Dharmesh is such a fantastic storyteller. The numerous number of examples and stories he is able to quickly point to when explaining a concept, makes this podcast so great and engaging. Learnt so much.
Dharmesh dropping startup & scaleup truth bombs 💣 that'll make your head spin faster than a cat chasing a laser pointer🐈Lenny killing it with this podcast format especially with contrarian corner🔥🔥
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 🎯 HubSpot's unconventional approach: Initially decided to focus on multiple areas instead of specializing in one, going against common startup advice. 🤔 Culture creation: Co-founder assigned Dharmesh to define HubSpot's culture, despite his initial reluctance due to his preference for autonomy. 😄 Unique approach to public speaking: Dharmesh uses a data-driven method, measuring laughs per minute, to refine his keynote speeches. 🚀 Scaling culture: Dharmesh shares insights on how HubSpot's culture evolved and scaled over the years. 💡 Leaning into strengths: Dharmesh emphasizes the importance of focusing on strengths and avoiding tasks one isn't passionate about or skilled in. 💰 Entrepreneurial journey: From starting companies to becoming a billionaire, Dharmesh reflects on his entrepreneurial path. 🎤 SoloWare concept: Dharmesh discusses his personal approach to developing software tailored solely to his needs. 📈 Importance of self-awareness: Dharmesh's decision to avoid management roles stems from recognizing his limitations and prioritizing areas where he excels and enjoys. 🌱 Enjoyment and proficiency: Dharmesh emphasizes the correlation between enjoying tasks and being good at them, a principle he applied to himself and HubSpot. 💼 Managing scale: Dharmesh discusses his decision to avoid direct reports at HubSpot, enabling him to thrive in a larger company without the burdens of traditional management. 💡 Building a company your way: He advocates for building a company based on personal principles rather than conforming to traditional norms, citing HubSpot's unconventional approaches. 💰 Benefits of going public: Dharmesh highlights the advantages of being a publicly traded company, including market valuation transparency and wider participation in growth. 📈 Long-term conviction: He stresses the importance of maintaining high conviction in core principles, even when they go against prevailing opinions, using HubSpot's SMB focus as an example. 🔄 Iterative decision-making: Dharmesh discusses the importance of trying different approaches, adapting to challenges, and iterating on decisions as the company evolves. 🏷️ Titles and transparency: He shares the journey of HubSpot's approach to titles, from having none to adopting classic titles, balancing transparency and organizational clarity. 💡 Simplify for success: Dharmesh advocates for simplicity in early-stage companies, citing HubSpot's initial $5,000 monthly salary for all employees as an example of solving for simplicity. 🪴 Simplify decisions: Binary decisions are often easier and more scalable than complex ones, making them a foundational principle at HubSpot. 💺 Seating lottery: HubSpot's approach to seating arrangements, using a lottery system to avoid office politics, scaled successfully as the company grew. 🔄 Continuous optimization: Even after initial success, HubSpot continually optimized its processes, like refining the seating lottery algorithm over time. 🛠️ Product simplicity: HubSpot's product development philosophy involved adding features only if others were removed, prioritizing simplicity and usability. 💡 Cost of complexity: Complexity in products and operations can be detrimental over time, leading to slower growth and increased challenges. 🎯 Guardrails for simplicity: Implementing systematic constraints helps maintain simplicity as a cultural value within the organization. 📈 SMB focus: Despite challenges, focusing on SMB (small and medium-sized businesses) allowed HubSpot to find a balance between enterprise and consumer markets. 🧭 High-conviction bets: Success often comes from making high-conviction, low-consensus decisions, which can involve zagging when others are zigging. 🔄 Consider alternatives: Even if you don't deviate from your chosen path, it's crucial to explore alternative strategies and understand their implications. 🚀 Broad approach: HubSpot's early decision to offer a suite of tools contradicted conventional startup advice to focus on one thing, aiming to address the comprehensive needs of SMBs. 🛠️ Solve customer problems: HubSpot's broad product offering aimed to solve the actual customer problem of integrating multiple tools, which was challenging for SMBs despite existing individual solutions. 📊 Measure depth: Despite being broad, HubSpot assessed the depth of its product categories and aimed not to be in the top three in any single category, focusing instead on the value of integration. 🎯 Strategic heuristics: Over-indexing on any individual product category indicated a deviation from HubSpot's value proposition of seamless integration, prompting reevaluation. 😄 Counterintuitive success: Being in the top three in individual categories wasn't necessarily HubSpot's goal, highlighting the unconventional yet effective nature of their approach. Made with HARPA AI
Dharmesh's Hashtag System: #Plee - I beg of you to do this. I've thought about it so much and believe in my soul that it is the right thing to do. If you choose not to, I would appreciate a thorough response as to why and your research behind your decision. #Recommendation - I've thought about this a lot and have researched, dug through, and soul-searched around it. I would do this if I were you. You don't have to, but if you decide not to, I would appreciate a response as to why not and your thinking behind it. #Suggestion - This thought came into my head, and it could be a good thing to explore. No response is expected. You don't have to do anything, but I would consider it if I were you. #FYI - I came across this thing and am just letting you know. No response is expected.
Dharmesh's insights on building a culture code are spot on. For entrepreneurs, remember that your company's culture isn't just about perks; it's the shared values and practices that guide your team's behavior and decision-making. A strong culture can be a strategic asset, attracting talent and customers who resonate with your mission.
Most think in their first language. Dharmesh thinks in Python scripts! 😅 Favourite Lenny episode to suggest Dharmesh -> Product Vision with Ebi Atawodi!
First principles thinking exemplified. Blown away by the structured thinking as well. Doesn’t matter what the popular take is. What matters is whether it makes sense in your context - between the lines takeaway for me. Now this is a learning that’s applicable anywhere. But it does require deep understanding and structured thinking.
That was a bit of an attempt at humor. But what I meant was that as an introvert, I often find it difficult to be around people for too much time at once. Need to be alone to recharge my batteries.
@@DharmeshSpot Thank you, Dharmesh! My social capacitor is very small indeed. I used to think introversion was incompatible with leadership but you have clearly disproven that hypothesis! I guess this is related to the difference between management and leadership. Can you help me understand a bit more by digging a little deeper into where the difficulties arise? For example, I find it extremely mentally taxing to make smalltalk and often get bored by what most people find enjoyable (and vice versa). Also, I have a hard time converting my thoughts into words and group brainstorming often just slows me down. I am also terrible at delegation because I always give tasks that are too open ended and have difficulty seeing where others can get stuck. My thought process is Socratic and scientific (maybe mildly autistic?) which tends to annoy people. God bless my wife for dealing with this :) Perhaps you were able to overcome these somehow? I wish I could get better at it but I think it may just be going against the grain of my personality. Imposter syndrome does not help either. I am a physician who never practiced and a software engineer who no longer engineers lol. By the way, my company, innolitics.com, is using Hubspot and it really helping us get out of founder led sales. Thank you! Yujan Shrestha, MD
47:00 why smb has the best of both world between consumer and enterprise 50:10 smb is a lot more fun business to run, faster feedback loops, chance to keep trying since audience is so large 52:25 most smbs are not technically oriented 54:50 label and define what problem you’re solving. For who exactly? What’s their name?
Hi sharpest recently I revisited the show you were on and learned a ton. I also liked shoes with Jeff Weinstein. Like to know your opinion please. Thanks
Watching / Listening to any of Dharmesh's video/podcast > > >Traditional MBA degree. He doesn't talk academics; offers super tactical advice on literally everything business, marketing and leadership.
My favourite take away from this podcast was the thought about culture as a product for employees. It ties up really well to the fact also that often the companies who have great products ( Apple, Amazon, Hubspot etc) have really good culture but again its the product leaders who have a really big role to play in developing the culture and this is a great example. Thanks for sharing such amazing thoughts.
@@DharmeshSpot I really enjoyed this talk! I share a lot of the same feelings but for the longest time I thought it was just me! Would you please dive a bit more into "It is not that I don't like people, but I don't like being around them a whole lot" I feel the same way but can't pin it down exactly.
This was beyond great! Dharmesh, you are a great storyteller. I am taking the humor/LPM (interested in the software BTW) approach with me for any speaking event. The flashcards thing is something I've been using albeit for categorizing things. Lenny, your content/production/editing quality is something to strive for.
Hi Dharmesh, in this episode, we’ve heard “keep it simple at first” and “building a broad product on early days”. How do two doesn’t clash in decision making?
It's a fair question. All things being equal, I'd advocate for keeping it simple. It's the right answer in most cases. But, one of the tricky things about startups is that for every piece of good advice, there's likely conflicting advice that is equally good.
Dharmesh - you are an inspiration to many including myself because you are very authentic and can explain your theories and thoughts through brilliant examples. I have learnt a lot of things after i started following you a few years ago. Being an immigrant from disadvantaged area of western Nepal, I wished I had a guide and mentor to connect and learn from to build my career. After 20 years now, I spoked to hundreds of people who face similar problem. And I am somehow obsessed with the idea of creating a platform. Like you mentioned in the video, I am starting with this and use AI to discover these people, orgs, programs, events and resources for these users. I would love to share some of the work I have done with you for feedback in some forum. Thank you for these valuable tips.
