20 Growth: Why You Need a Growth Hire Pre Product-Market-Fit? Why Every Company Will Be a Media Company and How To Do It | Communities; What Really Are They? How To Build Them? What Makes The Best? Why Do Many Not Work? | Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing @

Kieran Flanagan is SVP Marketing at HubSpot, where he has helped the business grow internationally, move to a product-led business, quadrupled its marketing demand, and built out its media team, including the acquisition of 'The Hustle.' He is also an advisor and investor in early-stage companies.

In Today's Episode with Kieran Flanagan We Discuss:

1.) Entry into Growth and Marketing:

• How did Kieran make his way into the world of growth and marketing?
• What has been 1-2 of Kieran's biggest lessons from seeing firsthand the hyper-scaling of Hubspot?
• On reflection, how would Kieran summarise both Hubspot's community building attempts and also their product messaging?

2.) Why You Need Growth Hires Pre Product Market Fit:

• What does "growth" mean to Kieran? Where do so many get it wrong?
• Why does Kieran believe that you should have a growth team/people before product market fit? What specifically do they do and work on during this stage?
• Pre PMF, what is the core metric that all startups should focus on? How does it change with time?

3.) Building Your Growth Team:

• What does Kieran believe are the 3 key stages to hiring for growth?
• How should founders determine whether to have external standalone growth teams or integrate them into existing functions?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring for growth?

4.) The Future is Content:

• Why does Kieran believe every great tech brand will have to become a media brand?
• Why is Elon Musk an example of the perfect brand? What has he done right?
• Why does Kieran say that data is the best and worst thing that has happened to marketing?

5.) WTF Really is Community:

• How does Kieran define "community"? What is it? What is it not?
• What makes the best communities? Why do some work and others not?
• Should every company have a community approach? Who does it make sense for?
• Have Hubspot done a good job at community building? On reflection, is there anything that Kieran would have done differently?