Why HubSpot is Acquiring The Hustle

The battle for customer attention has never been so fierce.

We've seen an explosion in brands using online channels to promote their services and products to potential customers.

The problem with this model is that you're not only battling other competitors for that attention; you're competing against every site that publishes informative videos, the latest trends, and educational content that serves the needs of their audiences.

We've built HubSpot on the belief that you earn attention by being of value. That belief is at the very heart of HubSpot's success; creating remarkable content is what makes a remarkable brand. It's why we've invested in publishing blogs, courses, ebooks, templates, and videos that help generate millions of visits to HubSpot every month.

We can't stop there, though. Just as the product requirements of growing companies have changed over time, so have their content needs. Newsletters, podcasts, premium content, and other media have exploded in popularity for startups and scaleups looking for best practices and tech news.

So how can companies adapt to this change? We believe that the next generation of software companies will invest in media that earns the attention of their audience. Instead of the traditional model of having a software company embedded inside of a media company, we predict that the next generation of tech companies will have the opposite – a media company embedded inside a software company.

We're taking our first steps in that direction today with an acquisition that we believe will help HubSpot deliver on the diverse content needs of entrepreneurs, startups, and scaleups across the mediums they love.

HubSpot has signed an agreement to acquire The Hustle, a much-loved media company whose mission is to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

Traditionally, a B2B company's marketing plan was focused on getting their product into decision-makers' hands and convincing them to buy it. The majority of content published were whitepapers, functional specs, and content that helped their buyers make a purchase decision. Companies spent their time and resources building relationships with a small group of people who were actively looking for a product to buy.

Over the past decade, we've seen huge changes in how B2B companies approach media, with an explosion in popularity of those developing media products paired with inbound marketing to build relationships with large audiences across all stages of their business flywheel (attract, engage, convert, delight).

Today, B2B brands can be a daily part of their customers' lives before they even use their product. They can become a daily source of education and information for their customers. They can grow a large audience for that content by creating it for the people who buy their product and the many more who will use it. They can earn the attention of their audience by continually creating value for them.

As we considered how we could keep meeting our customers' needs, we knew there was an opportunity to diversify the content we published and the mediums through which we delivered that content.

We started looking for potential opportunities to acquire media companies who had the talent and experience in the mediums we wanted to invest in. It became obvious to us that The Hustle perfectly met all those needs.

We loved The Hustle's content. They have a daily newsletter that reaches over 1.5 million subscribers each day with the latest tech and business news. They've recently launched a premium content subscription named Trends, offering thousands of business ideas for the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. And they have a very successful business podcast, "My First Million."

We were also incredibly impressed by the entire Hustle team - led by founder Sam Parr. Together the Hustle team has built an incredible product and loyal customer base. You can expect the same great content you've become accustomed to getting from The Hustle and HubSpot is excited to be a part of that.

We live in a busy world; it's not easy trying to grow a scaling business and to keep on top of all the critical content that can help you be more successful. With this acquisition, we want to give our audience and customers the content they need in the medium they engage with most, whether that's blogs, YouTube, newsletters, or podcasts. We're excited about the current media products The Hustle has and the new ones we plan to launch together in the coming year.

It's never been a more exciting time for a software company to become a daily part of their customer's lives through media, and we can't wait to continue innovating on how we earn the attention of our audience.

Learn more here.