#10: Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing @ Hubspot, on SaaS, Scaleups, and Startups

Scale or Die

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6y ago 23:27

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If there’s a company that knows the playbook for Growth, it very well might be Hubspot. In 13 years, they’ve scaled to one of the biggest names in marketing & sales and joined the ranks of successful tech IPOs. Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing and Growth, is charged with three of the most important parts of Hubspot’s flywheel: acquisition for the Sales product, the Freemium funnel, and the global web strategy. In his career, he’s worked for some of the biggest names in SaaS including Salesforce and Marketo. Plus, he’s helped many startups implement the strategies that power larger businesses.

In this episode, we’ll talk through how startups differ from scaleups, the inbound growth engine that has powered Hubspot’s success, why the funnel is dead, and the reasons more companies should invest in Customer Success.

0:00 Introduction
1:10 useproof.com/personalize
3:35 Kieran's career path to Hubspot’s VP of Marketing
4:23 Why the mission matter for SaaS
5:33 Scaleups are great when you want a new challenge every few years
7:37 What do the big companies do differently than small companies?
8:03 Check out our interview with Wade from Zapier on Season 1 Episode 6
9:12 100% sales are made from something we acquire
9:47 We have the advantage of being able to think 18 months down the line
11:46 How we experiment at Hubspot
13:00 Hubspot’s target persona — Marketing Mary
14:05 Hubspot startup discount
15:08 Going narrow at first is imperative for startups
16:00 Why the funnel is dead
16:40 Most companies are successful on 1 or 2 channels
18:16 Don't be underinvested in Customer Success
19:20 The Salty Six to know Kieran better
20:15 Inbound and Saastock
21:01 ReplyAll
21:10 Tim Ferriss
21:32 The Platform Revolution
22:48 @searchbrat
23:00 Growth TLDR Podcast

This is an actionable episode — we hope you enjoy! Get ready to #ScaleOrDie...

We're excited to have you along for Season 1 of #ScaleOrDie. Before you leave, be sure to leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, post a comment, or share with your friends! Tune into more episodes at useproof.com/scaleordie and read more stories at blog.useproof.com. Follow Dave & Proof on Twitter — @DaveRogemoser and @UseProof. We publish episodes every week so be sure to check back often for more interviews with the internet’s best minds in growth!

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