Is Revenue a Lagging Indicator of Brand Growth?

In February 2021, marketing software company HubSpot bought popular business newsletter The Hustle. Jordan DiPietro, a veteran of The Motley Fool, joined HubSpot to run The Hustle just after the acquisition, after having spent time advising the company. The Hustle now claims 2 million subscribers to its daily email, which gives a meme-friendly dive into business news topics. DiPietro said being part of the marketing operation of a brand helps The Hustle take the long view. “Being in the publishing game, when you're focused on ad dollars, that is a grind. The Hustle had [subscription service] Trends and, and certainly our plan was to accelerate the growth of Trends, but still a lot of our revenue came from advertising and that's just a different beast. Once it was acquired by HubSpot, the pressure to sell external ads was off, but instead to focus on being our own media buyer was attractive, especially knowing the business model behind HubSpot and the capital and the resources that HubSpot had.”

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