I Joined Hampton 6 Months Ago — Here's My Honest Review

Introduction

I’m Sardor Akhmedov - an entrepreneur, co-founder of Bolder Apps and angel investor at Fathom.ai. 

I’ve bootstrapped multiple businesses and have been in different business communities, some of them built by me personally.

Bolder is a mobile app development agency with a team of 50+ people I founded in 2019.. 

We work with small to medium size businesses and first time founders to build their mobile apps. Anything from an internal ERP for a construction business to a dating app for a startup. We work with companies like Forbes, Supreme Court of Ohio and Valuetainment Media.

I joined Hampton in January 2026, about 6 years into building my company. 

2025 was the year my company finally qualified revenue-wise to join Hampton (over $3 million). 

So, I was excited to finally get in a room of other entrepreneurs who are also actively building their businesses. A room where I can share my ideas and mainly learn from others.

Here is my honest review of Hampton - all the pro’s and cons as a member who joined 6 months ago.

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What’s Hampton?

Hampton says they are a community of founders and CEO’s that are running businesses that are doing at least $3M in revenue or have at least $3M+ in funding received. 

For me, Hampton is my mastermind and a room of trusted peers that push me to grow. 

And even though there are more than 1000 users it feels small enough for members to get to know each other because of the in person events and mainly the core groups that you get assigned to. More on core groups in a bit. 

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The application process

First, the evaluation process - it was not as rigorous as they advertise it is. On the “interview”, which is obviously a sales call (a lesson on reframing the sales call I got for free right there) they ask you for what your company does, how many people you have, what your revenue is and say they will get back to you. 

No one got back to me, so I had to follow up in a few days and they immediately “accepted me after internal discussions” - not sure how rigorous the discussion was. “But no one verified my revenue” I thought until I saw the requirement for a screenshot from PandaDoc when signing the contract. Makes sense. But can also be faked. 

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The events

Anyways, once I joined I stopped by their NYC office to meet the team. 

I got to meet Sam Parr in person for the first time after listening to MFM for 3 years. So, for MFM fans that’s an extra perk. The team is super friendly, and Sam is…just the real Sam with his direct questions like “Do you make a lot of money?” in the context of me asking him what neighborhood he recommends in SF. (Sam is a great guy and not a douche btw) And this is what makes Hampton special - being able to be real and direct comes from top down.

I spent a month in NYC and got to visit a few really cool events. One of them was a hypnotherapy event that seemed a little too salesy. The lady was literally hard selling us her services. I thought this is how they monetize. They throw “free” events but on the back end they are getting a commission or a placement fee from these infopreneurs. That left a bad taste in my mouth. But turns out it’s not true. The next morning I got an email from the Hampton founders apologizing and that they did not expect her to do that. It was a genuine email. That kind of thing never happened again.

Pro tip: NYC has the most amount of and best type of events - since the HQ is there + they have more members.

The best event I attended was a roundtable run by one of the members. Everyone among about 15 members had an opportunity to share one challenge they are currently dealing with so everyone can jump in and help them out. 

Mine was the concern I had around my company’s profitability falling and my anxiety around not being able to keep as high as I’ve had when my company was smaller. I was instantly recommended to read “Profit First” and implement this system in my company. 

That changed everything for me. It probably helped me save at least $500k this year. I’ve heard of this book before of course but have always dismissed it thinking it was a trick for only lifestyle entrepreneurs who don’t want high growth but are rather focused only on paying themselves. But when the members who actually implemented it told me about it my perception and attitude towards it changed completely. 

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The Core group
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In February I moved to the Bay Area and got assigned into a core group. A core group consists of 8 other founders and a moderator who runs in person monthly meetings according to the Hampton protocol and the 3C’s value. I’ve made some good friends through this group since and learned from folks that are running businesses that are much bigger than mine. 

We meet with the core group once a month and the attendance is taken very seriously. If you miss more than 2 meetings you are out. Being late for more than 15 minutes marks you absent. For every minute you are late you pay $10 - this one is our individual group rule. With the money that we collect we then throw a dinner for all of us.

Besides this, Hampton throws really nice dinners and fun events like the magicians show, poker game (requested on demand by members) and impromptu events hosted by members.

For me it was super helpful since I moved to a new city where I didn’t have any connections and I was able to make some friends quickly. And that whole effect of “you are the average of five people you surround yourself with” is definitely true. I felt it. 

Was it worth the money? Absolutely! I’ve made all of that money back through finding the right vendors that I hired through Hampton and learning things like Profit First that saved my business a ton of money. 

The opportunity cost of not having a peer group like Hampton is massive. I’ve been raving about this on my socials for months. 

I convinced one friend to join already and am in the process of convincing a few more. Of course it only makes sense if you are actively running a business. If you are just screwing around this is not for you.

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Taking a cedar bath at a retreat in Tahoe. January, 2026

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Family dinner at Dorukhan’s place from my core group. 

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