Johnny Boufarhat is the Founder & CEO @ Hopin, one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet, providing an online events platform where you can create engaging virtual events that connect people around the globe. In the last 13 months, Johnny has raised over $174M for Hopin from the likes of Accel, IVP, Slack, Northzone, Coatue, Salesforce and of course, 20VC Fund. With the funding, again in just 13 months, Johnny has grown the team from 10 people to over 210 people in 37 countries. In October of this year, Semil Shah awarded Hopin the label, "The Breakout Tech Startup Of 2020".
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Johnny made his way into the world of startups and how severe health challenges led to his realisation and founding of Hopin?
2.) What have been Johnny's biggest lessons scaling the team from 10 to 235 in just 12 months? What starts to break and when? What does Johnny believe are the 3 stages of startup growth? What have been Johnny's learnings on what it takes to acquire the very best talent?
3.) Why does Johnny believe that remote has so fundamentally changed the game? How does remote culture differ from physical culture? What advice does Johnny have for those shifting from physical to remote? Where does Johnny see so many make mistakes with the remote model?
4.) Why does Johnny believe fundraising is a game of leverage? How does Johnny advise founders to structure their raise? Should they shop their term sheets around? Should founders always be raising? How should they think through a pre-emptive round? How does COVID change the world of fundraising?
5.) What does the world of virtual events look like in a post COVID world? What events will remain virtual? What will not? How does Hopin expand beyond purely events into the much wider "connection" space? How does that look both from M&A and product expansion?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Johnny’s Favourite Book: Nineteen Eighty-Four
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