HubSpot's CEO Brian Halligan on Inbound, what's next in marketing and more
You probably know Brian Halligan as the co-founder and CEO of HubSpot. Or as the person who coined the term ‘inbound marketing’. Brian is one of the B2B world’s most sought-after CEOs. He took HubSpot from a scrappy startup to a profitable (and enduring) public company. He knows what it takes to not only build a great company, but transform an industry in the process.
Support this podcast by buying me a coffee (or 3...) ☕
In our conversation we cover a lot of ground talking all things marketing. We start off with a whistlestop tour of Brian's career and why he started HubSpot, to then getting into the weeds of marketing in 2019.
0:01 - Intro
0:47 - Brian's background and career
2:02 - Why did Brian (and Dharmesh) start HubSpot?
4:00 - How Brian met his co-founder Dharmesh
5:48 - What is the dynamic like between Dharmesh and Brian
7:18 - Do you need to find a co-founder with complimentary skills?
9:19 - How did HubSpot get the early customers? Brians FOB.
10:50 - Was Inbound a thing before they started HubSpot?
11:56 - What is inbound?
13:05 - It's so cheap to start making content these days
13:43 - What was it like introducing a brand new category?
15:51 - Is it still a good strategy to start your own category?
17:25 - Is there marketing buzzword fatigue in 2019
18:33 - The agency partner program - why did HubSpot put so much emphasis on it?
20:36 - Build out an in house team or use agencies?
21:33 - What does the future marketer look like?
22:39 - All marketers should learn how to code
23:33 - Why we're living in a great age for learning
24:28 - The HubSpot Academy. Why did they invest in the acedemy? Give away a lot and use that content to pull people in
25:38 - What are Brian's thoughts on Freemium?
27:30 - You'd be batshit crazy not to use HubSpot
27:47 - What is next for HubSpot?
31:07 - When did HubSpot start to shift to an all-on-one-platform?
33:00 - Adding value to HubSpot instead of competing with tools. "You're either a Hub or a Spoke"
33:58 - How does HubSpot stay agile to compete with smaller companies, or are they trying to work with them?
35:18 - Does inbound marketing still work?
36:47 - Success in marketing is very much the width of your brain, not the width of your wallet.
37:59 - How can new companies use content marketing to grow. It's a quality over quantity game.
40:05 - Why did HubSpot retire the funnel and introduce the flywheel
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jmckinven
Brains's Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhalligan