My last day at Hopin

After almost 5 years, Hopin's story is officially over and with it, my time there comes to an end

Dave Schools
April 25, 2024

Hey readers!

Not sure if you saw the news but Bending Spoons recently acquired Hopin — which means StreamYard, Streamable, and Superwave are now owned and operated by the same company that bought Evernote, Meetup and several other recognizable apps.

I decided that, with Hopin officially being done, I would be done as well.

In this week’s edition, I cover my Hopin journey:

Thoughts and reflections now that it’s over
2 friend links to my most popular Medium articles about Hopin with lessons and takeaways (from year 1 and year 2)

Background: If you’re not familiar with Hopin, here’s a few tidbits about the company —

Founded in 2019 as a virtual events platform right before the pandemic hit. Hopin became Europe’s fastest growing startup.
Raised $1.3 billion, hired 1.3k employees, reached $100m in 2 years, valued at $7.75 billion, acquired 7 other startups, including StreamYard for $250m.
Post-pandemic: 3 rounds of layoffs, sold its Events platform to RingCentral, returned capital to investors, transitioned from UK to US, and sold to Bending Spoons in 2024.

I joined Hopin as the first full-time team member when it was just the founder Johnny Boufarhat; we were pre-revenue, pre-customers, and pre-investment.

I wrote the following on Linkedin.

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.

I was Hopin’s longest tenured team member, from the beginning to end of the company

As Hopin comes to an end, my time here (there?) ends with it. I’ve been processing Hopin’s story for months now, but today it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I realized I’ve been at Hopin longer than I’ve been a dad. I have 3 kids now. I’m about to turn 34; I’ve worked on Hopin for longer than I’ve lived in my 30s. Who is this non-Hopin Dave? It really consumed a lot of who I was. I find myself wondering who I am without it.

These moments are weighty. Leaving a startup you loved and sacrificed for yields a ton of emotions.

Relief to finally get a break from the stress
Sadness for the decisions that could have gone better
Gratitude for all the people I was able to work with
Confidence from all that I learned from them
Pride in the products and impact we brought to market
Thankfulness for all the friendships and connections I carry forward with me
Excitement for what is coming next

Hopin changed my life.

In 2019, I was an independent writer and solo-marketer with big questions about my future. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career. I searched and searched for what “the thing” was that I could go “all in” on and plunge into with both feet, but nothing seemed to be enough.

Later that year I became remote friends with a developer in London named Johnny Boufarhat and ran one of the first virtual events on his platform — the rest is history.

Today, I don’t have the same questions about my future as I did before. It could be that I’m just getting older and life seems more “set.” It could be that I have a family or a “career focus” now.

But one question that Hopin taught me to keep asking is what’s possible.

If you had told me at the beginning about all that we were soon to go through, I would have laughed at you. Not because I didn’t believe you, but because I didn’t know it was actually possible. I had no concept, no capability to envision a future like that.

But man did I learn quickly. We all did. We had to.

You don’t really know what’s possible until you go through it.

Keep asking.
Keep pushing.
Keep dreaming.

Peace out, Hopin, thanks for the incredible ride.

Much love and gratitude to everyone along the way. Please reach out and stay in touch.

I’ll leave what I’m doing next for a future update.

Dave

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What You Learn at a Startup that Grows from $0 to $7.75 Billion in 2 Years

I wrote this post on Medium in 2021 for my 2-year anniversary at Hopin. It has a lot of the lessons and insights I learned on the way up.

Hopin founder Johnny and his spouse Lameece and I in London Tech Day

👉️ Use this friend link to read it for free: Hypergrowth playbook: 19 steps to repeat Hopin’s first 6 months of rapid scaling

What You Learn at a Startup that Grows from $0 to $2 Billion Valuation in 1 Year

“We were six people this time one year ago. No revenue. Now we’re 300 people, profitable, and just made a $250 million acquisition.”

I wrote this one year into building Hopin.

Meeting Johnny for the first time in London

👉️ Use this friend link to read it for free.

I plan to write more stories from my time at Hopin. I have a ton to share — lessons learned from the good, bad, and ugly. I haven’t shared much about the way down.

Fortunately, you’re in the right spot - this (Entrepreneurship Handbook) is where I plan to publish everything. All you have to do is stay subscribed.

(By the way, let me know if you have any questions in particular that I can answer.)