Hookdeck’s First Investor Meetup!

March 7 to March 9: Hookdeck’s first-ever investor meeting. Patrick Malatack and Kojo Osei flew from SF to meet me and Alex in Taos! Why Taos, New Mexico? Well the skiing, of course!

Since connecting with Pat and Kojo two years ago during our seed funding, we’ve had many, many great calls, but online never beats face-to-face. We were eager to finally meet up!

In this blog post, I’ll skip the work stuff and share my key takeaway: startup founders, choose your partners carefully. In a context of uncertainty where you give all your energy only to wonder, “will my company make it?” I have come to realize how much of an advantage it is to have someone in your corner that you can trust to share their raw, candid thoughts, give their time when you ask for advice, and with whom you can have a great time and enjoy the journey.

Here are a few highlights of our first meeting IRL!

Bonjour, hi!

Patrick and Kojo received their Hookdeck Cubes! Each person on our team at Hookdeck has a custom cube avatar that represents a bit of their flair, so of course we had to include Pat and Kojo. Also, it wouldn’t have been a proper welcome without maple syrup and coffee crisps! #Canada.

Skiing

Le plat de resistance! Skiing on the amazing mountain of Taos. Unfortunately we weren’t blessed with great powder, but it was a beautiful bluebird day to shred groomers. Here are a series of answers to questions that were not on your mind.

1. Is that Pat photoshopped? He may or may not have had a sprained ankle that day…
2. Is half the mountain double black diamond runs? Gnarly, yes.
3. Did Kojo ski his first double black diamond run? Yes.
4. Was it for survival purposes? Maybe.

💡 Lucky us, the Kachina lift was open that day!

Food and drinks

We forgot to take pictures; that’s what happens when we get way too immersed in important topics over dinner, for example the classic question (…) “will terrible Canadian roads impede autonomous car adoption?” But in a fun turn of events, while we were out we got caught in a surprise game of trivia!

Below you’ll notice Kojo trying (struggling) to calculate our (not that many) points. That day we learned:

1. The Unicorn Hunters is not the best trivia team in Taos. 😅
2. Kojo’s handwriting is way too clear, which meant there was no possibility of scoring a few extra points due to a confused corrector.
3. Pat’s quote of the night was “Why are there so many pop culture questions? I’m good at sports!” but (un)surprisingly, he still knew a lot.
4. Alex’s quintessential French Canadian upbringing was of no use whatsoever when answering American pop culture. The amount of times he thought an answer was “Whitney Houston”….

Conclusion

During our time together, we of course got to ponder Hookdeck’s future through idea-challenging chats with the smartest VCs, but most of all we got to spend time with the people that believed in us and our idea.

As first-time founders, Alex and I are navigating many new things. Far from being a “sure bet” or “ready-made”, we try to the best of our abilities to learn (very fast) to embrace what building a startup means: ups, downs, and uncertainty. Pat and Kojo have been nothing short of amazing as allies of Hookdeck’s journey.

For entrepreneurs that dream big, choose Matrix Partners.

And for developers, Alex and I feel more motivated and excited than ever about building Hookdeck and removing the burden and complexity of managing webhooks and asynchronous events.

Eric, Co-Founder