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Johnny Boufarhat

Founder & CEO, Hopin · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Johnny Boufarhat is the Founder and CEO of Hopin, an online events platform. He has raised over $174 million for the company from investors such as Accel, IVP, Slack, and Salesforce.

20statements → 6claims → 1claims resolved → 3.75/5average certainty → 2.45/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 15said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 3 assertions · 1 opinion · 7 insights · 5 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Johnny argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
Boufarhat: Hopin will expand to multiple non-virtual products and a hybrid mobile app in 2021
“Today, Hopin is mainly virtual events, but I've always had a multi-product approach to things. I expect next year, Hopin wouldn't have just one product. We'd be moving into a, quite a few different markets based on what we've already built, and markets that ma…”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 24:13 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more

How they sound: speaking style how? →

302 words/min while actually speaking · 0.7 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Johnny Boufarhat: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 28 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.0/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 5,855 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Johnny Boufarhat is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 75%

Everything Johnny Boufarhat said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Boufarhat: Transitioning in-person companies to remote causes 20-30% employee churn
“You're going to lose a lot of your team. I think you'll lose 20 to 30% of your team if they don't have the initial outset that this is going to be a remote company.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 7:45 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Boufarhat: Corporate events will stay online post-COVID while mega-conferences return in-person
“Now well, what my opinion is from intuition and some of the data we have is that these big physical events, the ones that need a fire breeze are there to get you to pay 600 dollars, and that's the revenue thing. They're probably going to move back to physical …”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 23:03 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Opinion
Boufarhat: Setting up a startup in San Francisco may be a net negative
“I think London has now become a Clear option that you could run a very successful business from London, but I think that's happened most other places in the world that I think that probably San Francisco is not where you need to be anymore, and actually it may…”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 26:29 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
What-if
Boufarhat: Hopin Could Not Have Scaled Rapidly Without Being Fully Remote
“I don't think it would have been possible two to three years ago, and if we were not a remote business.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 5:48 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Disclosure
Boufarhat: Hopin prioritized early hiring speed over maximum quality
“When we were nine people, our customers didn't care how slowly we hired. So I was like, we need to bring good people in very quickly, as good as possible. So really, the speed thing was more important. Quality needed to be there, but it was not of total import…”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 10:40 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Founders fail beyond 40 employees by refusing to delegate control
“You get a lot of founders who do fantastically early on, and they don't know how to scale past, like, 40 people. They still want to be overlord. They still think their opinions matter more than everyone else.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 12:38 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Data Optimizes Existing Products but Rarely Creates New Ones
“Looking from a product perspective, you can use data to optimize product. A lot of the time you can't use data to create a new product.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 15:02 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Data Should Only Inform 10% to 40% of Startup Decisions
“So for me, I think data should always be to 10 to 40% of every decision we make happen.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 15:54 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Founders should not accept unexpected preemptive term sheets
“If you got preempted, and you weren't aware you were going to get preempted, then you shouldn't take the money.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 18:53 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Shopping term sheets increases leverage even with preferred VCs
“Even shopping around gets you more leverage with the VC, so it's not only about the price, even if it's the VC that you're interested in. It makes them more hungry for it makes them more excited.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 19:22 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Prediction Held up
Boufarhat: Hopin will expand to multiple non-virtual products and a hybrid mobile app in 2021
“Today, Hopin is mainly virtual events, but I've always had a multi-product approach to things. I expect next year, Hopin wouldn't have just one product. We'd be moving into a, quite a few different markets based on what we've already built, and markets that ma…”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 24:13 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: In-person onboarding causes companies to omit detailed documentation
“If you're onboarding someone in person, yes, there is a little bit more of a personal aspect to it, but it's also, you skip a lot of the intricacies because you expect people will pick it up just because you're around it.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 6:19 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Disclosure
Boufarhat: Hopin aggressively required initial hires to refer top candidates
“The initial people that we hired, we did spend a lot more time hiring them and making sure the quality bar was met, and we asked them to do referrals to the three best people we'd met, and we were very aggressive on this”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 11:06 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Disclosure
Boufarhat: Hopin Was Built Purely on Intuition, Not Industry Data
“Hopin was purely intuition. There was no data from someone, or else someone from the webinar industry probably would have built Hopin, because they would have been able to realize that people were after more networking.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 15:08 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Disclosure
Boufarhat restricted VCs from contacting Hopin's executive team directly
“For me, it was important that, hey, you can call me at any time, especially after midnight when there's less things going on, but I don't want you bothering the team, essentially, or having the rights to do that.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 19:52 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boufarhat: Hopin lacks a clear direct competitor to monitor
“Hopin doesn't have a clear, direct competitor today in terms of one that I'm much more closely monitoring”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 21:08 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Insight
Boufarhat: Cutting dairy, gluten, and seed oils boosts performance 10-20%
“If you're not someone from Northern Europe originally, I would say, in general, dairy, modern gluten, so non-sourdough, if it's very high doses of gluten, are not good for you, and obviously cornstarch and vegetable oils, etc. I think if you just remove those …”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 27:35 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boufarhat: Hopin achieved virality starting from its first event
“It became very, very viral from day one, from the first event we had.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 4:35 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Disclosure
Hopin uses automated Slack API triggers for remote employee onboarding
“Hopin operates in a way for recruitment. We operate it with, like, almost like a set of APIs that pin off when someone joins. It's like, okay, the line manager. It becomes super clear who it is because they get connected via Slack, and we do a few other things…”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 6:38 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boufarhat: Hopin Assigns Every New Hire Two Onboarding Buddies
“So the buddy system is essentially what we do is we connect one person with two buddies in the company. One of them is usually in their team, and one of them is on a completely different area that we think it's relevant that they need to work with.”
Johnny Boufarhat Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 9:20 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more

The other half of the tape: Johnny Boufarhat's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 7 episodes on 20VC. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 10Luciana Lixandru 3

Statements about Johnny Boufarhat, by other people (2)

Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Hopin founder Johnny Boufarhat cashed out $200M in secondary sales
“And so Johnny took two hundred million off.”
Harry Stebbings May 8, 2024 ▶ 42:15 Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
IVP invested heavily in Hopin without meeting founder Johnny Boufarhat in person
“I spoke to Jules and Alex at IVP before, and they said, we've invested a lot of money into Hopin, never met Johnny.”
Harry Stebbings Dec 10, 2020 ▶ 16:13 20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Funding in just 13 Months, The 3 Phases of Startup Scaling, How To Lead Remote Teams Effectively, The Future of Events Post-COVID and more

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00326420202021202220232024episodesmentions
02420202021202220232024episodes it came up in
002.525420202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 5 mentions in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Hopin, The Breakout Startup of 2020 on Scaling from 10 to 230 People and $174M in Fu Dec 10, 2020 20m
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