312: How HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah Challenged The Cold Call And Introduced An Entirely New Approach To Marketing

It’s not every day that an entrepreneur creates an entirely new industry category and a nine-figure company at the same time. But that’s exactly what Dharmesh Shah did when he started HubSpot. Before the company launched in 2006, marketing relied solely on outbound tactics such as cold calling, purchasing billboards, and buying email lists. Shah and his co-founder Brian Halligan saw an opportunity to completely change the game. Together, they founded the concept of inbound marketing, which is all about creating value for your audience to draw them into your company. Since then, HubSpot has quickly become the most respected and recognized brand within the marketing world—known not only for being the inventor and category king of inbound marketing, but also for adopting an incredible company culture. In this interview, Shah touches on all these topics and shares his biggest takeaways from serving as the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot. If there’s any other type of content you’d like to see that would be valuable to you during this time, please don’t hesitate to reach out at support@foundr.com. Key Takeaways How Shah and his co-founder Brian Halligan simultaneously came up with the idea for HubSpot and an entirely new category of marketing The biggest challenges of inbound marketing in the early days Why Shah decided not to trademark the term “inbound,” and how this decision helped the inbound marketing movement flourish The history behind HubSpot’s famous 128-slide Culture Code deck Shah’s tips for keeping culture consistent across a decentralized team Why Shah recommends approaching your company culture as a product What Shah and his team do to make sure their customers and employees stay happy How a maniacal obsession with your craft will help you find success