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Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO)

4 Apr 2024 19 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Dharmesh ShahLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

evaluation 6belief 4commitment 3preference 3prediction 2recommendation 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

19 published records

01 / evaluation

But here's the other social reason why I think founders should go public, which is... So in HubSpot, and I hadn't thought about this so I'm not going to take credit for being this generous, magnanimous person, is that in our first pre-public years, I think we were eight years old when we went public, we had created roughly a billion dollars in market cap, give or take.

“But here's the other social reason why I think founders should go public, which is... So in HubSpot, and I hadn't thought about this so I'm not going to take credit for being this generous, magnanimous person, is that in our first pre-public years, I think we were eight years old when we went public, we had created roughly a billion dollars in market cap, give or take.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

02 / belief

The other mistake I think people make in product all the time is that we measure the cost of a feature based on the, usually, or even a new product, based on the cost of implementation.

“The other mistake I think people make in product all the time is that we measure the cost of a feature based on the, usually, or even a new product, based on the cost of implementation.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

04 / evaluation

We have the top three, whatever, our value proposition is that everything works so well together that that being in the top three and having those right features or whatever doesn't matter.

“We have the top three, whatever, our value proposition is that everything works so well together that that being in the top three and having those right features or whatever doesn't matter.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / belief

Before HubSpot, you founded two companies, but I think the more important fact there is you promised your wife you would not start another company before you started HubSpot and then you ended up and went on and started HubSpot.

“Before HubSpot, you founded two companies, but I think the more important fact there is you promised your wife you would not start another company before you started HubSpot and then you ended up and went on and started HubSpot.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / commitment

Some of the best startup advice I've heard is startups should focus on one thing and be really, really exceptionally world-class at that one thing. And one of our early zigs is we are going to do exactly the opposite of that.

“Some of the best startup advice I've heard is startups should focus on one thing and be really, really exceptionally world-class at that one thing. And one of our early zigs is we are going to do exactly the opposite of that.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

Yeah, so it comes down to what problem you're solving. So I think one of the mistakes I think founders make is that, especially product oriented founders, is that we fall in love with the solution instead of falling in love with the actual problem, and you need to fall in love with the problem and putting that constraint on yourself forces you to understand and at least label and define what problem you're solving because oftentimes we can describe our product or whatever, but we struggle sometimes as founders to describe the actual problem.

“Yeah, so it comes down to what problem you're solving. So I think one of the mistakes I think founders make is that, especially product oriented founders, is that we fall in love with the solution instead of falling in love with the actual problem, and you need to fall in love with the problem and putting that constraint on yourself forces you to understand and at least label and define what problem you're solving because oftentimes we can describe our product or whatever, but we struggle sometimes as founders to describe the actual problem.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / prediction

It does not happen, and it will be a fight, because the universe is working against you. And it will take calories to fight for that simplicity, because everything, even well-intentioned people, will introduce complexity because that's the natural way of the world.

“It does not happen, and it will be a fight, because the universe is working against you. And it will take calories to fight for that simplicity, because everything, even well-intentioned people, will introduce complexity because that's the natural way of the world.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / preference

We have a core set of things that are part of the culture, part of the thing that's like, "Okay, here's what we believe," and then there are things that the individual groups, so our head of engineering could come back, it's like, "Yeah, I know our overall, like the founder's leaning is X, but for my particular group, that doesn't really make sense.

“We have a core set of things that are part of the culture, part of the thing that's like, "Okay, here's what we believe," and then there are things that the individual groups, so our head of engineering could come back, it's like, "Yeah, I know our overall, like the founder's leaning is X, but for my particular group, that doesn't really make sense.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / evaluation

" And- And so it's like, okay, well why would you do that? And the reason is that the one thing we wanted to be good at was solving for the actual customer problem that existed, and the customer problem that existed was not a dearth of tools, lots of great SEO blogging, everything, all the tools existed, but SMB specifically did not have the wherewithal to put all those pieces together.

“" And- And so it's like, okay, well why would you do that? And the reason is that the one thing we wanted to be good at was solving for the actual customer problem that existed, and the customer problem that existed was not a dearth of tools, lots of great SEO blogging, everything, all the tools existed, but SMB specifically did not have the wherewithal to put all those pieces together.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / preference

One of them was simplify, it turns out. And then, I don't know, some number of years later, the founders realized, "We're not actually good at this," and values should reflect who you are not aspire to be, and I like this middle ground you found of like, "I'm going to put in here, but I'll note this isn't necessarily who we are.

“One of them was simplify, it turns out. And then, I don't know, some number of years later, the founders realized, "We're not actually good at this," and values should reflect who you are not aspire to be, and I like this middle ground you found of like, "I'm going to put in here, but I'll note this isn't necessarily who we are.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / recommendation

You don't have to do a whole lot of testing because it only needs to work for one person. And the most important thing is that because it's only for one person, if it stops bringing utility, you can just turn it off.

“You don't have to do a whole lot of testing because it only needs to work for one person. And the most important thing is that because it's only for one person, if it stops bringing utility, you can just turn it off.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

And so we ended up doing, literally the day we went public, is we designated every single employee to be a designated insider. So that allowed us to maintain the transparency thing because there was no rule that said you could only have 5, 6, 10, and there was hundreds of people.

“And so we ended up doing, literally the day we went public, is we designated every single employee to be a designated insider. So that allowed us to maintain the transparency thing because there was no rule that said you could only have 5, 6, 10, and there was hundreds of people.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

" No one would ever say that, and this is the number one mistake, I think, I'm biased, I think founders make, is that they say, "Oh, we have an awesome culture, and my job is to preserve the culture.

“" No one would ever say that, and this is the number one mistake, I think, I'm biased, I think founders make, is that they say, "Oh, we have an awesome culture, and my job is to preserve the culture.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / evaluation

As it turns out, it's just not true because as a user of X product, whatever it happens to be, it's like, okay, I've got this mental model, the thing I'm trying to accomplish, and then I have to translate that into a series of clicks, drags, touches, and swipes in order to accomplish the thing that I want in the software product that I'm using, and what varies is the degree to which that translation needs to occur.

“As it turns out, it's just not true because as a user of X product, whatever it happens to be, it's like, okay, I've got this mental model, the thing I'm trying to accomplish, and then I have to translate that into a series of clicks, drags, touches, and swipes in order to accomplish the thing that I want in the software product that I'm using, and what varies is the degree to which that translation needs to occur.”
Speaker
Dharmesh Shah
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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