I paid to make friends in Hampton, and it worked

I was listening to another local founder Andrew Wilkinson on the My First Million podcast when I first heard about the founder's community, Hampton. I liked the idea: get paired with a group of vetted founders who are at a similar stage as I am, meet monthly, chat in Slack, make friends. Sounded interesting, but I had some hangups.

Back story

I started building on the internet as a designer who learned to code, then launched digital product studio, Input Logic, 15 years ago. I grew it to 28 people and millions in annual revenue from a small town in BC, Canada. I've always just kind of figured things out on my own. I was hungry for peers, but I hated the idea of paying to join a social club. Like I'd be buying my way into an elite peer group? Seemed kind of, lame, honestly. Something in my small-town Saskatchewan upbringing told me I needed to earn that the old fashioned way.

Then, I kept hearing about other founders joining and I started to get a bit of FOMO. I bit the bullet, paid the fee, and joined. They reviewed my P&L! I waited to see if I made the cut. When I got the acceptance email I was kind of like, "Ok here goes, I'll give this a year".

Core group

I was put into a "core group" as they call it and the first meeting literally blew my mind. There were 8 of us, all running digital agencies, all in a pretty similar tier of the market but targeting different demographics, spread across North America. I felt an immediate sense that these guys understood me. They knew the struggle. We talked about our personal lives, our businesses, and our "most important thing" at the moment. We shared knowledge, numbers, and fears. It was cathartic. I wanted more.

In person events

I attended a few in-person dinners and social events, I met people in other core groups, in other industries. The common thread was that everyone was trying to level up, and everyone wanted peers who knew the struggle and successes of entrepreneurship after a certain level of success. The thing that surprised me most was the lack of pretense. I'd meet folks doing 10x my revenue, picking wine for the table like they knew what they were doing, and they'd be genuinely curious about my business and my journey, eager to share their hard-won experience. I had a blast at the Christmas party.

Winning customers

Then I landed my first customer through the Hampton Slack channel. It's super frowned on to market yourself in the group, so I've been careful not to, but somebody asked for design feedback on their app, and having been conditioned by my core group to tell it straight, I shared an unfiltered critique. Anyway, I got a DM afterward, and a multi-year product engagement with a client who I still love to work with today.

I'm in my third year of membership this year. I've made real friends, I've learned a lot about my business and business in general, and I have this incredible sounding board of talented operators who I can just throw random thoughts and ideas at. It's worth every penny.