experience about how to become a live streamer.
"Good CEOs are sloganeers."
-
@david_perell
chatting with
@thesamparr
Example:
“Bold. Fast. Fun.”
-Sam Parr’s mantra for business (which he has tattooed on his thigh).
More juicy goodness:
Want to win the online writing game?
Listen to Sam Parr.
He built The Hustle into one of the world’s largest newsletters and sold it to a multi-billion dollar company, and he's mastered the art of turning viral hooks into big businesses.
Here’s what I've learned from him:
1.
I worried that I wouldn’t love kid
#2
as much as
#1
. But once she arrived I noticed that my heart didn’t split in 2. It multiplied. Love is not zero sum and therefore fractional, it’s multiplicative. So I now have two fully functioning hearts beating inside my chest.
If you run a
@beehiiv
newsletter
& want to launch a community for your members
on a platform that you 100% own
we're giving out free beta access to
@superwaveapp
🌊
Leave a reply to this or send me a DM
I wish I had started reading
@eladgil
years ago. YEARS.
If you're in your first fast-growth startup / scaleup, his high growth handbook is a MUST read.
Some news:
We've raised $6.5 million to take
@hopinofficial
into growth mode later this year. Huge thanks to our investors and congrats to
@johnnyboufarhat
and Team Hopin!!
In July this year,
@johnnyboufarhat
said, "Dave, let's get Hopin to
#1
on G2 for virtual events."
I said, "You got it. What's G2?" Hopin had no profile and 0 reviews.
Now, it's almost October and I'm proud to say Hopin is
#1
for the best virtual events platform on G2.
My favorite thing right now is thinking about how
@Hopin
is building a suite of video platforms for communities. For any creator, we have a solution for you.
We have a lot of work to do. But when we get there, the way people connect face-to-face online will be changed forever.
The rush of day-of registrations for virtual events is REAL.
We were expecting about 7,500 people but over 10.1k ended up registering.
@Hopin
Kickoff was such a fun event (s/o to
@brianna_haag
). We'll absolutely be doing more.
Favorite moment (1:20):
Today begins the initial public rollout of
@HopinSession
, our new lightweight, fun, and super interactive webinar and meetings product.
Here's a Twitter thread about what you need to know about Session:
My role at
@Hopin
has taken a neat shift over the past couple of months. I'm learning and doing a ton of Product work over Marketing and honestly I'm loving it.
Doing Product at a big org is actually just like doing early stage entrepreneurship as a founder.
I experimented and cut out alcohol for 30 days and started running 2 miles 3x a week. I lost 6 lbs. here are my takeaways
Diet Coke is 💯
Felt (oddly) bored more at night
Drank copious amounts of tea
Played more chess
Slept way better
Felt way more anxiety👇
We are so excited to announce we are acquiring
@streamyardapp
! The acquisition of StreamYard combines beautiful video production quality with the live events experience of Hopin.
Hopin CEO
@johnnyboufarhat
shares more on our blog:
I put my web designer hat on and redesigned using Carrd.
I chose to ditch Instapage's $79/month price tag in return for Carrd's $19/year.
I've been nothing short of impressed with Carrd. Carrd's functionality isn't as
Back from vacation - first week I was fully disconnected from work since starting at Hopin 2 years ago. Read 3 books (HT audible)
@davidgoggins
Can’t Hurt Me
@DavidEpstein
Range
@Justin_W_Earley
The Common Rule
But most importantly got to spend quality time with my family.
@DylanJardon
@ShaanVP
@thesamparr
Disagree. Kevin Ryan episode was one of the best and it was an interview. They know what they’re doing, leave em alone
Thrilled to say our Podcast has launched!
Each show mix of riffing and hard questions to provide a deeper look into the backgrounds and businesses of successful entrepreneurs, investors, creators, marketers, and influencers.
Let's do this.
Pumped to have Entrepreneur's Handbook included in this list of the top 50
@Medium
publications (assembled by
@lincolnwdaniel
). Started with ~35k followers and ended the year with 82k. I love serving entrepreneurs with good stories to read!
Some depressing and awful news.
Last night, my close friend
@gretglyer
was murdered at 3am while laying in bed next to his wife. He was shot to death, leaving his wife (unharmed) and their two kids ages 2 and 6mo. The shooter is still at large.
The marketing team at
@hopinofficial
relies on nearly a dozen vendors to maintain the "Hopin pace" (🚀).
One thing I've noticed that distinguishes high-value vendors from low-value vendors is the speed at which they understand your product, customer, and industry.
I get why
@joinClubhouse
doesn’t record/store sessions now.
Once something is recorded it’s permanent and shareable, making you think more about what you say and don’t say. By not recording anything, clubhouse keeps conversations more natural and authentic.
I miss writing on
@Medium
. I used to write all the time before things got busy with
@Hopin
. I have 27k followers and a publication with 203k followers. Seems like a missed opp? I really should get back into it.
@stephsmithio
Webinars aren’t going away but at
@Hopin
we’re seeing massive demand for more “participatory” webinars where attendees are as much a part of the content as the speakers i.e. AMA community events.
Hopin is proud to announce that we have closed our Series C of $400M, co-led by
@a16z
and
@gcvp
, with
@IVP
. This round values Hopin at $5.65B—for more on what this means, read
@johnnyboufarhat
’s post:
Don't miss this🔥Hopin event on Wednesday -- CEO chat + product announcement + hybrid events + DJ!
7,500 people signed up so far.
90 minutes.
Save your seat for free:
Up at 4:30am.
Launch day on
@ProductHunt
(side project).
@partyqsapp
, a conversation starter app on a mission to help people deepen connections, is now available on any internet-connected device.
Would love your support!
Can someone build this AI product:
Problem: Naming a new product is hard.
1) EXPENSIVE: People pay agencies hundreds of thousands of dollars for a brand. Sometimes millions.
2) LOW QUALITY: Online logo and name generators suck today - completely unuseful. Dime a dozen.
Grateful to see Simone Biles and Adam Grant share openly about mental health at today's
@Hopin
#EventMinded
summit. Register to get the replay videos here: