The document summarizes Chris Graham's talk on building HYFN8 from scratch to becoming a top 10 social media advertising and management platform. It describes how HYFN8 started as a digital agency, transitioned to focus on mobile when native apps emerged, and slowly gained traction with clients by running their advertising. As it grew from a few clients generating $200k in 2013 to over 60 employees and $4.5M in revenue in 2014, HYFN8 scaled its operations and partnered with major social media platforms. It was eventually acquired by Nexstar in 2016 and now aims to further differentiate its technology to solidify its top 10 market position over the next 5 years.

1. Building a Product from Scratch to
Compete in the Market Top 10
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Chris Graham
Building a Product from Scratch to Competing in the Top 10 of a Market

7. Who Am I?
7

8. 8 Who am I?
CHRIS GRAHAM
• VP of Product and Advertising at HYFN
• Managing Director, Noname Ventures
• Worked with clients including UTI,
GoDaddy, Motorola, Ebay, and Taco Bell
• Loves Hamilton

9. HYFN8
9

10. 10 HYFN8
What is HYFN8?
HYFN8 is a social media advertising and management
platform that powers all of HYFN’s reporting, publishing,
and optimization across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Pinterest, and Snapchat. We build solutions that
empower our teams and clients to make educated
decisions about advertising, generate insights for our
clients, and most importantly, drive business outcomes.

11. Early Product Development
1
1

12. 12
• HYFN started as a digital
development agency in 2000
• By 2011, Facebook Apps were all
the rage, and a huge part of our
business
• Wildfire, Buddy Media, and more
were heading towards $300MM+
exits
Early Product Development
What we thought we were doing…

13. Adjustments
1
3

14. 14
• By 2012, Mobile was clearly the
future, and native mobile
cannibalized iframed web pages
• All of our competition exited
• Advertising was just starting to
ramp
Adjustments
What we Changed…

15. Traction
1
5

16. 16
• We went to market in
August 2013 as a SAAS
solution. We sold 1 license
in 7 months.
• Concurrently, because
clients saw us as a
solutions company, we
were immediately engaged
to run advertising for our
clients.
Traction
Our First ‘Yes’
LOOKALIKES
ENGAGED
INTERESTS
Re-Marketing

17. 17
“The number one company-killer is lack of market.
In a great market - A market with lots of real
potential customers - The market pulls the
product out of the startup.”
-Marc Andreessen
Why So Few Succeed
Traction

18. 18 Traction
The gap in the market

19. Ramp
1
9

20. 20
• HYFN8 had ~8 clients and 200k in
revenue 2013; 2014 was 25 clients
and 4.5MM in revenue
• Departments were created for
analytics, client services, sales, and
ad operations
• We hired lots of outside talent to
help us execute and grow
Ramp
Ramping Up

21. Scale
2
1

22. 22
• 2015 and 2016 saw the company
grow by ~300% annually
• Staff went from 8 in 2012 to 60 in
2017
• We partnered with Twitter,
Pinterest, Instagram, and
Snapchat
Scale
The Rise to the Top

23. At Present
2
3

24. 24
• HYFN was acquired by Nexstar
in April 2016
• We’re a top 10 marketing partner
• We’re working to continue
differentiating our technology to
solidify and grow our market
position 10x over the next 5
years
At Present
HYFN8 Today

25. Question Topics
2
5

26. 26
• Building a product from scratch
• Finding Product Market Fit
• Managing a Growing Company
• Competing in the top 10 of a market
• Knowing when to move on
Question Topics
Question Topics (But really, AMA)

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