HubSpot For Startups

The AI industry's biggest players admitted something most companies won't say out loud. As we lead up to our big AI Summit next week in San Francisco, we've been sharing full videos from past summits. In today's video, leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon revealed why the "open vs. closed source" debate everyone's fixated on is completely missing the point. What actually matters? According to Percy Liang from Stanford: "We're in a local optimum that might benefit from complete reimagining." Joining Percy were Boris Power (OpenAI), Alexander Waibel (Zoom/Carnegie Mellon), Brian Krausz (Anthropic), and Vijay K Narayanan (Fellows Fund) who tackled the real challenges facing AI builders today—from why GPT-4's superhuman capabilities make safety non-negotiable to the uncomfortable truth about expecting AI companies to become "arbiters of truth" across cultures. Watch the full panel discussion to discover why Boris thinks APIs have created the "full-stack engineer as single-person company" phenomenon and what founders should actually focus on when building with AI. Full video and insights on our blog: https://hubs.la/Q03qZ9SC0

Ahem... all you startup founders. There is no better time than NOW to take advantage of that sweet, sweet HubSpot for Startups discount. 😮

There's one funding round that turns startup survival from a coin flip into a near certainty. While 90% of startups fail overall, that number drops to just 1% for companies that successfully raise Series B funding. However, the average time from Series A to Series B has stretched to 31 months as of 2024, making it more challenging for startups to stretch their runway to make it to Series B and beyond. The good news? Series B rounds are experiencing the most growth compared to earlier funding stages, with dramatically higher capital amounts per deal from 2023 to 2024. Even better news: companies like xAI and Figure are proving that truly disruptive startups (especially in the AI industry) can still move fast, closing Series B rounds worth hundreds of millions in under a year. The key to Series B success isn't just proving traction — it's demonstrating efficient, scalable growth that can weather market disruptions. Ready to master the Series B fundraising process? Read our complete https://hubs.la/Q03qyx_X0 #venturecapital #seriesB #startups

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What's the one mistake that keeps high-growth companies "always a quarter behind" when trouble hits? Former Aurora Solar CRO Carina Brockl learned this lesson the hard way while scaling from $20M to over $100M ARR, only to face brutal macroeconomic headwinds that slammed the solar industry. In her conversation with Mark Roberge on The Science of Scaling podcast, she reveals why even successful leaders struggle to react fast enough when the market shifts. Brockl advised against underestimating macro risk. Instead, react faster and err on the side of decisiveness as she shares how Aurora's team saw the warning signs — slowed demand, tougher financing — but still found themselves playing catch-up. The episode also dives deep into her framework for evaluating scale-up opportunities, the messy reality of moving upstream to enterprise customers, and how to lead through layoffs with both strategy and humanity. Plus, why she's betting big on the AI wave after taking a well-earned break. Whether you're navigating your first scale-up or your fifth, this conversation is packed with hard-won wisdom about surviving the chaos of hypergrowth. Read the breakdown, listen to, or watch the full episode on our blog. https://hubs.la/Q03pSGyK0 #Scaling #SalesLeadership #StartupGrowth

What if the tools we use to measure AI progress are fundamentally broken? Percy Liang from Stanford dropped some eye-opening insights at one of our past AI summits that every tech leader needs to hear. The reality? We're in a "benchmarking crisis." Foundation models are advancing faster than our ability to properly evaluate them. While benchmarks historically lasted years, we're now seeing monthly model releases that outpace our measurement capabilities. But here's what caught our attention: Liang revealed that only 74% of citations in generative search engines actually support their generated statements. That's a massive gap between perceived utility and accuracy. His solution? HELM (Holistic Evaluation of Language Models) - a systematic approach that goes beyond simple accuracy to measure bias, robustness, toxicity, and efficiency across 30+ models from major AI companies. As Percy said, "Benchmarks determine what the community prioritizes. Without proper benchmarking, innovation lacks direction." This isn't just academic theory - it's about building AI systems that are reliable, beneficial, and aligned with human values. Want the full breakdown of how Stanford is tackling the AI measurement challenge? Watch the complete keynote or read our detailed summary of insights on our blog. https://hubs.la/Q03pDr_s0

What happens when a startup expects 30% year-over-year growth and needs to scale from thousands to half a million customers? You need systems that can grow with ambitious goals. Simon Fiquet, Chief Revenue Officer at Sleek, faced exactly this challenge while building a platform that handles "all the boring back-end stuff" entrepreneurs don't want to deal with. Their solution? Building on platforms designed for scale from day one. The results: ✅ 15% improvement in sales team efficiency ✅ Hundreds of additional new customers per year ✅ Hundreds of thousands in additional revenue ✅ Deployment time reduced from 6 hours to several minutes ✅ Pay-as-you-scale infrastructure instead of underutilized servers "HubSpot is quite central to our sales and marketing stack. It's the place where sales team start their day and finish their day," says Fiquet. Glen Genquillo, Lead Software Architect, shares what it's like working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), "The beauty with AWS is that it allows us to scale faster... I'm just really happy that AWS would be able to scale up with us." When your growth plans are ambitious, your infrastructure needs to match that ambition.

What's the difference between 30% efficiency gains and transformational business growth? Sometimes it's just choosing the right platform from the start. Miloš Djurdjević, Co-founder and MD of heyData, learned this lesson while building his compliance-as-a-service company in Berlin. After struggling with a "fragmented landscape" of different tools, his team made the switch to HubSpot, and building their infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) The results speak for themselves: ✅ 30% increase in team efficiency and productivity ✅ 70% boost in lead generation ✅ 50% customer growth ✅ 150% improvement in customer engagement ✅ Reliable, scalable infrastructure through AWS integration ✅ Simplified compliance and security solution without building from scratch "HubSpot didn't just help us grow more seamlessly and clearly, but it transformed our operation, the efficiency, and the long-term scalability of the business." For startups and scale-ups in the compliance space, having the full customer journey in one platform—backed by enterprise-grade infrastructure—isn't just convenient, it's transformational.

Customer service can make or break a startup, but when it comes time to scale, should you outsource or keep it in-house? As founders navigate limited bandwidth and budget constraints, choosing between outsourced or in-house support isn't one-size-fits-all — it depends on your specific growth stage, tech stack, and strategic priorities. With outsourcing offering up to 40-50% cost savings and greater scalability, and in-house teams providing stronger brand alignment and quality control, the right choice comes down to understanding the trade-offs. Our latest blog offers a data-driven framework to help you evaluate both models and determine which approach, or perhaps a strategic hybrid solution, will best serve your unique startup journey. Want to learn the pros and cons of outsourcing customer service and how startups like yours can make the best choice? Read the full post here: https://hubs.la/Q03pjQY70 #Startups #CustomerService #Outsourcing