1.
@dharmesh
Mistakes Made
IN 30 YEARS OF SOFTWARE BUSINESSES
Lessons Learned
Business of Software 2022
&

2.
I’m @dharmesh.

3.
Business Software
Things I Love

4.
Business Software
Things I Love

5.
BEWARE EXTRAPOLATIONS
FROM LIMITED
SAMPLE SIZE

6.
Ask questions.
(please)

7.
Partnering with big companies
can be great. Until it’s not.

8.
Even before
Product Market Fit,
you need
Founder Market Fit.

9.
Me Brian Halligan

10.
Alignment
Amplifies
Strategy

11.
Do ONE thing very, very well.

12.
Fortune favors the

13.
You should be able to describe what
your company does
in a .

14.
You should be able to describe what
your company does.

15.
Me:
People: What is HubSpot?

16.
HubSpot helps small and medium sized
companies with 2-2000 employees grow
better by attracting, engaging and
delighting customers with a connected
CRM platform.

17.
Pricing/packaging
is hard to get right,
but harmful if you
get it wrong.

18.
We (initially) got it
wrong.

19.
Beware the no man’s land of pricing.
Too expensive to sell on a website.
Too cheap to afford inside sales.

20.
Your pricing model is as important
as the actual price.

21.
Pick your poison.
Longer sales cycle
OR
Lower average price

22.
Reward early customers by “locking in”
their price.
But not forever.
(Forever is a long time)

23.
Don’t be a
prisoner to
your
packaging.

24.
Increase LTV*
*We’ve been undercalculating it.

25.
Breathe.

26.
CULTURE

27.
The Best
To Talk About Culture
Is t=0

28.
We are building two
products.
One for our
customers.
One for our
people.
Culture is the product we
build for ourselves.
{

29.
HubSpot’s
Hierarchy
Solve for customers first,
and the company right after.

30.
Energy spent on a decision should be
proportional to the cost of getting it wrong.
COST TO CHANGE
ENERGY

31.
FORTUNE FAVORS THE

32.
51
Write content to help customers
understand the problem.
Write code to help solve it.
You need both.

33.
GROWTH

34.
Community Led
Growth
Connection
The Evolution Of Value Led Growth
Marketing Led
Growth
Product Led
Growth
Sales Led
Growth
Content Code
Consultation

35.
Software
=
Success
as a
Service

36.
Software Content Community

37.
Software Content Community

38.
Software Content Community

39.
59
At scale, software
companies aren’t just
building products, they’re
building economies.

40.
BONUS TOPICS

41.
A software business
is a business.

42.
A software business
involves software.

43.
64

44.
Dream
Iterate small
big

45.
Read-Only
WEB 1
Read + Write
WEB 2
Read + Write + Own
WEB 3

46.
Predicting the future is about seeing
in the present

47.
THANK YOU
,
@dharmesh

48.
Build with
and build leverage over time.

49.
Jim Collins
True greatness requires
a series of good decisions,
supremely well executed
over a long period of time.

50.
Building things is a
of love

51.
You can’t connect the
dots looking forward; you
can only connect them
looking backwards. So
you have to trust that the
dots will somehow
connect in your future.”
“
Steve Jobs
1955–2011

52.
In Person at
Business Of Software 2022

53.
In Person at
Business Of Software 2022
In Pajamas