In IVP's Hyper-Growth Podcast series, IVP investors talk with CEOs of the fastest growing companies and discuss the ins and outs of company building in the hyper-growth environment.
In our second episode, IVP investor, Roseanne Wincek, sits down with David Rogier, Founder and CEO of MasterClass. David talks at great length about the company, how he thinks about hiring during each stage of growth and scaling quickly - from board members to employees, and what all of this has taught him about being an effective leader for a company during its high growth phase. IVP led MasterClass's $35 million Series C in 2017 and their $85 million Series D in 2018.
It all started with a lesson from grandmother.
Starting with half a million dollars from a trusted VC to help David go think of a great idea, this entrepreneur-at-heart found inspiration from his family roots. His grandmother, who helped raise him, provided one piece of advice that's stuck with him since the third grade.
Education is the only thing that a person can't take away from you.
She was right. So much so, that David used this advice to take the $500K he raised to build an education platform to give the masses access to the expert advice they didn't know they'd longed to learn. Founded in 2013 to give everyone access to genius, MasterClass is a prime example of hyper-growth. Two years ago, when IVP invested, the company employed 30 people and had just released their 13th class. Today, the company has tripled in size, released its 50th class and launched an online subscription streaming service.
Intuition coupled with customer interviews helped David identify what would make people excited to learn online. He found one reoccurring theme: people would pay to learn from the best. If classes are taught by the best in the world, students know that they are getting real, relevant, battle-hardened learnings. To test his thesis, he built a fake website and found that students were clamoring to buy classes from the masters. MasterClass was off to the races.
Since the company's start in 2013, David and the team at MasterClass have built a brand that has attracted the world's best. Serena Williams teaches tennis, Carlos Santana demonstrates the art and soul of guitar, Spike Lee doles out the intricacies of independent filmmaking, Annie Leibovitz shows the art behind photography, and Steph Curry helps even the best ballplayer understand the precision needed to shoot and score.
David tackled attracting the masters but also had to grow his company from infancy to the growth stage in the crowded online learning market.
To do this, David shared a few of the lessons he learned along the way with Roseanne.
Recognize the fundraising process is like an art. Don't ever send a pitch deck before a meeting.
Unless you've got stats like Uber, David says, it's hard to explain your story to an investor who may fail to understand the company's full potential from a series of slides without verbal context. In the early stages of investment, investors look for team caliber and dynamics, market fit and hyper-growth potential - things that are hard to see in a pitch deck in isolation. Wait to send the deck until after the meeting, allowing the ability to highlight the story - and opportunity in person.
Plus, understand that each round is different. A founder story highlighting the genesis of a company may land at the early fundraising rounds but will not secure a growth investment, where illustrating key hires who understand growth and scale become more important to gain capital. Finding the right people to guide each phase of storytelling to investors is crucial - and iterate along the way.
Find board members that support you. Not ones that try to run the business. If you have a bad board member, you're in a world of pain.
A company grows through a robust network of board and investor support. As a leader or CEO, the choice of board members becomes more critical as the company grows. Do lots of homework. Talk to entrepreneurs who have worked with this investor in good outcomes and in bad. Figure out why a person would be additive to the company's culture and growth, as well as a support network and sounding board.
Find an outlet for the inevitable emotional rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. Have a great therapist.
With any entrepreneurial endeavor comes high and lows. David's trick combines routines like keeping a daily gratitude journal, talking with a trusted friend or advisor, and regularly speaking to his therapist. Why? Issues at work arise from people dynamics and decision making among them. While a therapist may not understand business goals or growth metrics, they do understand how people interact as well as their patterns of behavior. These can then help leaders predict how a team member may act or respond. This guidance and third-party sounding boards can reduce decision fatigue and ease the growing pains of a high-growth business.
Hiring right is better than hiring fast. If you hire too fast, your bar will drop, and you won't hire great people.
When a company hits the high-growth stage, recognize hiring the right people will take first priority. At this stage, roles and responsibilities change - and fast. Figure out how to remove the people or candidates who can't or don't have the ability to scale. Companies start off with a gaggle of original employees who build the business through blood, sweat, and tears. During a growth-stage hiring stint, however, it's vital to differentiate current employees who can grow into the next role, while also finding future A player new hires through an honest dose of reviews from all levels of staff during the hiring process.
As a company grows, the touch point from employee to CEO diminish. Putting trust i
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
--
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Unio...
02/12/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Will Redefine Subscribers' Quality of Experience, Lowering Churn SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
02/12/2025
S an Nollaig
Hollywood blockbusters The Banshees of Inisherin, Barbie and Oppenheimer make their Irish TV debut
Tune into the classics such as Love Actual...
02/12/2025
Showcasing fresh Irish storytelling and emerging talent Storyland 2025 signals a fantastic time for Irish drama
RT and F s ireann/Screen Ireland are proud to...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
In IVP's Hyper-Growth Podcast series, IVP investors talk with CEOs of the fastest growing companies and discuss the ins and outs of company building in the hyper-growth environment.
