#INBOUND17: Dharmesh Shah

HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah brings us back to the customer-focused principles of inbound marketing, then announces how HubSpot's products are moving forward with that knowledge.

HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah used his half of the founders keynote to delve into his take on some of the same topics as Brian Halligan, especially that of culture, as it was a running theme throughout this year's conference. He also got us back to the customer-centric mindset we need to embrace when creating inbound marketing, the urgency of creating value in all things (never creating just to put something out there), and demonstrated some of HubSpot's plans to deliver on these values, including a stepped-up CRM for sales professionals and HubSpot's recent acquisition of an AI company (per Dharmesh himself, he likes chat bots and he cannot lie).

(And yes, I recycled the picture from Brian's keynote; I didn't get any good shots in the back half!)

Christine Gritmon Inc. 10/4/17 Christine Gritmon Inc. 10/4/17

#INBOUND17: Brian Halligan

HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan talks about the key differences between startup and scale-up mode and the importance of culture in his keynote at #INBOUND17.

Of course I was excited to see HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah speak at #INBOUND17. Last year's talk was inspiring and informative. This year, they decided to split their keynote, each focusing on their strengths (but with enough thematic overlaps and joint references that they still felt like related talks). I was also glad to see the return of the Brian & Dharmesh puppets on-screen. :)

As I said in a previous blog post: I hadn't originally planned to grow my company, but now that is absolutely part of my plan. I don't ever plan to become big like HubSpot, but I was still thrilled to hear lessons on startup mentality vs. scale-up mentality, and the important things to absorb or remove from each. His journey from starting HubSpot, through its exponential growth, and general commentaries on companies and marketing in general was engaging and on-point.

My favorite quote wasn't able to fit fully into a tweet, but I've found it:

"Netflix didn't disrupt Blockbuster; their late fees did that. Apple didn't disrupt the music industry; buying the whole album did. Then Uber, they didn't disrupt the taxi industry; waiting outside in the rain did."