Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

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

Apr 4, 2024

In this engaging dialogue, Dharmesh Shah, Co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, shares insights from building the $30B company. He emphasizes the power of leveraging personal strengths and humor in public speaking. Dharmesh reveals his innovative decision-making approach, including the 'debate, decide, unite' framework, to empower teams. He discusses his contrarian views on product development and the significance of a transparent culture code. The conversation delves into challenges in the SMB landscape and the transformative impact of AI on decision-making.

01:41:44

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Dharmesh Shah

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Quick takeaways

Maintaining simplicity in business by imposing constraints leads to sustainable growth and prevents complexity.

HubSpot's product development strategy involves removing existing features when adding new ones to prioritize user-friendly and efficient products.

Focusing on serving the SMB segment provided HubSpot with revenue diversification, control over product roadmap, and faster feedback loops for experimentation.

Implementing systems that promote simplicity and value high-conviction, low-consensus ideas can foster operational efficiency and innovation in organizations.

Deep dives

The Importance of Simplifying and Fighting Complexity

Keeping things simple and fighting against complexity is crucial in business to prevent deterioration over time. One strategy to achieve simplicity is by imposing constraints and guardrails systematically within the organization. By focusing on high-conviction, low-consensus ideas and implanting systems that promote simplicity, companies can avoid the pitfalls of complexity that often lead to challenges in growth and sustainability.

Fight for simplicity to avoid the eventual death of complexity

01:21

Making Better Decisions by Identifying Factors and Weighting Them

03:26

Zig vs. Zag Strategy and Broad Product Focus

01:59

Continuous Iteration of Culture Like Product

01:24

Intro

5min

Leadership and Humor in Public Speaking

11min

Innovative Leadership in Startups

30min

Navigating the SMB Landscape

11min

Exploring LinkedIn for B2B Marketing and Innovative Communication Techniques

5min

Empowering Decision-Making: Autonomy and Collaboration at HubSpot

4min

Strategic Decision-Making and Company Culture

26min

Navigating the AI Revolution

10min

Dharmesh Shah is the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot (currently valued at $30 billion) and one of the most fascinating founders I’ve ever met. Dharmesh is the keeper of HubSpot’s Culture Code, built ChatSpot (an AI chatbot built on top of HubSpot CRM) and a game called WordPlay (which grew to 16 million users), and also founded and writes for OnStartups, a top-ranking startup blog and community with more than 1M members. He’s also invested in 100+ startups including OpenAI, AngelList, Coinbase, and Dropbox. In our conversation, we discuss:

• The biggest lessons he has learned from building HubSpot

• The importance of leaning into your strengths

• Dharmesh’s data-oriented approach to public speaking

• How he developed HubSpot’s culture code

• The decision-making process at HubSpot

• His contrarian approach to building products

• Why founders and product teams are all fighting the second law of thermodynamics

• How “flash tags” can save your teams time

• How to decide what ideas are worth investing in

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