There’s no shortcut. We love telling success stories and focusing on positive outcomes, and we often forget that for one successful startup there are hundreds of failures. I believe this leads a lot of us to think that startups can provide a shortcut to success and/or to a successful exit. We’ve had a lot of adversity along the way and at the end we’ve had more failures than successes, but we never lost focus or faith. Even after a setback, we would keep turning every stone and going to the bottom of every single issue we that you crossed. I believe that accepting that there’s no shortcut is a prerequisite to focus on the fundamentals of your business.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sebastien “Seb” Tron. Seb is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hopsy, the fastest growing online beer company in the US. Often referred to as “the Nespresso of beer”, Hopsy was founded in 2015 and is revolutionizing the way beer drinkers drink beer at home by delivering a rotation of beers — in their proprietary mini-kegs — to be used in a counter-top beer machine (the SUB Home Tap). With of over 100 employees across the country, Hopsy is currently going through explosive growth year over year and delivering beer from hundreds of craft breweries to hundreds of thousands of beer lovers. Originally from France, Seb moved to the United States six years ago to follow his American dream and create his own company. Seb previously worked as a marketing consultant in Paris, helping large retailers across Europe operate their digital transition. Seb holds a Master of Science in Management from HEC Paris as well as an MBA from UC Berkeley-Haas School of Business. Seb is based in New York City where he lives with his wife and daughters.
Thank you so much for joining us, Seb! What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO” and why.
Feedback is a gift. Grinding and hustling is necessary but it’s not enough. Creating a startup is incredibly difficult and there isn’t enough time to accomplish close everything that needs to be done. In the early days, I remember we would execute non-stop without stepping back and reflecting on our decisions. Today, I almost never decline an invitation to go grab coffee with a friend from business school or one of our investors because new ideas and feedback can help us unlock a situation or accelerate on select topics.
There’s no such thing as over communication. When things move at 100 mph, we sometimes forget to communicate changes or targets to everyone. It’s happened to us a lot: we’d make a series of big decisions and “assume” that everyone in the company was aware and move on, only to realize a few weeks later that it was not the case.
Listen more than you talk. I hate void and I fill it. I talk too much. It may be fine in the early stages, but a friend rightfully told me that it can create a culture of inhibition where employees would always seek your approval instead of making the call on their own decisions. I’m working on it.
Lead by example. Culture starts from the top. I’ve been extremely fortunate to hire really good people, who’ve joined our growing company and followed our incredible crazy journey. I’m humbled by the loyalty and dedication I’m witnessing every day, and I think it can only be nurtured by showing the same loyalty and dedication.
There’s no shortcut. We love telling success stories and focusing on positive outcomes, and we often forget that for one successful startup there are hundreds of failures. I believe this leads a lot of us to think that startups can provide a shortcut to success and/or to a successful exit. We’ve had a lot of adversity along the way and at the end we’ve had more failures than successes, but we never lost focus or faith. Even after a setback, we would keep turning every stone and going to the bottom of every single issue we that you crossed. I believe that accepting that there’s no shortcut is a prerequisite to focus on the fundamentals of your business.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to inspire good labor and management practices. Being a manager is a huge responsibility that directly impacts people’s lives life, and poor management can definitely hurt people. Most of us learn to manage on the job without proper training.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Elephants have a hard time adapting. Cockroaches outlive everything.” — Peter Drucker.
I’m a fighter and the culture I’ve created at my company is a culture of fighters. People I work with do not look at their job at Hopsy as a job, it’s more than that, and that’s why we’ll disrupt the “elephants” of the beer industry. We are quietly knitting our web of beer machines and before you know it, we’ll be selling more beer than any distributor in this country. We never give up, whatever curved ball is sent our way. Hopsy has good chance to become a unicorn, but it’ll get there by behaving like a cockroach.
Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say?
We’re disrupting the massive beer industry –$100 billion in the US. Both our retention and profitability metrics are through the roof. We’ve raised $40 million to date and are looking to raise a significant round of funding in 2020 to further accelerate growth.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastientron/
Thank you for all of these great insights!
Authority Magazine Snapshots: Sebastien “Seb” Tron, CEO of Hopsy was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
