Hatch Turns 2: A Story of 2,000 Startups and 20 Million Droplets

Hatch, our global startup program, hit a major milestone this fall turning two!

We’ve made significant progress since launch. We’ve partnered with over 400 incubators, venture capital firms, and accelerators globally to provide a range of perks and support to over 2,000 startups. And, our Hatchers have spun up over 20 million Droplets from 92 countries. We get the excitement around reaching another year, as we’ve seen it reflected in the eyes of founders traversing the ups and downs of pursuing a dream.

Community is at the heart of Hatch, and listening to our members is central to continually improving the program. (A highlight was traveling last year to Lisbon for the first time to attend Web Summit, where Hatchers and customers shared their needs and more ways we could support them.) We’ve heard how Hatch helps members innovate, stress-test new business ideas for clients, and feel supported by a community on a similar journey. As Hatcher James Gallagher, founder of OpenCommit, puts it: "I have only just joined the Hatch program and I feel that it will help me connect with fellow founders, get feedback for my startup, and help others build their startups.”

It’s party time for Hatch Startups at #WebSummit - customers meeting customers and beautiful views #itshatcheningpic.twitter.com/iUauc9wigq
— DigitalOcean (@digitalocean) November 8, 2017

We’re creating a platform for founders to share their experiences and discuss their companies. For example, at our first North American TIDE event, held in New York City in the spring, a Hatch panel featuring Don Pottinger of Lytham Labs, John Jung of June.ai, and Justin Karneges of Fanout, moderated by Alex Iskold of Techstars, shared how they approached successfully scaling.

We’ll also continue to support Hatchers through initiatives like the Hatch Founders’ Circles, an invite-only event marked by talks for a curated audience of founders, investors, and startup enablers; as well as Expert Office Hours, such as the one we recently held with our friend and partner, Nic Jackson of Hashicorp.

Our online Slack Community, where founders from all over the world can connect at whatever hour they’re up trying to solve problems and help each other reach their goals. “Connecting with various developers across the globe with different skill sets was helpful in getting right answers," says Layak Singh, founder of Artivatic.ai. "Artivatic is working towards deep tech and hence views/knowledge of such diverse group will be really helpful in scaling further.”

Hitting our second anniversary wouldn’t be as special without our amazing Hatchers. So we asked them what Hatch has meant. Here’s what some say about their experience:

We are honored to have the opportunity to support a global community of startups that continue to blow us away. Here’s to another year and wave of awesome companies looking to build impactful software. Thanks for all the love and if you are interested in learning more, please visit our program page where you can apply to the program or apply to partner.

A big thanks to the Hatchers who shared with us:

• GogoGoGuest - Cloud marketing solutions with WiFi service to power food service, hospitality, and pop up retail for smart insights on customers.
• Klayvio - Powerful, easy-to-use email and social marketing platform for eCommerce businesses.
• Octochannel - Marketing automation for SMBs and startups.
• Dofo - Search platform for domain names.
• Wingly - Flight sharing platform, finding passengers and pilots for your trip.
• Switch Payments - Switch provides the technical infrastructure for transaction orchestration across the entire payments value chain.