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on Jan 24 2013 170 comments62 DISCUSSING
Ask me anything. Inbound marketing. Startups. Venture Capital. Angel Investment, Corporate Culture -- or anything.
If there are questions already ask that you're interested in, please upvote them.
Feel free to answer questions others have asked! I welcome the discussion.
I'll be online, typing away furiously from 1pm ET - 3pm ET and then again 9pm ET - 12am ET. Will do my best to answer as many questions as I can, as quickly as I can.
Look forward to the discussion.
What would be ideal marketing strategy for a startup in the initial month of its setup? What mix of inbound and outbound marketing will help both short term as well as long term sustainable sales.
With the new Panda algorithm update from the Google. What amount of change do you think is there on the search queries. I went through a stat reference, which said that this recent update has been the most effective?
My startup is ready to look for an angel round. Over the past 21 months we've built a fully functional product and go live with on-line purchasing (which will also be our first revenue) next week. We've applied to some accelerators, but wonder whether we should just suck it up and keep self-funding until we raise an angel round. We feel like we're farther ahead than most entering these cohorts. (My co-founder has been a CTO for 20+ years)
I'm generally a fan of the top accelerators (Y Combinator, TechStars, 500Startups). I think the value you get from them is relatively large compared to the cost. I've known several entrepreneurs that were relatively far along with their startups, but joined an accelerator anyways. There are even folks that have had successful startups that have exited and have gone *back* through the program again.
If I were doing a new startup myself, I'd likely consider something like this purely for the joy of working around amazing people.
Do you think there's a risk of my co-founder CTO being "too generous" in mentoring the others in the cohort with less tech capability? I know he would want to help the others, since he's so gifted and experienced.
That could happen. But, I'm an optimist and feel that there's no such thing as being "too generous". I call it "paying it forward". #BelieveInKarma
Well, we got into the Seed Hatchery in Memphis last night, and we accepted. Here goes!
FWIW (and I know you didn't ask me, but I feel compelled to respond), I recently went through TechStars Seattle as a company that was "farther ahead than most." We knew our idea, had a product released to the public, and even had revenue that was allowing us to operate around cash flow breakeven.
Many, many people told us to apply. I didn't get it. It seemed we were doing well. I said no over and over again for months. But then, on the last day, I decided to apply because I could always turn it down later. So we applied. And got in. And that's when I realized maybe it'd be worth it!
And, quite frankly, it was completely worth it. It took a couple weeks of growing pains, for sure -- the first month was a lot of meetings on how to start a company, what to build, etc, etc. We didn't need any of that (and we had a business to run, customers to answer, etc), but it took us a little bit to figure out what was worth our time and what wasn't. Once we did that, things went much more smoothly.
I often say that we used TechStars as an opportunity to "give ourselves permission." That is, we gave ourselves permission to think really big, think really critically, and not get stuck in a land of, "yeah, we're a small business." We pushed ourselves to think, "no, we're a startup tackling a BIG market and we're the BEST in the world at it, so let's go kill it!"
It was these intangibles that were incredibly empowering for us -- and not something people often talk about. The confidence built during 3 intense months of discussions, meetings, thinking about your company, etc is pretty intense and can't be overstated. Plus, I became a much better leader to our team (I think, at least ;) ), and a much, much better storyteller, which I've come to believe is one of the most important factors in business (telling stories to investors, customers, employees, press, etc).
And, plus, fundraising is ALWAYS hard, whether you're a new entrepreneur or someone who has been around for 20 years. TechStars makes it easier. People WANT to help you, they want you to fundraise, and they're primed to open their Rolodex's and check books to make that happen. We raised a seed round within 5 weeks of Demo Day. Plus, the free press you get ain't bad, either. :)
So, yes, if you have any inclination, regardless of how far along your business is, I think TechStars (or other accelerator, but honestly, TechStars seems to be the best for companies further along) is totally worth it.
Thanks for sharing this. Super helpful.
After being declined by TechStars twice, we got in to Seed Hatchery in Memphis and we accepted, so here goes. Thanks for your insights -- really helped. We are so excited to have this kind of laser focus for the next six months. I like the old motto -- #2 tries harder. Thanks again for your great input.
Do you feel that the opportunity for funding, exponential growth, scalability, etc for service based businesses is rapidly diminishing as more and more investors (and even customers in many cases) become more attracted to software / application based businesses?
This is not a new phenomena. Most investors are seeking exceptionally high returns. They want each of their investments to have a *chance* at an out-sized (10x) outcome, with recognition that most will not achieve that. If they invest in lower risk, lower return companies (which most service companies usually are), the math just doesn't work for them. In order to create the desired overall return for their limited partners (the people that give them the money), they tend to invest only in companies that can be really big.
Service companies rarely (at the get-go) reflect that scale of market opportunity. This is because the scalability in these businesses is lower (margins are lower because there are humans involved in delivering the service).
What is the best time to post your startup profile on Angellist ?
Generally, you need to either have a launched product that is getting some traction, or have a strong enough brand/connections (because you've been successful at building a startup before), to be able to break through.
My best advice for leveraging AngelList to get seed funding is here:
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/63010/Raising-Money-On-AngelList-21-Tips-From-Two-Active-Angels.aspx
Do you have any interest in investing in emerging markets?
Personally, I am not currently investing in emerging markets. Not because I don't think there is money to be made -- I'm quite excited about the potential, but as an "amateur" angel investor, my primary activity is growing my own startup HubSpot, so I don't have the bandwidth to invest outside of the U.S.
Hello Darmesh.
Just curious on the idea of how you started Hubspot and Hubspot University? :)
Thank you
HubSpot was started while I was a graduate student at MIT -- which is where I met my co-founder, Brian Halligan.
Our primary observation was that the marketing industry needed to be transformed. The classical "outbound" methods of marketing (direct mail, telemarketing, print advertising, etc.) were becoming decreasingly effective. We thought "inbound marketing" was a better way. There didn't exist a single, integrated platform that helped customers move to this inbound marketing model, so we built one.
HubSpot has always been a big believer in teaching. We're passionate about educating an entire industry, as best we can, on how they can improve their marketing to get more customers. So, we've long since had programs like Inbound Marketing University and the newly developed HubSpot Academy to help people learn.
What is your take on social enterprises?
I'll assume you're using the Wikipedia definition of a social enterprise ("A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being")
In that regard, I'm a big fan. If I weren't working on HubSpot, that's likely what I would be doing. I think there is a massive opportunity here for entrepreneurs to have a big impact. So many big problems to work on (education, health, human rights, etc.).
Have you ever seen a plugin (or built a custom segment/report) to Google Analytics that helps determine viral growth?
No, I haven't done that or seen an existing tool for Google Analytics that does that. I've seen marketing campaigns that have built in referral links and such, but not sure if any third-party tools were used or if they just built it in-house.
They say focus on one thing and do that one thing amazingly well. HubSpot had to buck that trend by being an "all you ever need" package. What advice would you give for building a totally bootstrapped startup in the same "we might have to do everything/lots of things to be viable" ?
Candidly, I would not generally recommend HubSpot's approach (trying to build an "all-in-one") as a bootstrapped startup. There are a fair number of challenges with that broad strategy -- one of which that it's a much more capital intensive path than the alternative. In our case, we ended up raising over $100 million to pursue that ambitious strategy. That's a lot of money.
So, this is one of those cases where the conventional wisdom (focus on one thing and do it well) is generally good. My thinking here is that you start with something narrow and well-defined, and then broaden out the scope over time based on feedback you get from users/customers.
How did you get started? What was the first "HubSpot" you got out the door?
The very first use case (this was before HubSpot even has the business model it has now) was creating a portal for the students in my MIT class. We needed a way to bring the community together. The first paying customer (she tested our credit card processing system) was my wife, Kirsten. She's awesome. Fun fact: My wife also gets credit for the original HubSpot logo (though at the time, she had no idea that the company was going to get so big).
Do you agree with Mark Cuban that startups should use kickstarter to bootstrap
I like Kickstarter a lot. It's an interesting way not just to get some funding, but to get early market feedback as to whether a given project is interesting (or not). Having said that, it doesn't fit for all startup ideas. It definitely seems to have a bias towards consumer hardware.
I'm have been learning as much as I can about social media/marketing over the past two years and I am looking to begin to develop my career in this field. As someone starting out basically from scratch, what opportunities do you see in the social media/marketing industry where I may want to focus my efforts?
I enjoy social media strategy and see there being more of a need for this type of service as more companies delve deeper into social. Any other ideas?
What have been your single most effective / successful marketing strategy, in terms of new signups to your service?
Our single biggest, consistent one over time has been our blog (http://blog.hubspot.com). The second has been our free tools (http://grader.com).
Angel investment is becoming more and more synonymous with making little bets across dozens of companies and not necessarily believing in every investment. In the long run, is it a good or a bad trend?
Angels have different approaches to their investing. Some are looking to make a small number of "bigger" investments -- both in terms of capital, and in terms of time invested.
Personally, since I don't have time to invest, I tend to "go broad" and invest in a larger number of companies (I've done over 35 investments so far)
I've seen some data that suggests that even for angel investors, having a portfolio of investments yields better returns than having a limited number of investments.
Having said all that, is the trend towards going wider a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. The upside is that we get more startups in the ecosystem (let a thousand flowers bloom). The downside is that a large percentage of these companies will not go on to be successful. But, that's almost always the case anyways.
I can see how it might be fine for investors, but from the startups perspective, the difference is having 3-4 committed angels vs. 10 angels making smaller bets. Which is better?
From the entrepreneur's perspective, fewer angels putting in more money each is better. They've got more skin in the game, would likely invest more time, and take less calories to manage.
Dharmesh, Thank you for your time. What's the best way (free if possible) to measure a blogger/social network manager's influence when looking to build link affiliates?
Sorry, but I simply don't know. I know almost nothing about affiliate marketing (other than the high-level concept of how it works). Will call upon the community to jump in and answer.
Hi ,
What you think about the impact of FB search over Google, will fb be adding results from bing into Graph search? will this reduce the Google share in search market. The future of FB search seems to be getting user the best local result & if they succeed in this then Google will be taking the punch.
what's your positive & negative opinion about this?
Over two years ago, I've been predicting that Facebook would eventually get into the search business. They have a *different* dataset to work with than Google has. Whereas Google primarily crawls/indexes the web and builds a link graph, Facebook has data on people, their likes -- and their interactions.
A few thoughts:
1. Facebook's dataset is much more efficient to build. Most of the data is collected within FB's own infrastructure and can be processed in real-time. That's an advantage.
2. For certain classes of searches, I think the data that FB has might yield better results. An example would be people-based services. Like "interior designer in Boston". It's possible that when searching for a professional, knowledge of who your friends are, what companies they have engaged/liked is more relevant than Google's approach of analyzing websites/pages and their authority.
Having said all that, I think FB is still in the very, very early stages. It's unlikely that they're going to put a significant dent into the Google search market share in the next couple of years. But, they definitely have the financial incentive to do it. If they can figure out how to capitalize on user intent and intersect it with their data, it's a massive opportunity for them.
Oh, and that model is actually a lot easier to succeed with than the ads model they have now.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Dharmesh!
Sorry one more technical doubt,
I have one more doubt which I want to make clear:
I have a website with more than 20k pages, I created a new site(same domain) with seo friendly URLs etc but i am not able to redirect the old dynamic URLs to the new seo friendly URLs. The site is asp & contains more than 20k pages.
The site is having more than 14k backlinks, what is the best way which you prefer so that I don't loose any present traffic & backlinks.
As it seems you already know, the *best* way to preserve your search authority is to do a 301 (permanent) redirect from the old-format URLs to the new-format URLs.
If that's not possible, you have a tough job. One possible approach might be to add some content at the bottom of each of the old pages that links to the new page. Or, to add a canonical tag to the old page that references the new page. Neither of those is ideal. The right way to do it is the redirect.
Thanks for the inputs, but redirecting 20k asp page is very difficult. It seems developers don't have a feasible way to 301 all these URL's.
I own MarketingUpdate.com, MarketingConference.com and MarketingCommunity.com; would you be interested any of these?
Warm regards,
Clay
A bit troubled by the self-promotional nature of this post, but sure. Just email me. dshah {at} [mycompany] .com To get my company name, just look at the headline of this discussion thread.
Sorry, you're correct. My apologies. This was the wrong venue. Please forgive :-). You're right.
Warm regards,
Clay
Thanks for your understanding. We're a friendly bunch here.
I started a project and the invited two other guys to help me, to be my co-founders, does it make sense to split shares equally? I am the only coder and already had a site running when I invited them to join me. Also, I want to have some founder vesting and they don't, thoughts?
Hi Ricardo!
This is a hotly debated topic. Personally, I don't think dividing equity equally is the right answer in a majority of cases (it's just a convenient answer, which is why it's so popular).
And, I strongly recommend having some sort of vesting model in place -- or be prepared for the possibility of things not working out with a founder, and they taking a bunch of equity "with them".
Joel Spolsky's response on this thread is worth reading:
http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a-new-software-startup-how-do-i-allocate-ownership-fairly
respected sir,
i m just pass-out from a engineering college ,and started my own business on transportation,my website is ready to use..though there is no invesments required as though but from the marketing point of view is it necessary to have angle investors ??
and if yes then how to look out for investors (website or contact no.) plz provide me the links if any
thanks in advance
This is a broad question. But, one quick point:
There's nothing that says you *have* to raise any funding just to do marketing. Look into "inbound marketing" which primarily focuses on *earning* attention by creating useful content. SEOmoz is a great example of a company that did not raise any funding in their early years, and has some of the best marketing on the planet.
thanks for the advice,can u xplain a bit about inbound marketing.
Take a look at this :) http://inbound.org/what-is-inbound-marketing
thnks man
Hi Dharmesh. Nice to see you on here.
Here's a question. If you were to teach a course on Entrepreneurship - What would your curriculum look like? Required reading? Guest lecturers? Class projects?
Would need to think about this one a bit more, but a few notes:
1. There would definitely be some required reading. I'd probably start with the OnStartups suggested reading list:
http://onstartups.com/Resources/ReadingList/tabid/3356/Default.aspx
2. I really like guest lectures -- but only if the guests are really good (both in terms of content and in terms of their ability to present it). They don't have to be super-successful -- just willing to share. I actually like speakers that talk about failures and things that went wrong (there's a dearth of that kind of material out there).
3. Class projects are a bit tough to do for an entrepreneurship class. Most of the ones I've seen involve getting a group together and writing a business plan (I don't like business plans) or doing simulations (like negotiating with a VC). They can be useful, they're just hard to pull off.
4. Topics I'd be sure to cover: Founder relationships, funding, ideation, recruiting, strategy, sales and marketing and culture.
Hi Dharmesh...what careers do you see that will be growing in the near future related to social media?
Thank you
There are a few "buckets" of use cases that I think will create new career opportunities:
1. community engagement/management.
2. support (related to the above)
3. marketing
One of the challenges with career opportunities in social is that it's such a new discipline and the bar is so low that there are too many would-be social media consultants/gurus out there. Hard for people to separate the stars from the chumps.
So, instead of focusing on social, what I'd do is look at opportunities that cut-across social into other areas:
a) Analytics. (Measuring what matters and figuring how best to apply resources).
b) Content Creation. (There's still a massive opportunity to create great content. Anyone that can do that really, really well will have great career opportunities).
c) Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Taking the traffic that is already coming into a website and figuring out how to make the most of it.
You also strike me as somewhat of an introverted all-star.
This was actually a pretty popular discussion earlier but I'd love to hear your thoughts on some techniques and methods that you use to harness the power of your introversion, as well as conquer what you may think are some introverted deficiencies.
You're half right. I'm introverted -- but far from an all-star.
Over the years, I've done a few things to help leverage my introversion:
a) To some degree, accept it, and play to my strengths. I'm really good over email. Reasonably good in person. But terrible on the phone. So, I minimize my use of the phone (http://SorryNoCalls.com)
b) Recognize that introversion is neither bad nor good. It just is. Many successful people are introverts, and as a society we're getting better at recognizing the value of introverts and make them feel more at home.
c) Team up with people that understand what it means to be an introvert. (Likely because they've successfully worked with them before). Makes a huge difference.
d) Read http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/ and Susan Cain's book, "Quiet". Both have some great ideas.
Hi, Dharmesh. Thanks for taking the time. With all of the changes happening in SEO and the shift towards inbound marketing, I'm wondering if you think we are measuring and reporting the metrics that truly matter. What do you see as the KPI or KPIs of the future?
This is one of the harder questions. Here's my (somewhat) abstract view on this:
There's a hierarchy of metrics that can be measured. The "best" metric is raw "dollars in the door" (getting customers). If you can't measure customers, measure leads (which is a proxy for future customers). From there, the further out you get (using proxies for future leads/customers), the more dubious the metric.
The motivation behind measurement is to figure out what is working and what is not. Most of the time, we measure things that we think are indicative of the thing we actually want. Because often, it's hard to measure the thing we actually want.
Where do I think this headed? More systems that are better integrated and ways to do smarter attribution of value. Systems like these do exist, but they're often out of reach for mere mortals.
Dharmesh, Traditionally PR departments have been focused on communicating a message, talking if you will, and that was a one-way process.
Clearly your focus is quite different; encouraging listening as well as talking.
Many companies have used outside firms to measure the effectiveness of their PR efforts for a long time now. Are you aware of any companies that use outside firms to measure the effectiveness of their "listening"?
It's hard to measure true listening. The best we can do is measure the degree to which people are acting based on their listening, and extrapolate that they're listening based on that action.
For example, lets say a company is "listening" on twitter for support issues related to their product. We can't really tell how well they're listening. What we do instead is measure how well they're *responding*. The assumption here is that if they're responding quickly and well, chances are, they're listening.
And, there are a variety of "listening" tools out there. Things like Radian6 (now part of Salesforce.com) come to mind. But, I don't know of tools that measure the listening quality of other companies. My guess is that there are tools like that out there. The overall PR/marketing/social space has a lot of tools out there -- particularly in the measurement/analytics arena.
How does one "measure how well they're *responding*." As an example it is well known that many Americans are frustrated with Congress (or government in general for that matter), but how is the response measured analytically?
Not sure. The best I know how to do is see if there is a timely "response" at all (is there expected action, based on the listening). But, measuring whether it's a "good" response is hard.
On the business/support side, the quality of the responses is often measured by how happy the customers are with those responses.
Hi Dharmesh,
My partner and I have just launched a website to connect businesses to their current local customers, and potential global customers via content subscriptions. Our system is rather simple and scalable. However, I'm afraid we will maximize our capabilities in the next few months as we grow - and will have to recruit in order to properly scale.
Our plan is to first bring on an advisor or two, in exchange for 2-3% equity each. Next, we would like to leverage our own network, and the networks of our advisors for an angel round, and then another VC round. Our end goal is acquisition while maintaining a small percentage.
How do you think we should approach this? Thank you for your time.
A few points:
1. If you hit scaling issues, don't you need people to resolve those issues? How do advisors help? You don't need advice, you need people to actually help you scale the business.
2. Be careful bringing on advisors that are there for the express purpose of raising an angel fund. Unless you know the people well, this is risky. Lots of freelance advisors out there that claim they will connect you to capital through their network, but mileage varies dramatically. Do your homework and figure out whether they really can actually help.
3. It's dangerous to make your end goal acquisition. (That might be a possible outcome, but that's not the way to start out). Focus on building a real business and grow it. If you do that, potential acquisition offers may come. On a related note, most VCs will have an allergic reaction if you hint that you're building the business to sell it.
Thank you so much for your insight. Considering we do not have the capital necessary to hire, would an angel round be the best way to reach scale? What do you think is the most effective way to approach angels - via direct email, AngelList, or some other medium?
This is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Investors want to see some traction before they invest, but in order to get traction, you need to have some capital for hiring and such.
I have no brilliant answer.
Dharmesh, I love your thought process here and advice. Advisors can be so vaulable to any company let alone a startup and finding the right advisors that truely have your best interest at hard is key.
I noticed that both Pardot and Eloqua were purchased in the last few months. Do you expect the marketing automation space to continue contracting or will Hubspot and Marketo stay independent for the foreseeable future? What does the contraction say about the state of marketing automation?
First off, we don't think of HubSpot as being in the "marketing automation" category. I think that's a good thing, take a look at this Google Trends chart of marketing automation vs. inbound marketing. :)
But, your question is still well placed. My expectation is that the marketing software industry will likely continue to consolidate. Many of the big players have woken up to the big opportunity, and are starting to put their bets down. Both the number and size of the deals to me indicates that the marketing software industry has a vibrancy to it that it hasn't had in the past.
I can't speak for Marketo, but HubSpot recently raised a $35 million mezzanine round. Our goal behind that round was to fund our continued growth and expansion as an independent company. Our financials are looking better than ever and we're excited about the opportunity ahead.
Here's the link to that Google Trends chart I mentioned:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=inbound marketing,marketing automation
Dharmesh, big fan of HubSpot - My question: Do you believe many of the barriers to successful entrepreneurship have been destroyed with the advent of crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and social marketing? What do you see are the new barriers to entrepreneurial progress in 21st century business?
Starting a business has in some ways gotten easier (with things like crowdfunding), but building a successful business is still pretty hard.
The big barriers are:
1) Finding great market opportunities (hard to tell great from good in the early days).
2) Recruiting exceptional people (always in high demand).
3) Somehow managing to skirt death as just about all startups do on a frequent basis.
Thanks Dharmesh!
A brief question but critical point when starting a new business... How do you know you have picked the best partners to go into business with? Things can change drastically in business partnerships under good and bad circumstances. Your thoughts?
You want partners you can trust, get along with and have complementary skills.
To raise your odds *considerably* of having great co-founder relationships, be sure to have open, honest communication very early. Here are some of the questions I think you should ask each other in the early stages:
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/99/Important-Questions-Startup-Co-Founders-Should-Ask-Each-Other.aspx
Dharmesh, well the typing speed seems unmatched! I am a fan of hubspot from India, been a country manager at a global CRM leader and ex Microsoft, Infosys, HCL in IT Consulting/Sales 18 Years.Now Founder PERSPECTIVE Management Consulting, where I have just begun the process of educating my CMO friends on value of products like Hubspot, Comscore and others.
Question: Why is Hubspot, Google, FB and other online gurus treating India on low sales priority? Here the Revenue Model is you have to setup a team in India. Small companies from IT Security from Silicon Valley do it, so why can't you? The early bird gets his worm, you need to meet CMO or appoint partners, or at least speak to industry influencers like me. Pls. note that the Internet base here is still small compared to china but the mobile base is massive - you know the numbers - so a Marketing Guru like Hubspot and you should figure great Mobile Based Marketing?
my mail ID: samirdahotre@gmail.com
I think the market opportunity in India is massive.
The challenge at HubSpot is the same as with many other startups: We have a limited number of resources and we are already overwhelmed with opportunity here in the U.S. We just opened our first office in Europe (in Dublin, Ireland). We expect to continue to expand internationally -- including India someday. But, these things take time. We're growing as fast as we know how (and some times, even faster). :)
Hi Dharmesh, OK here goes...
You mentioned earlier that focusing on blog.hubspot.com has been the single most effective marketing strategy for you guys. Looking back to its early days could you elaborate on what you consider to have been the key factors which you believe contributed to the long-run success of your blog. Thanks!
A few things we did early on (not sure if which of these were the primary contributors to our success):
1. Made the blog topical and unbranded. It was called SmallBusinessHub at the time (not branded HubSpot). I think this helped, because people are more likely to read a blog that's about an industry topic.
2. We had strict rules around not doing too much marketing on the blog. (For example, we didn't allow discussing HubSpot product, features or other things). We wrote about the marketing industry and challenges marketers faced -- not about ourselves.
3. Everyone in the company was allowed to write for the blog -- and were encouraged to do so. Some of the most popular articles on the blog are *not* from people that are not on the marketing team.
4. We experimented with different kinds of blog content. Full-length articles, short articles, slides, inographics, video, comics.
5. We were maniacal about measuring the value we were getting from our blog (was it attracting leads and eventually converting customers). Once we knew things were working, we continued to invest more and more in the blog.
Hi Darmesh. What role do you think social media will play in building a sustainable recovery in global trade?
The power of social media is that it helps people connect and organize on topics of interest. Folks that might not have ever known each otherwise can now come together.
In terms of global trade specifically, I don't know. Outside my areas of expertise.
Dharmesh, could you share the story of how you and your co-founder got your first investment? I'm currently trying to find seed funding for our startup project. I found it is hard. Really appreciate for your reply!
Kevin Lu
I had an unfair advantage. I seeded the company with $500,000 of my own money (made from a previous startup). That lasted us for a little bit. We then raised an angel round ($1MM) and venture rounds after that.
Raising angel funding is a bit easier now though, with sites like AngelList (http://angel.co) which I'm a big fan of.
Got it. Appreciate for your reply!
Thank you Dharmesh.... for the prompt reply! Also note, from a CMO perspective.... here traditionally and rightly so the CMO does what the Big Ad Agency says. As online is small in India and offline is big. TV is king here in India and remember popu. 1.2 Billion. Secondly these Big Ad Agencies started out with thier Online avatars. However they got upstaged by smart Indian Online Marketing Entepreneurs like Windchimes and Social Wavelength. However these entepreneurs have a people IT model (customized IT solutions) also can get replaced by IT tools like hubspot which may/ may not be cheaper (pls note hubspot s/w license may not be cheaper). So then what's your strategy? Note that Indian CMO wants maximum return for the dollar and if hubspot can give it, he will buy your licenses. However, you do need to meet him (meaning dont expect the CMO to google and find out hubspot is great, he needs to be met by hubspot or hubspot partners). India CMO's are the best globally but you need to meet them F2F
A couple of quick notes:
1. HubSpot does not have a field sales team. We generally do not meet with potential customers face-to-face. Our pricing model and business model don't really support this.
2. We're in the business of providing tools to marketers that are looking to get more leverage from their marketing efforts. We're not an agency. So, the success of an individual customer is largely dependent on their commitment to inbound marketing.
Hi Dharmesh,
What scope do you see for a new blogging platform or a platform, inviting & encouraging the best content creators and helping them to connect with brands and enterprises ? What sort of or approach a blog platform can take for implementing a revenue model/business model? Can you please suggest/count some business model which is ideal & logical for a blog platform to implement ?
Thank you Sir ..!
It's hard to say. Creating a new blog platform (or more broadly, a content publishing platform) from scratch is incredibly hard. Bloggers want to go to where the readers are, and readers want to go to where the best bloggers are.
For recent examples, look at the LinkedIn INfluencers program (my profile here: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/articles/658789) and the recently announced Quora platform for blogging.
I guess that's exactly what the svbtle.com platform is going for, and they've just taken funding.
Thanks Dharmesh and ED for your replies.! Actually i am too working on and in conversation for seed fund for such a platform. There are few more brand new blog platforms like medium, branch and the one mentioned by ED svbtle.com are in a row for launch apart from Quora's blogging introduction. Quality, engaging content, monetization(as many blogs for professionally) and viral-ability are main concern for any blogging platform as long as i understand.!
It would be great if you throw some light(points) on how to create trust and belief in beginning regarding a new product(in this case a blog platform) among readers,bloggers and brands/enterprises(as marketing or review writing is concerned).
Thanks for your valuable inputs.!
If you're trying to do something similar to Svbtle, then focus on getting your first bloggers on your platform and strive to produce exceptional content ALL the time. That's what really defines Svbtle - the signal to noise ratio.
Branch is really interesting. Very much looking forward to seeing them grow.
Actually i haven't gone through the core of Svbtle.com yet, so i can't say what i have is similar or not to Svbtle.
Thanks for point i really appreciate it and will be one of my priority.
Hi Dharmesh! thanks for your time. I am in my second round interview for an IMC position at Hubspot. How can I demonstrate I am a top performer to your team?
All the best,
-EG
Here are some tips:
1. Show how you will care maniacally about customer happiness.
2. Demonstrate a desire to be constantly learning. Our world changes fast.
3. Be human. Be self-aware. Be nice.
Best wishes with the interview. It's really hard to get hired at HubSpot, but it's worth it!
All the best
I am Vijay, We are struggling to get Angel funding for our ideas. We are unable to get right contacts. What are the best way to search for funding
Contrary to popular opinion, most angel investors don't fund ideas. They fund a combination of people and some evidence of future success (like a launched product that is growing fast).
Thanks for doing this - I've found your answers informative and will help us succeed.
If we want to meet you. What is the procedure to follow
Sorry, but I don't take meetings. Schedule is already overwhelmed. Details at http://SorryButNo.org
Suppose you were a freshman at college. You've got your eye set on becoming a) a web developer or b) inbound marketer, and naturally you were stuck with the "umm... no I don't have any experience, sir" situation, what would you do over the course of your degree to make yourself insanely employable in those two different situations?
This is an easy one.
The single most important thing you can do is build a product/community/reach. That is DO stuff.
The market for people that have tinkered, toiled, iterated and delivered is huge. Those people are so hard to find, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have exceptional opportunities.
(You're off to a great start with inbound.org -- it's something you can point to -- with pride).
Thanks Dharmesh :) Now, trying to get my friends and classmates to start tinkering and toiling *somehow*... #ChallengeAccepted
Hi Dharmesh , Thanks a lot for taking time to share your thoughts.
3 questions,
1.For a brand new website which is about to be launched , How do you gain traction ? and who/where can you find highly influential users who can spread the word about your website or service you are offering?
2.Its for a friend of mine : He has an early stage gaming startup completely bootstrapped . Should he pursue to get an investment for his idea to build a bigger product or should he go after selling services to brands ? As building a bigger product might cost lot of money?
3.Best strategies/examples for facebook ,twitter and google + implementation?
Cheers
1. The key is to start producing content that is useful and interesting to your target audience. You have to give them a reason to come to your website. Without that, outreach to influencers isn't going to be effective. In terms of finding influencers, you can use a tool like SEOmoz's FollowerWonk -- or even twitter search.
2. Raising funding is usually the wrong answer for most companies. He should focus on getting traction/customers. If it seems like he's hit on a market opportunity, and the growth is just undeniable, then consider funding.
3. Too broad to answer here. Lots of good material here on inbound.org. Just go through some of the archives or do a search.
I have a decent amount of introduction and experience with SEO, but also want to learn more coding. I know HTML, CSS & a little PHP but want to get into Ruby on Rails and more PHP. When thinking in startup terms, would it be better for me to focus on SEO and marketing and work with someone who's better at coding, even though they are expensive and rare, or just try to learn it all!?
I'm biased, but I would lean towards learning a bit more PHP (or RoR). It's a more specialized skill, and hence more valuable.
But, I don't know where your passions/talents are.
Hi Dharmesh,
I know you have some great ideas about better combating this problem by being able to compare metrics with that of competitors.
Can you speak a little about the challenges faced when trying to make sense of various metrics (like conversion rates, acquisition costs, CLV, etc)? How could comparison help your understanding?
Thanks!
The big challenge is this: With most of these metrics (conversion rates, acquisition costs, etc.) what most of us do is benchmark against ourselves (not sure whether 2% is good or bad, but it's better than the 1.8% we had last quarter) or measure against anecdotal comparisons (a friend told me that he read an article once that said that most companies got 1.5% so our 2% is really good).
In the long-term, would be nice to have some way to compare against known samples: "Our 2% puts us in the top decile of companies in our industry, and the top quartile of companies of our approximate size".
Google Analytics started doing a bit of this, and HubSpot's worked on a bit of this as well -- but neither have gone far enough.
If you weren't doing Hubspot, what idea/industry/market/trend do you think you would be pursuing right now?
If I weren't doing HubSpot, I would most likely be teaching. I have a passion for it.
I also have a desire to write another big (I must be somewhat crazy). Not about marketing, but about startups.
Meant to say "desire to write another book".
Oh, and Hi Brian! In terms of industries I'm interested in -- I'd more likely be working on something B2C (simply for amusement value) -- and possibly something focused on kids -- since I have one now, and most of the software/apps for kids is kind of lame.
Teaching. Thats awesome and something I didn't know about you. What would be the name of your first course?
If you were starting Hubspot again, what would you do differently in the first 6 months?
I would invest more in making the end-to-end customer experience smoother and have less friction. It's gotten better over the years, but it's still unnecessarily hard.
This is one of the downsides to early success -- you end up not fixing some of the fundamentals as early as you should.
Nice, thanks!
How many people work on customer experiance?
If you set your mind to it, how would you beat SEOMoz in the serps?
If my mind was involved, it would tell me not to try and beat Moz in the SERPs. Rand and team are pros, and I try not to play games I can't win :)
Hi,
My question is this, My websites have only limited number of backlinks (Less than 30), but my business brand name is very popular in social media and continuously I'm sharing/posting social updated and create stuff in almost all social media sites. But from there I'm getting only NoFollow backlinks.
Is my site will be rank in Google only with the support of social media sites ? or Should I need huge number of backlinks ?
It's not just a matter of the quantity of backlinks, it's also about the quality of those links.
The best way to improve your search rankings is to build a trustworthy brand, high quality content, an amazing user experience.
In terms of actual factors that likely impact your search rankings, read the "SEO Factors" article from SEOmoz:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
Thanks for the reply Dharmesh. So can we able to rank our website in Google only by Social Media updates and signals ?
We have a very interesting situation. My husband is my CTO and we are in our early 50's. He's brilliant and has coded the whole thing himself; I do everything else. Empty nesters, so our baby is our startup. Our company is starting to have traction and revenue but it's nothing sexy and shiny - but very broad potential in a $5B+ marketplace. Communications and fundraising for nonprofits via local business. Not many nibbles from any accelerators, although we did get invited to Techstars for a Day in Boston last summer. I think we will have to go it alone, so I really appreciate community spots like this to soak up as much knowledge about the space as possible.
Q: Why aren't accelerators attracted to solid ideas which would help a lot of people (and make a lot of money), but will pick some crazy novelty with very little obvious path to monetization?
Thanks for your time.
I'm not sure exactly why the selection patterns of most top accelerators are the way they are, but I have a good guess.
Accelerators behave similarly to investors -- they want to pick companies that have a potential for a massive, out-sized outcome. I think the reason is likely similar to the reason investors (angels and VCs) have: Namely, they're investing too -- cash, mentorship and infrastucture/services/brand. Although they could accept companies with relatively low risk (i.e. decent chance of profits), the math for the overall portfolio likely just would not work.
Further, it might just be hard for them to get excited about companies that they don't see having massive, massive impact (hard to grow and build *their* brand based on that). It's not just about getting to profits.
Well, we got into the Seed Hatchery in Memphis and we accepted, so here goes! Remember, #2 tried harder.
Hi Dharmesh,
Thanks for doing this.
What are a few of the of the biggest upcoming challenges that you think the inbound marketing industry has yet to solve, specifically with software/technology?
Obviously HubSpot is a bit of an all-in-one that attempts to cover a lot of the spectrum, but I imagine you'd agree that there are still an enormous number of gaps between an enormous number of projects. And to follow that up:
Will there ever truly be a "cPanel" of inbound marketing? A single application that attempts to truly cover every need of an inbound marketer, to a point that most marketers would never even bother looking for more tools?
Cheers.
Hi Dharmesh,
Thanks for giving this opportunity to ask you questions. I would like to know what is advice on B2B content marketing strategy. Let me be more specific, I am working with a Language service provider agency and naturally the target audience is composed of Management level employees of companies operating mainly in industries such as Technology, Pharmaceuticals, Medical, Consumer goods and so on. What can be the most effective strategy to reach them? We are going to launch a PPC campaign but I'm finding it difficult to tailor the campaign for the intended audience. It will be very helpful to have some insights from you.
Thank you in advance. Have a nice day!
Regards.
I would read the book "New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott (@dmscott). Particularly the section on personas.
What you need to figure out are the specific pockets of potential customers you're trying to reach -- and start developing world-class content written specifically for those people. Establish yourself as a thought-leader and value creator in the industry.
Hi Dharmesh,
Is there a prominent tech innovation scene in greater Boston that is not quite as highly " early stage startup centric"? And how might one become more involved? Organizations, events, VC orgs, etc.
B2B Tech especially.
My video production agency really likes telling the stories of Tech companies doing big things.. but naturally a lot of early stage startups simply can't afford our product. We'd like to help an innovation ecosystem that perhaps is not as glamourous per se or well advertised (in terms of events, meetups, etc)... but (hopefully!) still around somewhere in Boston.
Thanks for doing this. And thanks to everyone for many great questions!
I think your best bet might be to check out some of the lists published by the various groups in Boston: MITX, MassTLC, Boston Business Journal, etc. They all publish lists of tech companies and give out awards. Chances are, those companies are doing interesting things, have scaled to a degree and might need help.
And, some friendly advice: Growing an early-stage business based on selling to other early-stage businesses is tough. As you noted, they often don't have budget -- but as important, they're often exclusively focused on their product and finding their market. They usually don't have the bandwidth for much else, so they don't always make great buyers of new stuff.
Thanks Dharmesh. BBJ has been good, definitely going to look into MITX and MassTLC now!
Your entirely right. Since we do like helping startups we have been trying to get creative with our payments... payout plans, bartering, etc. Definitely not our main vertical going forward though.
"Scaled to a degree" is a great way to put it in perspective for qualifying as we continue prospecting.
Also - Check out your feature in the intelligent.ly video if you haven't seen it yet. : )
http://skyscopecreative.com/shooting-great-video-moments-notice/
Hi Dharmesh,
IN HubSpot there is a feature for analyzing keyword ranking, is HubSpot paying to Google to send these quires to retrieve ranking or using scrapped data. If you are paying to Google how much they charge per query and can any other company have a partnership with Google in similar way.
how much is the keyword ranking report helpful for the future of marketing.
Google does not have an API available to get this data from them directly. It's offered by third-parties though.
Keyword ranking reports are a hotly debated topic. I personally think their importance have been steadily declining over the years -- particularly as the search engines use more and more personalization to the search results.
what kind of thrid party api does HubSpot trust.?
I know at least one : SEOmoz (great API by the way).
Hello Dharmesh -
We are a healthcare product startup company based out of Bangalore. We've been constantly trying to leverage inbound marketing techniques and reach out to our prospective customers.
Content is not our forte and we are good at building technology products which are doing currently. We would ideally like to be thought leaders when it comes to educating our customers about our products.
Social media, content marketing and ppc campaigns have not given us much in return when it comes to building engagement.
Could you suggest other channels to reach out to a global audience at large.?
Thanks
The trick is not to educate customers about your products -- but educate them about their problems.
As it turns out, nobody cares about our products. They care about themselves. They care about their problems.
It's not a matter of finding a new channel, it's a matter of tuning in to the channel your customers are watching.
I know this sounds trite, but it's true. I appreciate that content creation is not your forte -- many of us have that issue. But then, hire someone that *is* good at content creation. It's not free, but it's cheaper than the alternative.
It seems you are from Practo, recently got a interview call from the same company. As Dharmesh said the way of thinking & approach should be changed. You may be delivering high end products, but you must ensure that are reaching the needy. Understand the people weakness & make them understand what you can make a difference or how it can resolve the issue.
Campaign for making people understand the issues related to their problems & they will surely search for solution. You said "Content is not our forte" I recommend you must hire quality content writers & believe me this is the cheapest way as compared to any other alternative way to reach customers.
How does one submit a startup to you for consideration as an Angel? I'm the founder of CrowdStreet, a marketplace connecting accredited investors with investment real estate opportunities. We're like an AngelList for commercial real estate. We have a vision and definition for success, our A-team is growing, the crowdfunding market is exploding, our model is compliant with today's laws, the customer problem is acute, and our beta clients are helping us validate our assumptions. It's all about executing and we're maniacally focused on executing. How do you view the crowdfunding revolution? Thank you in advance.
I don't take submissions per se. I make a very limited number of angel investments. Almost all of them now come through the AngelList network. I look mostly at deals either because it's an area I'm interested in, or because someone I trust is leading the deal.
As for crowdfunding, I'm a fan of the idea -- but not looking to make an investment in that area.
Thank you Dharmesh. I view trust as the baseline for all successful business ventures...and personal relationships. How about that certain URL that you have registered...do you have plans for it? would you consider exchanging it for a slice of equity in CrowdStreet? No cash, no time commitment, no risk, just potential upside. I'll give you the URL back in 36 months if the venture fails. You can find me and my client/coworker testimonials here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenpowderly/. Please note that CrowdStreet is not published on my profile as of yet.
I sincerely appreciate your contributions to the startup community. Thanks, Darren
Hi Dharmesh,
Big fan of your book and HubSpot.
What were the three biggest surprises you and your team found in growing HubSpot? What aspects of starting, growing, and scaling your company diverged the most from your initial business plan and your own expectations?
Big surprises:
1. How important company culture is. In the early years of HubSpot, the word culture was never mentioned, and we didn't give it much thought. Now, I spend hours and hours (and hours) pondering culture.
2. How much capital we've raised. (We've now raised over $100 million). I knew we'd likely raise some capital, but had no idea it would be that much capital.
3. How much conventional wisdom on how to operate and grow a company is flat-out wrong. (More coming on this topic on my blog in the next week or so).
Having said that, I'm most surprised by how few surprises there have been.
Hi Dharmesh,
What kind of third party tool does Hubspot use for Keyword's ranking report ? If Google doesn't give api for this then how these third parties does get these ranking?
In terms of motivating your employees. How does HubSpot motivate their people to stay and to contribute longer to the company? :)
I've recently taken control of the SEO team for a marketing agency and we're looking to scale our team and client roster. I just wondered whether you had any advice on scaling SEO teams, what works or has worked well for you and what should I avoid at all costs?
Hi Dharmesh,
What according to you is the best way of promoting a book online? For example, my favorite college professor, Dr. Pramesh Ratnakar recently wrote a book: "Centurion: The Father, The Son and The Spirit of Cricket." The publishers (Harper Collins India) are saying it's doing good but we're not sure if it really is. I and my friends from college had a reunion yesterday, and we came out with some ways as well but were (and still are) not sure whether they'll be much effective.
I look forward to your advice. :)
P.S. Wanted to ask Rand the same question but missed the chance, unfortunately.
Hi Dharmesh,
Why are my search results different on my computer compared to my friends or coworkers results?
There are many, many things that can cause your results to be different from someone else's. Examples include location, social graph and search history.
Dharmesh - I am a huge fan of Hubspot and love evangelizing inbound marketing. HubSpot's all-in-one marketing software really resonates well with SME's. Do you feel it is a good fit for enterprise clients (fortune 1000 or slightly smaller?) given the high degree of customization in tools, data integrations, and reporting these clients need?
With the launch of HubSpot3 at the INBOUND conference last year, we've made huge strides in terms of making HubSpot software work for larger enterprises. Lots of progress -- particularly on the scalability front. The API is also pretty clean and we have lots of customers using it. But, we still have work to do in terms of reporting/analytics (we're working on that as we speak).
Dharmesh: have you found a good usage for Blekko, concerning inbound marketing ?
I've played with Blekko -- including the API. I think it might be useful as a way to get "alerts" (mentions of a specific keyword).
Hi there - how can I update an published post?
Dharmesh, I've been using hubspot for two years. My results have been amazing for two blue collar businesses. I'm now the Marketing Director at a full service agency. I owe everything to Hubspot and some encouraging words from Marcus Sheridan . I literally went from selling dirt and mulch in-house to selling inbound marketing retainers to hospitals, global brands, and local businesses.
I'm not a developer, the hubspot cms is very important to me...but currently it's lacking vs wordpress. I know you are working on a new CMS. Any idea when the new CMS will launch?
Thanks for the kind words about HubSpot. It is personally gratifying when I hear stories like yours.
In terms of the CMS, we've been working on a major overhaul of the content system. It is dramatically better than the old one on just about every front. As a policy, we don't promise release dates, but I can tell you that the system already exists and is undergoing internal testing. Very excited about it.
Hi Dharmesh, what advice would you give to somebody wanting to break into the industry without a formal background in the field, but is driven and has an almost obsession with learning and studying CRO in particular? If their goal were to get a job at HubSpot in 1 year, what would be the general path you would recommend to them?
This AMA has been great, thanks for taking the time out of your day to give us some great insights. I know I am going to re-read this several times to let it all digest.
I'm a big, big fan of CRO. And, I don't think you need a formal background to succeed at it.
As for tips on building expertise: I would read, read, read -- and apply. Try to get a gig contracting for a startup. If that doesn't work, pick a non-profit and volunteer to help them increase conversions on their website. Basically, you want to build a "portfolio" of work -- specifically with what you accomplished.
Hello Dharmesh -
What's it like working @ Hubspot? How would you describe the organizations culture and fit. How does the team usually recruit people at Hubspot.
What are the usual timelines from the time someone applys to getting on board & whats the growth been like from an employees perspective as we see that non-engineering positions would be at plenty rather than engineering.
Where are these positions based ,which city/country?
Would be great if you could share something with us.
Thanks
Hi,
I like what HubSpot is working on and I have personally read many of HubSpot's free ebooks. Here's my top 10: http://www.bizpenguin.com/top-10-inbound-marketing-ebooks-from-hubspot-254/
I understand that in Inbound Marketing, your content must be stunning - your ebooks are!
Please share some tips on how your team can create such quality ebooks, as they are interesting, very useful and and eye candies.
Many thanks!
What are your thoughts on celebrity endorsement for internet startups?
I develop software. Is it ok to place my portfolio in a subdomain in case I want to discribe a bit my client's businesses core in order to avoid lowering my keyword density or it's fine to just place it at a subfolder ? Thanks in advance.
Dharmesh, what was your _biggest_ challenge when you were in the early days of launching HubSpot? Thank you, Mark Gavalda
Hello sir,
I am a student in Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Currently, we are in early stage of our startup. We are building a interest based social networking site. We have designed it completely and its ready but here is the problem. We don't have the coder of that level which required so should we hire professionals or try on our own. When should we look out for angel investors or venture capitals.
Dharmesh - Back when you ran Pyramid software, you had an online discussion with Sungard about the need for your product. Here is a link to that discussion: http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?/topic/16616-payroll-data-conversions/ . It appears that the discussion went well and they bought you? I am in need of the software you described - something to transform incoming payroll files from clients, so that they can then easily be loaded into Relius. Do you know if such a thing exists or what company might produce such a thing?