Sazbean

HubSpot was started by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan when they were both graduate students at MIT. Dharmesh, who has founded two companies and invested in others, also blogs about startups at OnStartups.com. Dharmesh took a few minutes to explain how HubSpot is different from other SEO and Internet Marketing companies and how inbound marketing can improve business websites. Look for a Sazbean review of HubSpot later this week.

What made you decide to start HubSpot – an Internet Marketing company?

Dharmesh: HubSpot [started] while I was at MIT in graduate school.  The thesis behind the company was that small businesses could benefit greatly from the Internet by more efficiently attracting prospective customers.

How is HubSpot different from other Internet Marketing or SEO companies?

Dharmesh: The big difference between HubSpot and most SEO companies is that it sells a product, not a service.  We believe that most small businesses can learn and apply the principles of Search Engine Optimization themselves.  We provide the tools to help these marketers leverage the power of SEO without having to spend thousands of dollars on consultants.  Further, HubSpot thinks of SEO as just one component of good internet marketing.  We offer an integrated suite of applications all designed to help small businesses draw more visitors to their websites and convert a higher percentage of those visitors to leads and customers.

From the demo of HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing System, it seems that a large portion of the lead generation and traffic generation relies on HubSpot’s blogging platform.  Why the focus on blogging instead of other types of content?

Dharmesh: Inbound marketing is about helping prospective customers find you instead of the classic “outbound” method which is centered around blasting the world with your message in the hopes that some small fraction that care will engage.  We think blogging is a great way for small businesses to engage their market.  It improves search engine rankings, provides useful content and generally helps differentiate a business.  Having said that, we take a broader view of what a “blog” really is.  Blogs can incorporate lots of different types of content (text, audio, video, documents, etc.).  A blog is a vehicle for delivering useful content in a simple, easy-to-consume format.

How do you produce lead generation and SEO results if a company already has a blog they want to use instead?

Dharmesh:  It is not mandatory for our customers to use our blogging application to get value out of HubSpot.  If a business already has a blog, that’s great!  What we help with is determining how that blog is performing and making the most out of the visitors that are reading the blog.  We think of blog content as a marketing “asset” and help businesses create a higher return on their marketing assets.

Earlier this month, HubSpot released the Press Release Grader.  Are there any other new features in the works that you can share with us?

Dharmesh: Press Release Grader has been a surprise hit for us.  Within weeks of launch, the tool has already been used to grade over 5,000 press releases.  The next big set of changes we’ve got planned for Press Release Grader are around deeper content analysis and more actionable suggestions on how a press release can be improved.

What’s on your horizon as far as future plans and goals?

Dharmesh: Our goal is very simple:  To help as many small businesses harness the power of inbound marketing as possible.  To this degree we are building a great team that is passionate about helping small businesses.  We have already been selected by 500 small businesses that subscribe to our software and the results are very gratifying.  Every week we hear success stories from our customers as to how they are finding more customers and growing their businesses with the power of inbound marketing and HubSpot software.

UPDATE: Sazbean’s review of HubSpot

Technorati Tags: HubSpot, OnStartups, inbound marketing, internet marketing, seo