Overview of Practical Founders Podcast — Episode #173: From COVID Boom to Bootstrap Mode — Hubilo's Refounder Story (guest: Shailesh Hegde)
This episode (hosted by Greg Head) tells the story of Hubilo — a Bangalore-based events/video company that exploded during COVID, raised large VC rounds, then saw demand collapse and intentionally returned capital. Shailesh Hegde (former Head of Product → refounder CEO) explains how he led a restart: pivoting the product to a webinar-first, mid-market offering, cutting burn, rebuilding GTM, and ultimately selling the business to BrandLive. The episode is part how-to, part turnaround narrative, with practical lessons for founders who face rapid market shifts or need to rebuild after an overfunded boom.
Key facts & timeline
- Company: Hubilo — started in India in the virtual events/video space; later pivoted to B2B webinars.
- Founders: Vaibhav Jain and Mayank Agarwal (college classmates).
- Funding: Raised roughly $150M across rounds during the COVID virtual-events boom.
- Peak team: a couple hundred employees; later reduced to ~20–30 (core team ~30 when pivoting).
- Pivot timeframe: COVID boom (2020–2021), signs of decline over 2022–2023; rebuild and pivot to webinars over the next ~18–24 months.
- Revenue split near exit: ~50% legacy (virtual events) / 50% new webinar product.
- Acquisition: Sold to BrandLive (Portland, enterprise-focused video platform, private-equity backed). Deal closed in late 2024 / early 2025 timeframe. ~80% of Hubilo team transitioned to the acquirer.
- Shailesh’s role now: transitional leader helping product, engineering and customer integration.
The core story: boom → bust → refounder pivot → sale
- COVID accelerated demand for virtual events; Hubilo rapidly built a product, grew team and raised significant VC capital.
- As in-person events returned, virtual-events demand dropped. Hubilo’s leadership chose to return remaining investor capital rather than continue burning with low return prospects.
- Founders selected Shailesh to lead a restart: focus on a repeatable, scalable webinar product aimed at mid-market (companies with 50–500 employees) and B2B marketing teams.
- Strategy included simplifying the product (webinars = lighter subset of events), adding differentiated features (content repurposing, GenAI-driven capabilities), and reworking GTM.
- The company cut expenses, went almost “bootstrap-ish,” rebuilt product-market fit, and intentionally positioned the business to be an attractive acquisition target.
- Outcome: strategic acquisition by BrandLive (complementary enterprise product suites). Transition and product integration are underway.
Product & go-to-market changes (what actually changed)
- Product:
- From full virtual-events platform to webinar-first, outcome-driven product for demand generation.
- Improved differentiation (repurposing content, GenAI features) to give customers a reason to switch.
- Target customer:
- Shifted ICP from event organizers/physical-event customers to B2B marketing teams at growth-stage firms (50–500 employees).
- Primary sales geographies: U.S. and EMEA (higher willingness-to-pay).
- GTM & marketing:
- Outbound cold sales was not highly effective for displacing entrenched webinar tools.
- Focused on inbound: web presence, SEO/content (leveraging AI content generation for scale), LinkedIn thought leadership and targeted ads.
- Experimented carefully with paid channels (cautious about expensive Google ads in a competitive market).
- Operations:
- Deep cost discipline and prioritization; cut non-essential spend and reworked incentives to retain core team.
- Emphasis on customer success continuity during transition.
M&A process — practical notes
- Timeline: ~4–5 months from initial conversations to close.
- Type of acquirer: strategic buyer (BrandLive) seeking complementary product & engineering talent to sell into enterprise customers.
- Outcome: majority of team and customers transitioned; sale provided continuity and value for employees and product work.
- Shailesh did much of the M&A work in-house (no retained M&A advisor). He found data-room prep, contract reviews and vendor/customer logistics to be the most intense and time-consuming parts.
- Lesson: advisors help, but retainer costs and timelines can be factors — founders must weigh cost vs. value and timeline certainty.
Notable quotes / insights
- "When you execute really well across product and GTM, good things can happen — even in a tough market."
- "A webinar product is a much more stripped-down version of a virtual-events product — we already had the complex bits; we needed to simplify and add differentiation."
- "If you want to optimize for learning, start your company or join early stage; if you want to optimize for wealth creation, choose paths differently."
Practical lessons & advice for founders
- Validate via customer conversations: Shailesh talked to ~50 marketing leaders before committing to the webinar pivot. Talk to prospective customers early and often (The Mom Test recommended).
- Pick an ICP with repeatability: favor segments where you can scale a product rather than custom-enterprise engagements that require heavy bespoke work.
- Cut burn and focus on runway: when product-market signals dim, reduce non-essential spend early and be transparent with team about goals (e.g., reach zero burn, show ARR traction).
- Differentiate to displace incumbents: customers won’t change tools unless you offer significantly better outcomes.
- Be pragmatic about fundraising: returning capital can be a valid, honorable choice if the original market bet no longer supports the intended scale/return.
- M&A prep is grunt work: contracts, vendor transitions, and thorough data rooms are tedious but essential. Consider advisor tradeoffs (cost vs. structure).
- Founder mindset: use downturns as learning opportunities — being the person who stays to rebuild can accelerate skills across sales, CS, finance and operations.
Actionable checklist for founders facing a post-boom reset
- Immediately: inventory runway, monthly burn, and core revenue lines.
- Customer research: run 20–50 structured interviews to test alternative ICPs and product directions.
- Product triage: identify the minimal product changes and 2–3 differentiated features that could drive switching.
- GTM experiments: prioritize low-cost, high-ROI tactics (content / SEO, LinkedIn thought leadership) before scaling paid acquisition.
- Team alignment: set transparent goals (e.g., zero burn target, ARR milestone, exit criteria) and update incentives.
- M&A readiness: organize contracts, customer lists, vendor agreements and financials into a clean data room early.
- Decide advisor usage: weigh retainer vs. transaction fee structures relative to expected timeline and budget.
Closing / what’s next for Shailesh
- He plans to run his own company within 3–5 years — using this hands-on refounding & exit experience to launch a new venture.
- Short-term focus: transition integration with BrandLive and exploration of future problem spaces to solve.
For founders: this episode is a practical playbook on how to survive an overfunded boom, return capital with integrity, rebuild product-market fit on a lean basis, and create an attractive exit — all while keeping the team and customers front-of-mind.