In 2017, I met an interesting individual who was moving cities every 3 months. One day, I saw a Slack message in the chat saying he was stopping in Phoenix. We became friends. 2 years later, he joined @Hopin as employee #1. Here's a thread on the rise of the modern scout

Before I let this one rip, I have two things to share:

1. I am not going to share his name, as I want to protect his privacy. We'll call him John in his thread.
2. Hopin has raised $570M up to this point. It was only founded in 2019.

Let's begin.

I remember when we first met. We set up a meeting in Galvanize Phoenix right after it opened. The conversation was electric. He just left his job to go full time on writing. I was disliking my job and was debating leaving my job. Note, this was 2017. No real startup for me yet.

As mentioned, the ideas just flowed for us. We were both writers. We jammed on writing, ideas, communities, Phoenix, Travelling. He eventually was one of the reasons I quit my job to start PubLoft V1. He was just like me. I wish he never left Phoenix

We met a few times. We even had a double date. His wife me and my girlfriend at the time met at Cartel coffee in Tempe. He was showing us an app that he was working on that was good for parties. It was fantastic. We even played at Cartel. He is an exceptional entrepreneur.

As we developed our friendship, he started a few things I got involved with. One was a paid community. I was one of the first paying members. He also wrote a book. We bought it (or he gifted it to us, we don't remember), but I remember I supported him. And he supported me.

He served as a supportive friend when I started PubLoft V1. He helped me a little with my writing. He is a little older than me as well, so he also served as a mentor to me in little ways. Eventually, he left Phoenix and we kept the friendship digital.

We talked here and there. We kept up with each other on social media. but I remember it was late 2018 when he was struggling a little with his work. As was I in ways. I don't remember all the details, but I recall he wanted to get a job. Or something more stable.

It was soon after that he said he was joining a virtual events company called Hopin. It was unclear what the role was, but it WAS clear that it was him and the founder, and he was responsible for the business side. He started posting about it Facebook. No one thought it was cool.

It wasn't that Hopin wasn't cool. It's that nothing new is cool. The ultimate competitor to startups is apathy and he sure was dealing with that. Hell, I felt the same way. I didn't get it 100%. Note, this was pre-pandemic. But he was confident. He knew something we all didn't.

This is what an early-stage startup looks/feels like 100% of the time. A few very smart people are evangelizing something that few other people get. And this guy was one of the savviest I knew. Something was going on here. And I knew about it when no one cared...what about now?

Now, Hopin is THE fastest growing company of 2020. It's raised $500M with a massive team serving a global and huge market. And I knew about it almost first. Sure before most if any Silicon Valley VCs. Now, this story is not uncommon. Many of us have similar stories.

We all know that one group of super-smart students you know will be big. Or that one artist who crushed it in High School that you knew was going to get signed by the tier one studio. Then they do, and you look back fondly. You get bragging rights. Fun, right?

Well, there is one industry where you get paid for spotting people first. Heavily. And that is venture capital. And for many, they don't even work as a full-time VCs. They are scouts. They find the Hopin's in their network and they cut a check and get a little equity.

Scouts are an important part of the ecosystem. They are more embedded with the founders than VCs are. So it's logical. And it works often. @Jason wrote a Sequoia scout check into Uber and that may be the best scout check that was ever written.

Since scout programs have been founded, the number of global startups have grown 100X, the cost of starting a startup has plummeted, and there are many more investment opportunities than there used to be. Startups are eating the world...but we still have a problem.

The issue is that to become a scout means you're an insider is a very small part of the world. It means you went to Stanford/Harvard, you worked at a tier 1 startup, or you just have great network/are very lucky. 99% of people can't become scouts.

If the same types of people are becoming scouts, but all different types of startups are being founded, it means that there are SO many founders who are being missed, not due to lack of competence, but due to the demographics of the current scout pool.

A Stanford alum likely isn't hanging out in Nigeria. A Stripe employee likely doesn't have a deep network in Sweden. But someone does. And thanks to the internet, that person can likely identify the top 10% of founders in their local geo. Or by chance, run into one.

This is why @seedscout is enabling the rise of the modern scout. Anyone can sign up on our website to scout startups, anyone can scout, and anyone can get paid. In the future, we'll even be able to offer our scouts equity the startups they find.

The reason? I owe no Hopin shares. I got $0 upside. Only this thread to tell. But I do own John's book. The person to meet the next Hopin should not just get credit but also get compensated. Because what's the alternative?

90% of the same types of people scouting 10% of the total deals. Nah. This isn't where innovation happens. Innovation happens at the fringe. It happens while camping with friends in the Negev or climbing a waterfall in Jamaica. This is how startups start. Not in a classroom.

So the next time you have talented friends who are thinking about starting them, scout them. I don't care if you're on a plane across the Atlantic or in a lava tube in Flagstaff. Sometimes innovation can't wait. This is the rise of the modern scout. What are you waiting for?