HubSpot
A CRM and marketing software platform built for small and medium businesses.
- Sold direct to customers
- Existing marketing channels full
- Added agencies as new channel
- Four or five years later
- Agency sales about 50% of revenue
Agency sales reached about 50% of revenue
From Jason Cohen on HubSpot
What was said about HubSpot
HubSpot added an agency channel and it became half its revenue. HubSpot tested selling through agencies instead of only selling direct. After four or five years, agency sales were about 50% of its revenue.
Jason Cohen offers this as an example of adding an entirely new kind of channel when existing marketing channels are full, rather than squeezing the old one. Constant Contact restarted growth with in-person workshops for small businesses, run with power-user agencies, and WP Engine sells heavily through WordPress agencies.
Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO)
Held its SMB focus for all 18 years despite board, investor and IPO roadshow pushback, growing from about $1 billion market cap at IPO to about $30 billion. It built a broad all-in-one product from year one, uses a one-in-one-out feature rule, a seat lottery, and made every employee an insider to keep full transparency.
HubSpot added an agency channel and it became half its revenue. HubSpot tested selling through agencies instead of only selling direct. After four or five years, agency sales were about 50% of its revenue.
Jason Cohen offers this as an example of adding an entirely new kind of channel when existing marketing channels are full, rather than squeezing the old one. Constant Contact restarted growth with in-person workshops for small businesses, run with power-user agencies, and WP Engine sells heavily through WordPress agencies.
Relentless curiosity, radical accountability, and HubSpot’s winning growth formula | Chris Miller
A 17-year-old company worth about $30 billion and growing roughly 30 percent a year, which Chris credits to customer obsession, a mid-market focus and culture. A tiny growth team redesigned a neglected pricing page, which changed the funnel in a step function and pushed it toward product-led growth.
The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine)
Its agency channel took four or five years to reach about 50% of revenue.
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour
It joined ChatGPT's deep research connectors early even though exposing its data looks like a loss in isolation. Balfour previously led growth there and uses it as proof that being early beats opting out.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): 7 Ways To Get Started
Its high-ranking post on conversion rate optimization carries a large offer for a free A/B testing kit to capture emails. The host cites it as a model for adding a call to action inside blog posts that already draw search traffic.
Brian Balfour: 10 lessons on career, growth, and life
Weak early renewals traced to sales selling to the wrong persona, fixed by removing commission on those deals. It chose Marketing Mary out of four use cases, won with long low-volume content, and killed all but the CRM and sales tool when going multi-product.
The ultimate guide to JTBD | Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework)
It felt like overkill to some buyers, which let Intercom position itself as the step between nothing and HubSpot. Intercom priced against it for the converting pathway.
The ultimate guide to Martech | Austin Hay (Reforge, Ramp, Runway)
A user with edit access can send a fake test email to a million people. Running it with Salesforce, as at Notion and Ramp, creates painful user-to-company mapping.
The power of strategic narrative | Andy Raskin
Its inbound narrative was a movement, not a category. It was once known as marketing automation and is now known as CRM, but the movement stayed the same.
How to achieve hypergrowth in your business and career | Carilu Dietrich (Atlassian)
Its helpful content and certifications for marketers were one of its growth secrets for building word of mouth.
The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab)
An example of a lead nurture tool that measures email opens and lead-score points, unlike lifecycle tools that act on in-product behavior.
The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher)
Charges a fixed monthly amount plus pay as you go above the limits, a hybrid of subscription and usage pricing.
The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite)
Named as a strong editorial SEO site.
Apple Feature Timeline (and The Exact Email Pitch That Led to an Apple Feature)
Named as an alternative to Banana Tag for seeing whether Apple opened the pitch, which tells you which follow-up to send.
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