The Hypepotamus top 10 – a mix of popular and impactful pieces from the 1,558 stories we’ve told so far. This will give you an idea of how much our audience and community outreach has grown since we’ve pivoted from coworking to publication.
We covered Ryder McEntyre (a design, developer, and film triple threat) when he was just about to graduate from Berry in Rome, GA. Payscape took notice of the article, made him an offer, and he’s started his career in Atlanta. So far we’ve introduced you to 356 of your neighbors from high school freshman to 30 year technology veterans.
Hype announced that GSU was building an entrepreneurship minor program and asked the community to step up to help the university make it successful. So many people responded that GSU built a listserve of mentors. 464 community and news stories have kept the ecosystem abreast of educational offerings, program launches, and space updates.
72 contributors were published to update you on industry changes, best practices, and journal their experiences in the startup world. Jackie Hutter, an IP lawyer and one of our most active contributors, gave you an insiders scoop on the demise of ZPM Espresso, a crowdfunded coffee company (including what went wrong and how to mitigate the risk to your crowd-sourced fundraiser). This piece is just the tip of the iceberg of the free advice contributed by award winning PR professionals, media gurus, experienced founders, and community leaders.
Eqip, Our Startup Survival Kit Winner, won a prize package valued at $21,000 (11 prizes including a logo, headshots, office space, education, pr help and more) to get their music plugin software marketplace off the ground. DC Da Composer, Kebo Music, and Matt Simpkins of Starboarders all reached out to Eqip after reading the article and we also connected them with William DuVall of Alice in Chains. Hype has partnered with 69 organizations to score our readers discounts, tickets, scholarships, and giveaways.
Local ecommerce marketing platform, Kevy, solidified a major deal after we covered the appointment of their new CEO. We have covered 445 GA-centric companies from one-man-shops looking for beta users to 100+ year old companies using local resources to innovate.
After posting their opening on our free job board, Chefter found their CTO and just completed their MVP. 330 jobs have been posted on our job board that has been visited by 20,500 people looking for their next move in the tech world.
We host the most comprehensive tech events calendar in GA. It is manually put together from 186 different websites and since it’s inception 13,400 people have used it to find a local event. We’ve also planned three ecosystem wide events including: Coding School Battle (all major local schools under one roof to connect with prospective students), the Startup Bike Ride (bike tour of tech and innovation spaces), and the Holiday Party (boozy shenanigans with 500+ people).
In an effort to help local startups build their beta base we are the first customer for both SpeakPage and ShortWeb. They are testing their products and garnering feedback and analytics from our audience.
Hypepotamus has groomed 13 interns for the startup world. A smattering of awesomeness- Chibs founded ARMR Systems (the world’s first wearable hemorrhage control system to stop the bleeding anytime), Klaire has taken on an internship at Syrup, Carey landed a full-time gig at National Builder Supply, Kjersti works at the Institute of Leadership an Entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech, and Ryan handles administrative duties at DeskHub and at dev shop, Nicely Built.
We’re hell bent on growing our audience so the people and companies we cover can be scouted for opportunities to build and thrive in Georgia. Since starting as a publication, our Facebook audience has grown by 130%, the newsletter list by 185%, and we have 8,730 twitter followers. We’ve been read in 203 countries and our largest piece was seen by 95,938 unique visitors in only two days.
GA startup folks, you built this. You divulged the scoops, gave us technical help (Nine Labs, 10Rocket, Everett Steele, Ryan Back, Roger Lopez, TJ Muehleman), bridged introductions, and provided advice. Hype has been built on the backs of some of Atlanta’s hardest working people.
Look what you can do with a selfless mission, a lean staff, and authentic community support.
