Christopher Hopper is the co-founder and CEO of Aurora Solar. Chris co-founded Aurora Solar back in 2013 while at Stanford. He since grew it into the leading solar design and sales software platform, now valued at $4 billion. In our discussion, we cover:
Aurora’s origin story, building a solar installer and pivoting to solving his own problems into a $4-billion-dollar solar business.
Why Chris bootstrapped for 5 years until it was too risky not to raise capital.
Lessons from hyper scaling to 400 employees, the importance of people, not striving for perfection, and constantly reinventing yourself as a founder.
How to build culture while scaling and avoid cultural dilution.
Chris’ four life lessons from over a decade in startups including frequently revisiting your why, embracing serendipity and trusting in the process, accepting that uncertainty and opportunity are two sides of the same coin, and being intentional about what you work on and with whom.