The Start:

Dharmesh Shah has built a software behemoth in Hubspot. Born in India, Dharmesh moved to the US for his graduate studies, earning a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

With a passion for startups, Shah previously founded Pyramid Digital Solutions, a software company that was acquired by SunGard Data Systems in 2005.

This success fueled his drive for entrepreneurship, leading him to create HubSpot, a company focused on inbound marketing and sales software.

The Problem:

The story of HubSpot began at MIT, where Shah and his cofounder Brian Halligan met. They identified a shift in the way people were buying products and consuming information online.

Traditional marketing methods were becoming less effective, and they saw an opportunity to revolutionize the industry by helping businesses attract customer through valuable content - aka inbound marketing.

The First Version:

When Hubspot started in 2006, it had a simple first version. It had blogging, social media management, email marketing, and lead nurturing as its features, all designed with one key objective - to create inbound demand & build lasting relationships. 

How he got his first customers:

Hubspot got its first 100 customers using a combination of the founders’ personal network & content marketing.

At MIT, Brian & Dharmesh built a name for themselves as the go-to-guys for web marketing & website development. This helped lend a lot of credibility when they were starting off with Hubspot.

In addition to this, the founders started blogging about inbound marketing.

Brian & Dharmesh started blogging twice a week while building the product for 9 months until they launched their first version.

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