Hopin into the future of events
Hi there! I'm Jose E. Ruano, the writer of The New Gazette. You are receiving this email because you signed up for it, a weekly newsletter about all things digital. Thank you for being here. If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe by clicking the button below.
Hi friends 👋 ,
Happy Friday!
One of my favorite parts about writing this newsletter is learning, alongside all of you, about incredibly smart people and companies who are changing or creating a better future using the internet as leverage.
I like a good brand or creator trying to challenge the status quo in order to create wonderful things.
This week’s story will focus on a company that's since their founding is creating a few changes in the way events are being done, and how due to the COVID pandemic they offered a solution in the right place at the right time.
Its name is Hopin,
Let’s get into it
Background
Hopin was founded two years ago by Johnny Boufarhat in London, the United Kingdom as a platform with a simple networking tool for matching people one-on-one but rapidly, thanks to the technology behind the product, it grew into a full-conference online platform with Sessions, Stages, Expos, and many more features.
The last 12 months have fundamentally changed how we work together. In a few months, many businesses had to adapt to a world where bringing people together in person was no longer possible.
Conferences, training, community gatherings, seminars, all-hands meetings were canceled and almost all that were ready to be made had to switched into virtual experiences, Hopin was there to help.
Today, Hopin is the first all-in-one live online events platform in the world where attendees can interact, connect, and learn with people from any country. Whether it’s a meetup of 50 people or a full-scale conference of 10,000 participants, all of the events are possible thanks to their technology.
The platform was designed to make online events more personal and engaging, replicating an in-person event experience, only without the barriers of travel, venues, weather, parking, and so on.
Its mission is the following:
Better connections for a better world.
As they believe, when you bring people together in a meaningful and effective way, magic happens.
The idea came to life as Johnny, the founder, couldn’t attend events in person as he was battling an autoimmune condition and thought of a simple yet powerful solution.
How it works
With Hopin, businesses, communities, and organizations can reach their global audiences and gather them into one place.
The platform structure the events based on how an in-person experience is done.
Focusing on 4 main areas, Hopin tries to emulate what you did all this time on the real thing.
First, the Stage, where presentations or keynotes become visible for up to 100,000 attendees. Broadcast live, pre-recorded content or stream- the Stage allows brands or people to deliver the message they want using video as the main way to do it.
Sessions promote real-time live interactions. Up to 20 attendees can be on one screen with hundreds of attendees watching and chatting. With unlimited Sessions that can run at the same time, it's the perfect way to do roundtables, group talks, project-related discussions.
Networking allows getting to know people at the event. Using random or ticket type-based matching, everyone could have engaging 1:1 meetings to connect with event attendees and expand their network with like-minded people.
The Expo area is great for all kinds of exhibitions, such as trade shows or fairs, where event-goers can “walk-around” to visit the booths that interest them, interact with the vendors, and take action. Each booth at the event can contain live video, branded content, Twitter links, pre-recorded videos, special offers, salespeople on live camera, and customized button CTAs.
In this platform you could, sell event tickets, engage your attendees and lastly, analyze data from your event to truly understand the impact you had on people.
There are similar digital platforms as Hopin but the integration of all of the features into one it’s why this platform sets it apart from others.
There are good solutions available for video conferences for 2-20 participants, (i.e. Zoom, Teams, Skype) but once the meetings get to be over 20 people, it all became too crazy, Hopin’s “built for scale” venue approach provides a more engaging experience.
Webinars tend to be a one-sided, unengaging way to show some information. Hopin balances content with connection and puts the focus on real-time face-to-face interaction between people.
Facebook groups, Slack communities, email lists, and all the many ways people from communities online are missing an effective events-based platform for members to meet remotely, sustainably, accessibly, and collaborate meaningfully over live video. Hopin is here to change that.
The UI tries to be more personal, modern, and easy to understand
Clients and funding
Hopin has been used for many well-known brands around the world, proving the quality of its service.
Here’s a little list of some of them:
Thanks to this, the company which started in 2019 has become a reference in online events, making what others believe was impossible, to be valued over +5 billion in just a matter of months.
Yesterday it announced that it has closed a $400 million Series C. The new capital values the company at exactly $5.65 billion.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and General Catalyst (GC) co-led the round, as TechCrunch reported.
Future
The pandemic-driven boom in online services helped this company with its rapid growth but there are worries that some of these stay-at-home trends (like online events) could die as vaccines roll out to more people, and governments start lifting restrictions on public life.
The firm is anticipating a “hybrid” events future that marries technology with big in-person events.
“just as excited as everyone else about the vaccine,” Boufarhat said.
As it looks they are more than ready for the future of events.
Hopin started as a way to merge the tools we had already on the internet and what we missed from in-person events.
Their industry is crowded but the company has been doing their job really well as it understands what is needed to create better experiences for people attending.
With the new capital, it will invest heavily in its product and engineering functions
Let’s see what is coming next
Until next week,
Jose
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Before I go, I need your help, as you know I work as a freelancer helping businesses and people get their ideas into life in the digital space. My company it’s called RUA CREATIVE and for the past week I’ve been trying to make a better website. Would appreciate it very much if you could see it and give me your opinion or if you need any help, let me know.