[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_137":-5,"_138":-5,"_139":140,"_141":142,"_143":144},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/933/start-with-the-future-and-work-backwards","id",933,"title","Start with the future and work backwards","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.150\nwith saying, \"What is the future that I want to help create as a leader?\" One\n\n2\n00:00:07.150 --> 00:00:13.440\nof the lessons that I have learned as a leader is not to focus on the past and\n\n3\n00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:19.000\nwhere you're coming from, but really focus on the future and work backwards.\n\n4\n00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:23.770\nI had to make that choice, David, because I could be sitting there and I could\n\n5\n00:00:23.770 --> 00:00:28.480\nbe thinking about what shoes am I filling, how am I going to get this role to\n\n6\n00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:33.280\nbe where it needs to be, and do I have the capability, the credibility, to be\n\n7\n00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:37.000\nable to lead this company, but that's not where I started.\n\n8\n00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:43.710\nI made a choice. I made a choice, and I thought about 2030 and where HubSpot\n\n9\n00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:49.560\ncan be as a company, and what would be my role in getting the organization to\n\n10\n00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:57.000\nwhere it needed to be in the next decade, and what would a great leader do, and\n\n11\n00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.000\nhow could I be the part of that journey?\n\n12\n00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.550\nI started in the future, and then the answer became clear. I wanted to be the\n\n13\n00:01:04.550 --> 00:01:09.200\nbest CEO that the company and the employees and the customers deserved. Not\n\n14\n00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:13.000\nwhere I was coming from, but where it needed to be in the future.\n\n15\n00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:19.050\nWorking backwards from the future really helped create a vision for where I can\n\n16\n00:01:19.050 --> 00:01:21.000\ngo with this company.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",653067,"end_time",732542,"keywords","vision, future, strategic planning, new job, new role, promotion,","slug","start-with-the-future-and-work-backwards","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","s02UycLTyfo3OH9dQp7xsJroNLw9hcEuS9Ksj8kLWaFk","mux_asset_id","GV901u702iOB2K4KP5AL7l9SrZu8qfdmsxL6Wu5l7LM9w","leader_id",156,"episode_id",297,"updated_at","2025-02-26T20:03:38.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/933/start-with-the-future-and-work-backwards","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_101":102,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_25":107,"_108":109,"_62":110,"_59":110,"_111":112,"_69":113,"_39":114,"_115":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_116":117,"_89":118,"_44":119,"_120":121,"_122":123,"_46":-5,"_124":125,"_126":127,"_93":128,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":-5,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":-5,"_89":-5,"_46":-5,"_90":91,"_92":-5,"_93":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Fortune favors the focused","fortune-favors-the-focused","Learn how to keep your energy and priorities focused on what really matters—and why it’s a game-changer for your overall success. Learn a paradigm-shifting way to think about your company culture. Plus, a helpful mindset to overcome imposter syndrome.","summary","

As a leader, you’ve got a LOT of things vying for your attention.

How do you know what deserves your time and focus … and what doesn’t?

Today’s episode will help you answer that big question!

David is joined by Yamini Rangan, the CEO of HubSpot, a popular online CRM platform that’s growing by leaps and bounds.

A big reason for HubSpot’s success is the clear sense of focus that Yamini has instilled to help everyone make better decisions and prioritize the right opportunities.

In fact, Yamini even has a phrase for it: fortune favors the focused.

The way you apply your attention and focus has a huge bearing on the results you can achieve.

So if you’re feeling spread a little thin, or you’re just not sure what you need to be focused on right now to really move the needle for your organization, then you’re going to love this episode!

You’ll also learn:

Your most strategic tool in leadership (this one will surprise you!)
A paradigm-shifting way to think about company culture
Practical advice for shifting out of functional roles into management
A helpful mindset to overcome imposter syndrome
Fresh ideas to put customers at the center of your business

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.980\nWelcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:08.720\ninterview some\n\n3\n00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:10.680\nof the very best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:10.680 --> 00:00:13.600\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:14.200\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:14.200 --> 00:00:18.080\nsimple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:18.080 --> 00:00:20.800\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:25.670\nYou know as a leader, I bet you've got a lot of things vying for your attention\n\n9\n00:00:25.670 --> 00:00:25.720\n.\n\n10\n00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:30.960\nHow do you know what deserves your time and focus and what doesn't?\n\n11\n00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:35.200\nWell today's conversation is going to help you answer that big question.\n\n12\n00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:39.600\nI'm joined by the CEO of HubSpot, Yomini Rangan.\n\n13\n00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:44.620\nNow if you don't know, HubSpot is a $2 billion online customer relationship\n\n14\n00:00:44.620 --> 00:00:46.040\nmanagement platform\n\n15\n00:00:46.040 --> 00:00:48.880\nand it's growing by leaps and bounds.\n\n16\n00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:53.900\nAnd a big reason for their success is this very clear sense of focus that Yom\n\n17\n00:00:53.900 --> 00:00:55.120\nini has instilled\n\n18\n00:00:55.120 --> 00:01:00.800\nto help everyone make better decisions and prioritize the right opportunities.\n\n19\n00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:07.080\nIn fact, Yomini even has a phrase for it, \"Fortune favors the focused.\"\n\n20\n00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:10.750\nThe way you apply your attention and focus has a huge bearing on the results\n\n21\n00:01:10.750 --> 00:01:11.160\nyou can\n\n22\n00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:12.360\nachieve.\n\n23\n00:01:12.360 --> 00:01:15.920\nSo if you're feeling spread a little thin, or you're just not sure what you\n\n24\n00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:16.440\nneed to be\n\n25\n00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:21.670\nfocused on right now to really move the needle for your organization, then you\n\n26\n00:01:21.670 --> 00:01:22.360\n're going to\n\n27\n00:01:22.360 --> 00:01:26.840\nlove my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours.\n\n28\n00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:34.320\nYomini Rangan.\n\n29\n00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:39.830\nYou know I've had so much fun researching you because you are one heck of a CEO\n\n30\n00:01:39.830 --> 00:01:40.240\nand\n\n31\n00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:43.560\nI just love your approach to culture and people and customers.\n\n32\n00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:48.890\nSo I can't really wait to get into this, but if you could give us a snapshot of\n\n33\n00:01:48.890 --> 00:01:49.600\nHubSpot\n\n34\n00:01:49.600 --> 00:01:52.160\nand the business you're leading today, I'd really appreciate it.\n\n35\n00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:53.920\nYeah, thank you for having me again.\n\n36\n00:01:53.920 --> 00:02:03.390\nHubSpot, we are really focused on helping millions of organizations grow better\n\n37\n00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:03.600\n.\n\n38\n00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:06.630\nThat's the purpose, that's our mission, that's what we care about, that's our\n\n39\n00:02:06.630 --> 00:02:07.200\nbread butter\n\n40\n00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:08.480\nand jam.\n\n41\n00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:13.640\nThe way we do it is by providing a customer platform.\n\n42\n00:02:13.640 --> 00:02:14.920\nSo think about this, David.\n\n43\n00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:19.210\nIf you want to connect to your end customers, you need to be able to look at\n\n44\n00:02:19.210 --> 00:02:20.080\ntheir entire\n\n45\n00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:23.690\njourney, whether they're coming to your website, they're buying something\n\n46\n00:02:23.690 --> 00:02:24.480\nonline or they're\n\n47\n00:02:24.480 --> 00:02:27.840\ninteracting with your support, you got to be able to connect.\n\n48\n00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:32.320\nThat's what we enable small and medium businesses to do.\n\n49\n00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:36.770\nWe're about a 17 year old company, we are all over the world and we're\n\n50\n00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:37.920\npassionate people\n\n51\n00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:41.360\nthat are mission driven about helping customers grow.\n\n52\n00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:42.360\nFantastic.\n\n53\n00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:46.240\nYou became CEO in a bit of an unexpected way.\n\n54\n00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:50.460\nTell us that story and what it was like for you to just be thrust into that\n\n55\n00:02:50.460 --> 00:02:51.040\nrole.\n\n56\n00:02:51.040 --> 00:02:56.700\nYeah, you know, this will resonate deeply with you, I'm an accidental CEO in\n\n57\n00:02:56.700 --> 00:02:57.760\nmany ways.\n\n58\n00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:03.800\nNow I've been in the tech industry for about a few decades and I joined HubSpot\n\n59\n00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:04.520\nas their\n\n60\n00:03:04.520 --> 00:03:07.720\nfirst chief customer officer.\n\n61\n00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:11.890\nAnd the reason I was the first chief customer officer is that HubSpot really\n\n62\n00:03:11.890 --> 00:03:12.640\nbelieves in\n\n63\n00:03:12.640 --> 00:03:18.010\nbuilding and bringing together marketing sales and service in service of the\n\n64\n00:03:18.010 --> 00:03:19.240\nend customer.\n\n65\n00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:24.730\nSo my job was to come in and bring together marketing sales and service and\n\n66\n00:03:24.730 --> 00:03:25.640\nreally help\n\n67\n00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:27.480\nfocus on the customers.\n\n68\n00:03:27.480 --> 00:03:35.040\nAnd I joined at a very cool time, January 2020.\n\n69\n00:03:35.040 --> 00:03:39.920\nAnd I don't know what the world was going to be, but I still remember Brian who\n\n70\n00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:40.400\nis the\n\n71\n00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:45.040\nCEO co-founder, phenomenal leader, mentor coach.\n\n72\n00:03:45.040 --> 00:03:49.270\nHe said, well, take your time, Yomini, take a lot of time and spend the time\n\n73\n00:03:49.270 --> 00:03:50.040\nknowing our\n\n74\n00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:53.280\nteam, knowing our culture and then march hit.\n\n75\n00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:56.520\nAnd he's like, move fast.\n\n76\n00:03:56.520 --> 00:03:58.240\nGive me answers today.\n\n77\n00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:00.160\nI can't wait one more day.\n\n78\n00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:04.910\nWhat are the changes we need to do to really go into this mode of dealing with\n\n79\n00:04:04.910 --> 00:04:05.520\nCOVID?\n\n80\n00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:11.440\nAnd so I just thrust into this position of reinventing what we needed to do\n\n81\n00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:12.240\nduring the\n\n82\n00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:18.240\npandemic and help our small, medium businesses who at that time were honestly\n\n83\n00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.280\nchurning.\n\n84\n00:04:19.280 --> 00:04:21.560\nThey were closing down and shuttering.\n\n85\n00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:23.800\nThere was a question of how they were going to survive.\n\n86\n00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:28.920\nAnd we said, we need to do our part to help them get digital and help them get\n\n87\n00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:29.560\ndigital\n\n88\n00:04:29.560 --> 00:04:30.840\nreally quickly.\n\n89\n00:04:30.840 --> 00:04:36.680\nAnd so we changed a lot of what we did for customers in a matter of days.\n\n90\n00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:40.180\nWe went to the board and we said that we are slashing our price, we're helping\n\n91\n00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:41.160\nour customers,\n\n92\n00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:45.370\nwe're giving them a relief fund and we're going to help them survive during the\n\n93\n00:04:45.370 --> 00:04:46.160\npandemic.\n\n94\n00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:51.590\nAnd turns out that was a good call because three months later, all small,\n\n95\n00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:53.160\nmedium businesses\n\n96\n00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:57.240\nneeded a way to digitally connect, digitally grow.\n\n97\n00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:01.240\nAnd they came to us and we earned their trust in that period.\n\n98\n00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:03.680\nThen what happened the next March?\n\n99\n00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:06.760\nSo I'd kind of gone through one March to the next March.\n\n100\n00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:08.760\nI got another call from Brian.\n\n101\n00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:13.880\nAnd this time he was calling me, unfortunately, from his hospital bed.\n\n102\n00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:19.330\nHe had met with a snowmobile accident and had broken a lot of big bones and\n\n103\n00:05:19.330 --> 00:05:20.280\nthankfully\n\n104\n00:05:20.280 --> 00:05:21.680\nall the organs survived.\n\n105\n00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:25.360\nAnd he said, you're going to have to step up and you're going to have to run\n\n106\n00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:25.960\nthe company\n\n107\n00:05:25.960 --> 00:05:29.400\nuntil I recover and get back.\n\n108\n00:05:29.400 --> 00:05:36.760\nAnd my first thought was wow, pretty big shoes and wow, no playbook.\n\n109\n00:05:36.760 --> 00:05:40.600\nHe basically called from the hospital and said, don't mess this up.\n\n110\n00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:42.880\nAnd I said, okay, I'll try my best.\n\n111\n00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:47.000\nThe good part is that we had clear guiding principles as a company.\n\n112\n00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.000\nWe had great leadership team.\n\n113\n00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:53.280\nAnd six months later, he came back again, a call.\n\n114\n00:05:53.280 --> 00:05:55.400\nAnd he said, well, do it.\n\n115\n00:05:55.400 --> 00:05:57.240\nYou're doing a reasonable job.\n\n116\n00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:00.800\nKeep doing it and become the CEO.\n\n117\n00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:04.520\nMy first reaction was, no, no, no, no.\n\n118\n00:06:04.520 --> 00:06:06.440\nThis is not what I had planned for.\n\n119\n00:06:06.440 --> 00:06:12.380\nI plan to take a month off after kind of helping shepherd the company over this\n\n120\n00:06:12.380 --> 00:06:13.160\nperiod.\n\n121\n00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:18.040\nAnd I'm not really the person I never ever thought of becoming a CEO.\n\n122\n00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:22.450\nAnd he said, well, it's you or I'll hire someone else and you might not like\n\n123\n00:06:22.450 --> 00:06:23.320\nthat person.\n\n124\n00:06:23.320 --> 00:06:25.320\nWhat do you want to do?\n\n125\n00:06:25.320 --> 00:06:28.880\nYou know, Yominy, that's so interesting because so many women that I've talked\n\n126\n00:06:28.880 --> 00:06:30.400\nto become CEOs,\n\n127\n00:06:30.400 --> 00:06:31.800\nthey don't think they're ready.\n\n128\n00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:34.440\nThey should be doing something else or whatever.\n\n129\n00:06:34.440 --> 00:06:37.800\nAnd I love how he just said, hey, I can hire somebody else.\n\n130\n00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:38.800\nIt's up to you.\n\n131\n00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.560\nAnd when you're faced with that author, the answer was something else.\n\n132\n00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:43.560\nExactly.\n\n133\n00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:46.760\nI was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me think about this.\n\n134\n00:06:46.760 --> 00:06:51.000\nAnd in 24 hours, I got back to him and I said, well, I will do it.\n\n135\n00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.390\nBut I think I have big shoes to fill and I'll need your coaching, mentoring and\n\n136\n00:06:56.390 --> 00:06:57.280\nsupport.\n\n137\n00:06:57.280 --> 00:07:02.800\nAnd he has been a phenomenal coach mentor guide for me throughout this process.\n\n138\n00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:07.890\nAnd it's now been about two and a half years since I got that first call in\n\n139\n00:07:07.890 --> 00:07:08.680\nMarch.\n\n140\n00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:09.680\nIt's interesting.\n\n141\n00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:12.400\nI want to ask you about this and I want to get back into this particular\n\n142\n00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:13.000\nsituation.\n\n143\n00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.160\nBut you mentioned you were the chief customer officer.\n\n144\n00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.040\nYou know, that's a unique title in a lot of companies.\n\n145\n00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:24.200\nDo you think companies need to think more about what they call their leaders?\n\n146\n00:07:24.200 --> 00:07:29.280\n100% 100% and for me, words matter.\n\n147\n00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:35.920\nYou stand in commitment to every word you say and what you drive.\n\n148\n00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.520\nAnd so the chief customer officer conveys that customer is at the center.\n\n149\n00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:45.200\nNow you could call that chief business officer, chief commercial officer, chief\n\n150\n00:07:45.200 --> 00:07:46.320\noperating officer.\n\n151\n00:07:46.320 --> 00:07:48.200\nYou could call any of those things.\n\n152\n00:07:48.200 --> 00:07:55.020\nBut it signals that the job of that sea level leader is to put the customer at\n\n153\n00:07:55.020 --> 00:07:56.040\nthe center\n\n154\n00:07:56.040 --> 00:08:01.000\nand then make sure everything else works in order to serve that customer.\n\n155\n00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:05.000\nAnd 10 years ago, that title was not existent.\n\n156\n00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.500\nAnd I think the industry is embracing it for the right reasons, which is the\n\n157\n00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:10.200\nfocus on the\n\n158\n00:08:10.200 --> 00:08:11.200\ncustomer.\n\n159\n00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:14.120\nIt's probably the most important thing in terms of a business.\n\n160\n00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:18.040\nNow I want to get back to when Brian says, okay, you're the CEO.\n\n161\n00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:19.880\nYou got this transition to make.\n\n162\n00:08:19.880 --> 00:08:23.240\nYou know, you're basically interim says, don't mess it up.\n\n163\n00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:24.840\nWe got a great company here.\n\n164\n00:08:24.840 --> 00:08:29.910\nBut now you got to move from caretaker, you know, to, hey, you got to be the\n\n165\n00:08:29.910 --> 00:08:30.680\ndriver.\n\n166\n00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:32.840\nYou got to figure out the future where you're going.\n\n167\n00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:37.400\nHow does the leader manage that kind of transition?\n\n168\n00:08:37.400 --> 00:08:43.080\nIt's funny because again, this time he had like a one liner, which is be the\n\n169\n00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:43.920\ndriver of\n\n170\n00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:49.360\nthe bus was the, who is the conversation that we had.\n\n171\n00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:52.840\nAnd so I thought about that a lot.\n\n172\n00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:55.400\nWhat is being a driver actually mean?\n\n173\n00:08:55.400 --> 00:09:01.440\nAnd how does like one go from being a go to market leader to a company leader?\n\n174\n00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:06.040\nAnd it really starts with who are your constituents and who are your key\n\n175\n00:09:06.040 --> 00:09:07.320\nstakeholders?\n\n176\n00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:10.040\nOf course, all employees within the company.\n\n177\n00:09:10.040 --> 00:09:15.990\nOf course, all of the customers, partners, investors, board members and overall\n\n178\n00:09:15.990 --> 00:09:17.320\nstakeholders.\n\n179\n00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:23.420\nSo it really broadens who you're communicating, but it starts with the mindset\n\n180\n00:09:23.420 --> 00:09:24.160\nof how do\n\n181\n00:09:24.160 --> 00:09:28.320\nI learn what is important for every one of these stakeholders.\n\n182\n00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:32.780\nI think from my perspective, I started as an engineer, then became a sales\n\n183\n00:09:32.780 --> 00:09:33.560\nleader and\n\n184\n00:09:33.560 --> 00:09:35.560\nthen became a customer focused executive.\n\n185\n00:09:35.560 --> 00:09:38.560\nAnd I've always put the customer at the center.\n\n186\n00:09:38.560 --> 00:09:43.730\nNow I had more stakeholders and understanding the motivations, the key\n\n187\n00:09:43.730 --> 00:09:45.280\npriorities for each\n\n188\n00:09:45.280 --> 00:09:51.160\nof these stakeholders is where I started in terms of my journey as a CEO.\n\n189\n00:09:51.160 --> 00:09:54.160\nThat's always a great place to start.\n\n190\n00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:58.840\nBut you know, one of the things that as I think about that is you're taking\n\n191\n00:09:58.840 --> 00:09:59.520\nover for\n\n192\n00:09:59.520 --> 00:10:00.600\na founder.\n\n193\n00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:05.730\nHe's been driving that bus yet he wants you to drive the bus and you got to\n\n194\n00:10:05.730 --> 00:10:06.680\ncreate a new\n\n195\n00:10:06.680 --> 00:10:07.840\nagenda.\n\n196\n00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:09.240\nHow do you really do that?\n\n197\n00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:13.870\nI mean, how do you really make big changes to something that's really big while\n\n198\n00:10:13.870 --> 00:10:14.240\nthat\n\n199\n00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:19.520\nfounders around without maybe hurting his or her feelings or causing a ripple?\n\n200\n00:10:19.520 --> 00:10:24.560\nI mean, first of all, you start with imposter syndrome.\n\n201\n00:10:24.560 --> 00:10:28.970\nNot a lot of CEOs actually talk about this, not a lot of like C-suite leaders\n\n202\n00:10:28.970 --> 00:10:29.680\ntalk about\n\n203\n00:10:29.680 --> 00:10:35.630\nthis, but you know, when he said, hey, take this on, the first thing was, am I\n\n204\n00:10:35.630 --> 00:10:36.320\nthe right\n\n205\n00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:37.560\nperson for this?\n\n206\n00:10:37.560 --> 00:10:39.520\nAnd how do I actually set it?\n\n207\n00:10:39.520 --> 00:10:43.160\nThen the next question is, well, he's done a phenomenal job.\n\n208\n00:10:43.160 --> 00:10:48.840\nYou know, do I step into his shoes or do I create different shoes for myself?\n\n209\n00:10:48.840 --> 00:10:55.660\nAnd I think from my perspective, I started with saying, what is the future that\n\n210\n00:10:55.660 --> 00:10:56.160\nI want\n\n211\n00:10:56.160 --> 00:10:59.000\nto help create as a leader?\n\n212\n00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:05.260\nOne of the lessons that I have learned as a leader is not to focus on the past\n\n213\n00:11:05.260 --> 00:11:05.560\nand where\n\n214\n00:11:05.560 --> 00:11:11.480\nyou're coming from, but really focus on the future and work backwards.\n\n215\n00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:15.640\nI had to make that choice, David, because I could be sitting there and I could\n\n216\n00:11:15.640 --> 00:11:16.320\nbe thinking\n\n217\n00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.680\nabout what shoes am I filling?\n\n218\n00:11:18.680 --> 00:11:22.560\nHow am I going to get this role, you know, to be where it needs to be?\n\n219\n00:11:22.560 --> 00:11:27.560\nAnd do I have the capability, the credibility to be able to lead this company?\n\n220\n00:11:27.560 --> 00:11:29.280\nBut that's not where I started.\n\n221\n00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:30.360\nI made a choice.\n\n222\n00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:31.640\nI made a choice.\n\n223\n00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:38.710\nAnd I thought about 2030 and where HubSpot can be as a company and what would\n\n224\n00:11:38.710 --> 00:11:39.880\nbe my role\n\n225\n00:11:39.880 --> 00:11:44.980\nin getting the organization to where it needed to be in the next decade and\n\n226\n00:11:44.980 --> 00:11:45.720\nwhat would a\n\n227\n00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:51.920\ngreat leader do and how could I be the part of that journey?\n\n228\n00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:55.480\nSo I started in the future and then the answer became clear.\n\n229\n00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:59.700\nI wanted to be the best CEO that the company and the employees and the\n\n230\n00:11:59.700 --> 00:12:01.280\ncustomers deserved.\n\n231\n00:12:01.280 --> 00:12:04.560\nNot where I was coming from, but where it needed to be in the future.\n\n232\n00:12:04.560 --> 00:12:10.440\nAnd so working backwards from the future really helped create a vision for\n\n233\n00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:11.560\nwhere I can go\n\n234\n00:12:11.560 --> 00:12:13.000\nwith this company.\n\n235\n00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.250\nDid you ever have to dismantle something that everybody thought was really good\n\n236\n00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:19.360\nbefore that,\n\n237\n00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:22.640\nyou know, could have been perceived to be roughly in a feather?\n\n238\n00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:24.400\nAnd if so, how'd you do it?\n\n239\n00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:25.480\nThat's a fantastic question.\n\n240\n00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:31.720\nI think we've made a lot of changes over the last couple of years, but nothing\n\n241\n00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:32.920\ndramatic.\n\n242\n00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:38.900\nAnd I always say that a CEO's role is much easier when it's a turnaround role\n\n243\n00:12:38.900 --> 00:12:39.680\nbecause\n\n244\n00:12:39.680 --> 00:12:44.230\nyou can come in and you know you're at the bottom and then you start slashing,\n\n245\n00:12:44.230 --> 00:12:45.200\nburning,\n\n246\n00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:46.440\nmaking changes.\n\n247\n00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:48.160\nHubSpot is not that.\n\n248\n00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:53.760\nWe are going from good to great, which means you really need to be curious.\n\n249\n00:12:53.760 --> 00:12:55.120\nYou need to be open.\n\n250\n00:12:55.120 --> 00:13:01.020\nYou need to deeply, keenly listen to know what changes are necessary in order\n\n251\n00:13:01.020 --> 00:13:01.960\nto scale the\n\n252\n00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:09.000\ncompany versus making changes quickly for the sake of you being a leader there.\n\n253\n00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:13.240\nSo part of my process was going on a 90-day listening tour.\n\n254\n00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:17.040\nI listened to our employees all across the board.\n\n255\n00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:18.520\nI listened to investors.\n\n256\n00:13:18.520 --> 00:13:20.600\nI listened to our board members.\n\n257\n00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.480\nAnd then I created a plan and part of that evolved naturally.\n\n258\n00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:28.680\nThe changes that we needed to do was investments in certain areas within the\n\n259\n00:13:28.680 --> 00:13:29.640\norganization to\n\n260\n00:13:29.640 --> 00:13:35.240\nbring a leadership team together much more closely and be very clear that we're\n\n261\n00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:35.880\nbuilding\n\n262\n00:13:35.880 --> 00:13:37.520\na company for the future.\n\n263\n00:13:37.520 --> 00:13:42.760\nSo more of those changes versus a drastic, dramatic change that we needed to\n\n264\n00:13:42.760 --> 00:13:43.440\nmake day\n\n265\n00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:48.040\none.\n\n266\n00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:52.210\nHave you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each\n\n267\n00:13:52.210 --> 00:13:52.720\nweek?\n\n268\n00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:56.790\nOr have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions\n\n269\n00:13:56.790 --> 00:13:57.480\nthat he asks\n\n270\n00:13:57.480 --> 00:13:58.480\nhis guests?\n\n271\n00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:01.920\nWell, I do and I know a lot of you do too.\n\n272\n00:14:01.920 --> 00:14:05.390\nMy name is Koolah Callahan and together with David, I host the three more\n\n273\n00:14:05.390 --> 00:14:06.000\nquestions\n\n274\n00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.760\npodcasts that airs every Monday.\n\n275\n00:14:08.760 --> 00:14:12.770\nThese episodes are just about 15 minutes and in them, I asked David three\n\n276\n00:14:12.770 --> 00:14:13.400\nquestions\n\n277\n00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:18.320\nthat dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests.\n\n278\n00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:21.740\nDavid shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading young\n\n279\n00:14:21.740 --> 00:14:22.640\nbrands and all\n\n280\n00:14:22.640 --> 00:14:25.800\nof his answers are super practical and inspiring.\n\n281\n00:14:25.800 --> 00:14:28.840\nLike this great insight, David shared in one of our most recent three more\n\n282\n00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:29.240\nquestions\n\n283\n00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:30.800\nepisodes.\n\n284\n00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:35.910\nThere are going to be many times when you don't necessarily agree with your\n\n285\n00:14:35.910 --> 00:14:36.280\nboss.\n\n286\n00:14:36.280 --> 00:14:40.640\nAnd I think the first thing you need to do is let your boss know that you\n\n287\n00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:41.680\nunderstand where\n\n288\n00:14:41.680 --> 00:14:47.360\nthey're coming from, that you've heard them and you know what they want to do.\n\n289\n00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:54.620\nThen what I think you need to do is to provide your perspectives and your point\n\n290\n00:14:54.620 --> 00:14:55.640\nof view as\n\n291\n00:14:55.640 --> 00:14:57.840\nrespectful ways you can.\n\n292\n00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:02.990\nAnd I think that's a way how you can really have a good discussion on what the\n\n293\n00:15:02.990 --> 00:15:03.920\nactual best\n\n294\n00:15:03.920 --> 00:15:06.440\nnext step ought to be.\n\n295\n00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:10.470\nGet the three more questions podcasts and your feed each Monday and dive even\n\n296\n00:15:10.470 --> 00:15:11.280\ndeeper into\n\n297\n00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:13.120\nthe episodes you know and love.\n\n298\n00:15:13.120 --> 00:15:24.360\nJust subscribe to How Leaders Lead wherever you get your podcasts.\n\n299\n00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:27.440\nI want to get back into how you're leading HubSpot.\n\n300\n00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:30.840\nBut first, I want to take you back.\n\n301\n00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:35.030\nTell us a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are\n\n302\n00:15:35.030 --> 00:15:35.680\ntoday.\n\n303\n00:15:35.680 --> 00:15:36.680\nI love this.\n\n304\n00:15:36.680 --> 00:15:38.480\nSo I grew up in India.\n\n305\n00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:44.740\nWhen I grew up in a super small town, my mom was a homemaker and my dad was a\n\n306\n00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:45.920\nmechanical\n\n307\n00:15:45.920 --> 00:15:49.040\nengineer who had a small business.\n\n308\n00:15:49.040 --> 00:15:54.930\nThe town did not have a high school that went up to 12th grade in the English\n\n309\n00:15:54.930 --> 00:15:55.880\nmedium.\n\n310\n00:15:55.880 --> 00:15:58.720\nIt had it in the local language but not in English medium.\n\n311\n00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:05.560\nSo part of the conversations at dinner tables was what am I going to do?\n\n312\n00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:08.120\nWhere am I going to finish high school?\n\n313\n00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:14.020\nAnd it was interesting one of those days my mom gave me an article about a\n\n314\n00:16:14.020 --> 00:16:14.840\nwoman who\n\n315\n00:16:14.840 --> 00:16:18.040\nwas attempting to climb Mount Everest.\n\n316\n00:16:18.040 --> 00:16:20.120\nAnd I said, \"Well, I want to do that.\"\n\n317\n00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:23.380\nAnd we were literally having this conversation of how could I complete my high\n\n318\n00:16:23.380 --> 00:16:24.200\nschool degree.\n\n319\n00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:26.800\nAnd at the same time I was like, \"I want to climb the Mount Everest.\"\n\n320\n00:16:26.800 --> 00:16:28.480\nMy mom was like, \"Yeah, you can do it.\"\n\n321\n00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:31.800\nAnd then the next week I'd come and say, \"I want to become a lawyer.\"\n\n322\n00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:33.760\nAnd she'd be like, \"Yeah, you can do it.\"\n\n323\n00:16:33.760 --> 00:16:37.790\nAnd literally I had so many different ideas of what I wanted to do living in\n\n324\n00:16:37.790 --> 00:16:38.500\nthis super\n\n325\n00:16:38.500 --> 00:16:43.780\nsmall town that didn't even have a high school and my parents encouraged me.\n\n326\n00:16:43.780 --> 00:16:48.740\nEvery step of the way they believed in me as a human being, not as a woman\n\n327\n00:16:48.740 --> 00:16:49.680\ngrowing up\n\n328\n00:16:49.680 --> 00:16:54.720\nin the 80s in rural India but as a person with potential.\n\n329\n00:16:54.720 --> 00:17:01.410\nAnd to me that just a power of someone believing in my ability when I didn't\n\n330\n00:17:01.410 --> 00:17:02.240\nhave any at\n\n331\n00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:06.730\nthat time certainly didn't have rock climbing or mountain climbing abilities\n\n332\n00:17:06.730 --> 00:17:07.340\nbut someone\n\n333\n00:17:07.340 --> 00:17:08.400\nbelieved in me.\n\n334\n00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:15.520\nAnd I think that has propelled me over so many ups, downs, failures, successes.\n\n335\n00:17:15.520 --> 00:17:17.680\nI just believe in myself.\n\n336\n00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:24.580\nI just have a level of perseverance and the ability to dust it off and start\n\n337\n00:17:24.580 --> 00:17:25.960\nback again.\n\n338\n00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:31.980\nAnd probably those dinner table conversations had a lot to do with the grit\n\n339\n00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:34.040\nthat I now have.\n\n340\n00:17:34.040 --> 00:17:39.360\nAs I understand it, your parents might have liked you to go on be a doctor but\n\n341\n00:17:39.360 --> 00:17:40.040\nyou went\n\n342\n00:17:40.040 --> 00:17:44.770\non to be an engineer and you've been, I described, I don't know if you really\n\n343\n00:17:44.770 --> 00:17:45.640\nlike hearing this\n\n344\n00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:52.360\nso much but you've been described as someone who can be a bit defiant.\n\n345\n00:17:52.360 --> 00:17:57.560\nTell me a story of how that trait has shown up in the way how you lead.\n\n346\n00:17:57.560 --> 00:17:58.720\nOh absolutely.\n\n347\n00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:00.960\nYou have to be defiant and you're absolutely right.\n\n348\n00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:05.040\nMy parents, you know, said that I could do anything but really secretly wished\n\n349\n00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:05.560\nI became\n\n350\n00:18:05.560 --> 00:18:08.080\na doctor just like my elder sister.\n\n351\n00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:11.720\nAnd I chose not even go to the, take the exam.\n\n352\n00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:13.200\nThat was how defiant I was.\n\n353\n00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:16.690\nI was like, well, I'm not going to take the exam which means I'll never have\n\n354\n00:18:16.690 --> 00:18:17.600\nany probability\n\n355\n00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:19.280\nof becoming a doctor.\n\n356\n00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:25.070\nThat's how defiant I was and you got to be, you know, somewhat defiant that way\n\n357\n00:18:25.070 --> 00:18:25.240\n.\n\n358\n00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:29.480\nWhen later on I'll tell you a couple of different places that had happened.\n\n359\n00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:36.280\nI graduated from business school at Berkeley and the first job that I got was\n\n360\n00:18:36.280 --> 00:18:37.480\naccidental\n\n361\n00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:39.760\nin the sales organization.\n\n362\n00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:43.160\nWhen I joined the sales organization, I'd been an engineer for a few years then\n\n363\n00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:43.440\nwent\n\n364\n00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:48.580\ninto business school and got into sales and people looked at me and they looked\n\n365\n00:18:48.580 --> 00:18:49.000\nat how\n\n366\n00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:52.320\nI was approaching sales and said, wow, she's just not going to make it.\n\n367\n00:18:52.320 --> 00:18:55.160\nMaybe a first year at the end of the year, we're going to give her a\n\n368\n00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:56.280\nperformance plan.\n\n369\n00:18:56.280 --> 00:19:00.830\nShe's probably going to leave because I approached, you know, sales like an\n\n370\n00:19:00.830 --> 00:19:02.080\nengineer.\n\n371\n00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:06.590\nAnd then I looked at people around me, they approached sales like the art of\n\n372\n00:19:06.590 --> 00:19:07.240\nsales.\n\n373\n00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:10.800\nAnd I was like, no, I'm going to do the science of sales.\n\n374\n00:19:10.800 --> 00:19:16.700\nAnd part of the defiance came from knowing that I was strong analytically and I\n\n375\n00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:17.840\nwas strong\n\n376\n00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:21.160\nin getting customers to talk to me about their business.\n\n377\n00:19:21.160 --> 00:19:24.000\nI was curious and I was a learner.\n\n378\n00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.440\nAnd all of that came from my engineering background.\n\n379\n00:19:26.440 --> 00:19:28.560\nAnd so I said, I'm going to lean in on that.\n\n380\n00:19:28.560 --> 00:19:29.760\nI don't play golf.\n\n381\n00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:34.360\nI certainly don't know how to banter about, you know, Sunday night football.\n\n382\n00:19:34.360 --> 00:19:38.880\nBut I know how to analyze a 10k and I was really defiant.\n\n383\n00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:43.290\nAnd at the end of the first year, I crushed, you know, my goals for the year\n\n384\n00:19:43.290 --> 00:19:44.000\nand gained\n\n385\n00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.480\na level of confidence in how I can present myself in front of customers.\n\n386\n00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:54.680\nAnd yeah, almost every time someone says, you can't do it, I say, well, I will.\n\n387\n00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:58.000\nAnd you grew rapidly and then you've moved into leadership roles.\n\n388\n00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:02.400\nAnd you started out first by being this rock star salesperson, you know, that\n\n389\n00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:03.200\nwas crushing\n\n390\n00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:04.480\nyour numbers.\n\n391\n00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:08.700\nAnd then all of a sudden now you get thrust in, I think it's about eight years\n\n392\n00:20:08.700 --> 00:20:09.320\nlater,\n\n393\n00:20:09.320 --> 00:20:12.360\nyou know, into this role of being a leader.\n\n394\n00:20:12.360 --> 00:20:15.440\nHow did you evolve and handle that transition?\n\n395\n00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:20.000\nBecause people have to move from individual contributor to leader.\n\n396\n00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.320\nIt was really rough.\n\n397\n00:20:21.320 --> 00:20:26.360\nAnd by the way, I don't think my role in value sales was like that easy.\n\n398\n00:20:26.360 --> 00:20:28.640\nI had to prove every step of the way.\n\n399\n00:20:28.640 --> 00:20:34.510\nBut when I first got into management, I did what every individual contributor\n\n400\n00:20:34.510 --> 00:20:35.080\nthat moves\n\n401\n00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:40.760\ninto a manager role does, which is like my way or the highway.\n\n402\n00:20:40.760 --> 00:20:44.960\nIt is, I know exactly how I know how to do this.\n\n403\n00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:46.440\nI've done it for so many years.\n\n404\n00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:50.280\nSo here is a playbook and giving answers.\n\n405\n00:20:50.280 --> 00:20:56.270\nOne of the first lessons that I learned in those early days is that people don\n\n406\n00:20:56.270 --> 00:20:56.920\n't want\n\n407\n00:20:56.920 --> 00:20:58.240\nanswers.\n\n408\n00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.280\nThey want questions.\n\n409\n00:21:00.280 --> 00:21:02.440\nPeople want to get to answers themselves.\n\n410\n00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:07.790\nAnd one of the first skills that I had to learn as a manager was asking better\n\n411\n00:21:07.790 --> 00:21:08.960\nquestions,\n\n412\n00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:13.500\nmore thoughtful questions that would lead someone to get to their answers\n\n413\n00:21:13.500 --> 00:21:14.720\nthemselves.\n\n414\n00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:19.950\nAnd that really meant that I had to go from being someone with a sprinter\n\n415\n00:21:19.950 --> 00:21:20.960\nmindset, go\n\n416\n00:21:20.960 --> 00:21:26.760\nfast to being a cross-country coach, coaching them to last, to pace, to get to\n\n417\n00:21:26.760 --> 00:21:27.600\nwhere they\n\n418\n00:21:27.600 --> 00:21:31.400\nneeded to, and to feel a sense of success themselves.\n\n419\n00:21:31.400 --> 00:21:37.320\nI still recall one of the first performance reviews that I got as a manager was\n\n420\n00:21:37.320 --> 00:21:38.240\nbrutal.\n\n421\n00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:40.400\nI was thinking, I've done this role.\n\n422\n00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:41.920\nI know how to do this role.\n\n423\n00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:43.200\nHere's this amazing playbook.\n\n424\n00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:46.690\nSo all I have to do is give this playbook to others and they're all going to be\n\n425\n00:21:46.690 --> 00:21:47.800\nsuccessful.\n\n426\n00:21:47.800 --> 00:21:51.040\nAnd it absolutely did not work.\n\n427\n00:21:51.040 --> 00:21:56.510\nAnd I had to completely reinvent and have a playbook for asking more questions\n\n428\n00:21:56.510 --> 00:21:57.040\nand rolling\n\n429\n00:21:57.040 --> 00:22:03.760\npeople, helping them see their potential and ultimately slowing down in order\n\n430\n00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:05.000\nfor the team\n\n431\n00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:06.000\nto go far.\n\n432\n00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:09.240\nThose huge, huge lessons there.\n\n433\n00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:13.120\nYou say that something that you've learned throughout your career is to be a T\n\n434\n00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:14.120\nzone executive.\n\n435\n00:22:14.120 --> 00:22:16.480\nI've never heard that one before.\n\n436\n00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:17.840\nExplain what you mean by that.\n\n437\n00:22:17.840 --> 00:22:18.920\nOh, yeah.\n\n438\n00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:20.600\nThis is one of my favorite lessons.\n\n439\n00:22:20.600 --> 00:22:27.000\nSo T zone, and the way I think about it is that you have functional leadership.\n\n440\n00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:30.870\nSo you can be an engineering leader, a sales leader, and you know your function\n\n441\n00:22:30.870 --> 00:22:31.280\nreally\n\n442\n00:22:31.280 --> 00:22:32.280\nwell.\n\n443\n00:22:32.280 --> 00:22:37.000\nThat is the I, you know, or the vertical.\n\n444\n00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:41.360\nThe T zone is your ability to connect across multiple functions.\n\n445\n00:22:41.360 --> 00:22:46.400\nThat is what gets you to break through from being a director level, VP level\n\n446\n00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:47.320\nposition into\n\n447\n00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:49.720\nthe C suite and beyond.\n\n448\n00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:52.840\nAnd I learned this the really hard way.\n\n449\n00:22:52.840 --> 00:22:56.180\nOne of the first things that I did as I was working with sales and marketing\n\n450\n00:22:56.180 --> 00:22:56.880\nwas try to\n\n451\n00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.160\nbring sales and marketing together.\n\n452\n00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:03.950\nAnd if you worked in high tech, you know, organizations, sales and marketing\n\n453\n00:23:03.950 --> 00:23:05.320\nare notorious for pointing\n\n454\n00:23:05.320 --> 00:23:06.600\nfingers at each other.\n\n455\n00:23:06.600 --> 00:23:08.080\nYou're not good enough.\n\n456\n00:23:08.080 --> 00:23:09.080\nYou're just not good enough.\n\n457\n00:23:09.080 --> 00:23:10.240\nYou didn't give me the right leads.\n\n458\n00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:14.570\nNo, you didn't follow this through how many sales and marketing organizations\n\n459\n00:23:14.570 --> 00:23:15.040\nsit in the\n\n460\n00:23:15.040 --> 00:23:16.040\nsame place.\n\n461\n00:23:16.040 --> 00:23:21.350\nSo one of my jobs was to bring sales and marketing together as a strategy\n\n462\n00:23:21.350 --> 00:23:22.200\nleader.\n\n463\n00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:25.320\nAnd the way I did it is connected the dots across both of these teams.\n\n464\n00:23:25.320 --> 00:23:27.360\nAnd I said, what is your focus?\n\n465\n00:23:27.360 --> 00:23:29.000\nWhat do you care really?\n\n466\n00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:33.880\nYou all care about winning customers, acquiring customers and making them\n\n467\n00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:34.920\nsuccessful.\n\n468\n00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:39.630\nSo let's start with what is common and let's connect the dots across all of\n\n469\n00:23:39.630 --> 00:23:39.920\nthis.\n\n470\n00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:44.760\nAnd turns out it was exceptionally important that dot connecting across\n\n471\n00:23:44.760 --> 00:23:45.840\nfunctions and the\n\n472\n00:23:45.840 --> 00:23:50.020\nrelationships across marketing and sales at the time that I was working in the\n\n473\n00:23:50.020 --> 00:23:50.880\norganization\n\n474\n00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:52.280\nimproved quite a bit.\n\n475\n00:23:52.280 --> 00:23:56.680\nAnd to the point where people started trusting me, then I took it to product\n\n476\n00:23:56.680 --> 00:23:57.680\nand engineering\n\n477\n00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:01.280\nand I said, this is what we're trying to do in the go-to-market side.\n\n478\n00:24:01.280 --> 00:24:03.040\nAnd here's what you can do to help us.\n\n479\n00:24:03.040 --> 00:24:05.080\nAnd here's what we can do to help you.\n\n480\n00:24:05.080 --> 00:24:10.260\nAnd so as I grew in my career, I stopped being a functional leader and started\n\n481\n00:24:10.260 --> 00:24:11.040\nbeing much\n\n482\n00:24:11.040 --> 00:24:14.640\nmore of a T zone leader connecting the dots.\n\n483\n00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:20.680\nThat's when I started seeing breakthroughs in terms of my career and progress.\n\n484\n00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:23.960\nHave you really thought about what makes you tick as a leader?\n\n485\n00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:28.540\nWhat would you describe as your guiding principles of leadership and how did\n\n486\n00:24:28.540 --> 00:24:29.520\nyou come up with\n\n487\n00:24:29.520 --> 00:24:30.520\nthem?\n\n488\n00:24:30.520 --> 00:24:37.400\nBe authentic, operate with high integrity and be customer obsessed.\n\n489\n00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:41.520\nI would say those are probably foundational for me.\n\n490\n00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:47.970\nAnd I'll say on authenticity, I joined tech when there were not that many women\n\n491\n00:24:47.970 --> 00:24:48.880\nand there\n\n492\n00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:53.770\nwere certainly not that many Asian women in the go-to-market parts of the\n\n493\n00:24:53.770 --> 00:24:55.360\norganization.\n\n494\n00:24:55.360 --> 00:25:00.820\nAnd for a number of years as I was growing up in tech, I tried to be someone\n\n495\n00:25:00.820 --> 00:25:01.560\nelse.\n\n496\n00:25:01.560 --> 00:25:06.390\nI tried to be the person who played amazing golf, but I really was terrible at\n\n497\n00:25:06.390 --> 00:25:07.000\ngolf.\n\n498\n00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.500\nI tried to be the person that had this amazing banter in the first five minutes\n\n499\n00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:12.640\nof a conversation.\n\n500\n00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:13.640\nI was an introvert.\n\n501\n00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:19.240\nI didn't quite do that well and I started embracing who I was.\n\n502\n00:25:19.240 --> 00:25:21.000\nI'm a first principles thinker.\n\n503\n00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:22.480\nI'm problem solver.\n\n504\n00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:28.080\nI really focus on customers and I want the company to win.\n\n505\n00:25:28.080 --> 00:25:32.150\nAnd when I started being just authentic and embracing what I was good at, just\n\n506\n00:25:32.150 --> 00:25:32.680\ncalling\n\n507\n00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:37.500\nit as it is, I started seeing more people resonate with my style and resonate\n\n508\n00:25:37.500 --> 00:25:38.000\nwith my\n\n509\n00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:39.000\nleadership.\n\n510\n00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:44.630\nSo authenticity has been just so important in terms of my journey of finding my\n\n511\n00:25:44.630 --> 00:25:45.960\nown voice.\n\n512\n00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:50.700\nWhen you grow up in India, most of the time, Indian women are asked to kind of\n\n513\n00:25:50.700 --> 00:25:51.440\nkeep their\n\n514\n00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:53.080\nopinions to themselves.\n\n515\n00:25:53.080 --> 00:25:58.920\nAnd part of being authentic and figuring out who I am is to be able to voice\n\n516\n00:25:58.920 --> 00:26:00.080\nout my opinions\n\n517\n00:26:00.080 --> 00:26:04.960\nin the most authentic manner, in the most high integrity manner.\n\n518\n00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:08.560\nAnd I've had to find that voice as I've grown as a leader.\n\n519\n00:26:08.560 --> 00:26:12.500\nAnd then the customer obsession, that just comes from being in the sales\n\n520\n00:26:12.500 --> 00:26:13.480\norganization,\n\n521\n00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:17.640\ntalking to customers and solving for customers and seeing how if you truly\n\n522\n00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:19.800\nwanted to be successful,\n\n523\n00:26:19.800 --> 00:26:25.020\nit had to come to making your customers champions and making them win in their\n\n524\n00:26:25.020 --> 00:26:25.840\ncareer.\n\n525\n00:26:25.840 --> 00:26:31.400\nSo I'd say those three are probably my North stars as a leader.\n\n526\n00:26:31.400 --> 00:26:36.960\nYou know, a lot of leaders are told, don't let your people ever see you sweat.\n\n527\n00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:39.480\nYou know, what's your take on that?\n\n528\n00:26:39.480 --> 00:26:44.360\nYou know, I've heard that advice many times in terms of my early career.\n\n529\n00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:46.040\nI said, how do I be a leader?\n\n530\n00:26:46.040 --> 00:26:49.480\nWell, do not show any vulnerability.\n\n531\n00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:50.960\nBe strong.\n\n532\n00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.880\nNever show your weakness and keep working hard.\n\n533\n00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.040\nAnd I think it's complete BS.\n\n534\n00:26:57.040 --> 00:27:00.640\nI don't think that advice is good at all.\n\n535\n00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:05.760\nAnd in fact, we have to not just embrace our authenticity, but also be\n\n536\n00:27:05.760 --> 00:27:07.000\nvulnerable.\n\n537\n00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:09.200\nWe got to tell our people, here's where I'm learning.\n\n538\n00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:10.840\nHere's what I don't know.\n\n539\n00:27:10.840 --> 00:27:12.680\nHere's where I need your help.\n\n540\n00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:14.560\nHere's where I failed in the past.\n\n541\n00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:19.670\nAnd the more you do that, the more you open up for others going through that\n\n542\n00:27:19.670 --> 00:27:20.560\nbig journey\n\n543\n00:27:20.560 --> 00:27:21.880\nthemselves.\n\n544\n00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:27.630\nAnd for me, one of the biggest things that I've enjoyed is learning and growing\n\n545\n00:27:27.630 --> 00:27:28.480\nas a human\n\n546\n00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:29.480\nbeing.\n\n547\n00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:32.720\nI'm a professional learning, growing and being curious.\n\n548\n00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:38.960\nAnd curiosity can only come from a place of comfort with saying, I don't know\n\n549\n00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:39.720\nthis.\n\n550\n00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:40.720\nI don't know.\n\n551\n00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:44.890\nAnd I don't have the answer and being deeply vulnerable about what you don't\n\n552\n00:27:44.890 --> 00:27:45.440\nknow.\n\n553\n00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:51.350\nAnd so I've learned and I've grown as a person, as a professional, as a leader\n\n554\n00:27:51.350 --> 00:27:52.280\nbecause of\n\n555\n00:27:52.280 --> 00:27:55.160\nthe vulnerable moments that I've had in front of my team.\n\n556\n00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:58.120\nAnd I think you would agree with that, David, right?\n\n557\n00:27:58.120 --> 00:27:59.120\nAbsolutely.\n\n558\n00:27:59.120 --> 00:28:03.080\nI think people want you to share what you're wrestling with.\n\n559\n00:28:03.080 --> 00:28:07.210\nMy leadership programs, the things that people always enjoyed here in the most\n\n560\n00:28:07.210 --> 00:28:07.960\nwere the times\n\n561\n00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:10.400\nI failed and the times where I really messed up.\n\n562\n00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:11.560\nPeople know why you're successful.\n\n563\n00:28:11.560 --> 00:28:17.360\nThey don't know all the struggles that you've had getting there along the way.\n\n564\n00:28:17.360 --> 00:28:21.040\nAnd I was a pretty much an open book like you, I would say.\n\n565\n00:28:21.040 --> 00:28:25.940\nYou spent time at SAP, then at Workday, and then Dropbox for you, were the\n\n566\n00:28:25.940 --> 00:28:26.880\nchief customer\n\n567\n00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:31.200\nofficer, and then three really good companies before you joined HubSpot.\n\n568\n00:28:31.200 --> 00:28:35.620\nAnd you know, really found this phenomenal opportunity that you're enjoying\n\n569\n00:28:35.620 --> 00:28:36.080\ndriving the\n\n570\n00:28:36.080 --> 00:28:37.600\nbus on.\n\n571\n00:28:37.600 --> 00:28:41.480\nHow did you know it was time to move on and join another team?\n\n572\n00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:44.040\nOh, that's a great question, David.\n\n573\n00:28:44.040 --> 00:28:46.240\nI don't think I had a plan.\n\n574\n00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:53.220\nAnd I don't think that there is one clear way to look at when do you need to\n\n575\n00:28:53.220 --> 00:28:54.680\ntransition.\n\n576\n00:28:54.680 --> 00:28:58.280\nAnd in fact, if you'd asked me early in my career, I just wanted to join a\n\n577\n00:28:58.280 --> 00:28:58.840\ncompany,\n\n578\n00:28:58.840 --> 00:29:02.680\nstay there forever and get through the ranks.\n\n579\n00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:10.760\nAnd I think I have focused a lot more on learning and growing and not on the\n\n580\n00:29:10.760 --> 00:29:11.400\ncompany\n\n581\n00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:17.200\nthat I work for or the role or the title that I have.\n\n582\n00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:20.200\nAnd that has governed how I have transitioned.\n\n583\n00:29:20.200 --> 00:29:21.720\nSo let me give you an example.\n\n584\n00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:26.560\nI did start my career in enterprise companies, SAP Workday being enterprise\n\n585\n00:29:26.560 --> 00:29:27.520\ncompanies.\n\n586\n00:29:27.520 --> 00:29:33.390\nAnd after about a decade in those companies, I felt like I knew the playbook\n\n587\n00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:34.240\nfor large\n\n588\n00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:37.480\ncustomers' sales really well.\n\n589\n00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:41.960\nAnd really wanted to figure out, you know, can I do this in a small, medium\n\n590\n00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:42.880\nbusiness?\n\n591\n00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:44.480\nIs the playbook the same?\n\n592\n00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:46.800\nTurns out the playbook is completely different.\n\n593\n00:29:46.800 --> 00:29:53.360\nAnd when Dropbox actually approached me, it was all about product-led growth,\n\n594\n00:29:53.360 --> 00:29:53.520\nwhich was\n\n595\n00:29:53.520 --> 00:29:56.240\na new thing that was happening in industry.\n\n596\n00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:59.400\nAnd it was all about small, medium businesses.\n\n597\n00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:03.280\nAnd I knew nothing about either of those.\n\n598\n00:30:03.280 --> 00:30:05.840\nAnd that's when I'm like, oh, this is phenomenal.\n\n599\n00:30:05.840 --> 00:30:09.200\nIf I know nothing, that's the place for me to be.\n\n600\n00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:14.870\nBecause that's where I will get growth and I will learn and I will be able to,\n\n601\n00:30:14.870 --> 00:30:15.760\nyou know,\n\n602\n00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:18.960\njust get better as a professional with my competency.\n\n603\n00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:24.990\nAnd so what I have actually held as my North Star is do things that help you\n\n604\n00:30:24.990 --> 00:30:26.320\nget breakthrough\n\n605\n00:30:26.320 --> 00:30:28.000\ngrowth in your career.\n\n606\n00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:32.390\nDon't follow anything else, but just follow the biggest opportunity for\n\n607\n00:30:32.390 --> 00:30:33.960\nlearning and growing.\n\n608\n00:30:33.960 --> 00:30:36.440\nAnd that's probably the advice I would say.\n\n609\n00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:41.320\nYou know when the time is right when you're not growing as much.\n\n610\n00:30:41.320 --> 00:30:46.120\nAnd you know some other places right when you feel like you don't know anything\n\n611\n00:30:46.120 --> 00:30:46.440\nand you're\n\n612\n00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:51.120\ngoing to have to reinvent yourself to be successful there.\n\n613\n00:30:51.120 --> 00:30:54.360\nYou've mentioned how obsessed you are with customers and you definitely are.\n\n614\n00:30:54.360 --> 00:30:59.560\nAnd you've carried this love for your customer and into your role as CEO.\n\n615\n00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:01.800\nTell us about SFTC.\n\n616\n00:31:01.800 --> 00:31:04.280\nI love it.\n\n617\n00:31:04.280 --> 00:31:11.920\nSFTC is our North Star at HubSpot and it stands for solve for the customer.\n\n618\n00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:13.800\nAnd it's not just a poster.\n\n619\n00:31:13.800 --> 00:31:17.640\nIt's not just what we talk about on day one of onboarding.\n\n620\n00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:23.530\nThis is how we run our company, guide decisions, empower every single employee\n\n621\n00:31:23.530 --> 00:31:24.640\nwithin the company\n\n622\n00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:26.680\nto make decisions for the customer.\n\n623\n00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:28.280\nAnd I'll give you an example.\n\n624\n00:31:28.280 --> 00:31:35.610\nI mentioned this early that when COVID hit in March 2020, we were looking at a\n\n625\n00:31:35.610 --> 00:31:36.400\nreally,\n\n626\n00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:42.430\nreally bad scenario of small, medium businesses going out of business and churn\n\n627\n00:31:42.430 --> 00:31:42.880\ning.\n\n628\n00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:47.880\nAnd the best way we wanted to respond is by solving for the customer.\n\n629\n00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:52.120\nI mean you think about solving for the customer at the beginning stages of the\n\n630\n00:31:52.120 --> 00:31:52.920\npandemic.\n\n631\n00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:58.200\nThe thing that stood really true for us is they're running out of cash.\n\n632\n00:31:58.200 --> 00:32:00.960\nThey will not be able to pay their employees.\n\n633\n00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:02.560\nAnd so we got to give them breaks.\n\n634\n00:32:02.560 --> 00:32:04.840\nAnd so that was the first principle.\n\n635\n00:32:04.840 --> 00:32:10.000\nSo we then designed every other pricing and policies associated with that.\n\n636\n00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:15.800\nAnd we said, well, we're going to give our solutions at a deep, deep discount.\n\n637\n00:32:15.800 --> 00:32:20.380\nWe're going to give them relief so that they can survive for six months, nine\n\n638\n00:32:20.380 --> 00:32:21.120\nmonths, a\n\n639\n00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:24.560\nyear till it takes for them to find their feet again.\n\n640\n00:32:24.560 --> 00:32:29.890\nThat was a policy that was purely from the first principle of solve for the\n\n641\n00:32:29.890 --> 00:32:30.960\ncustomer.\n\n642\n00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:34.030\nAnd when, you know, I still remember the board meeting where we went and\n\n643\n00:32:34.030 --> 00:32:35.560\npresented this whole\n\n644\n00:32:35.560 --> 00:32:39.650\nseries of decisions that we had made and the board asked this question of, how\n\n645\n00:32:39.650 --> 00:32:39.760\nare\n\n646\n00:32:39.760 --> 00:32:41.680\nyou going to recover all of this?\n\n647\n00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:43.840\nAnd we said, we don't know.\n\n648\n00:32:43.840 --> 00:32:45.480\nWe're doing the right thing for the customer.\n\n649\n00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:46.480\nWe don't know.\n\n650\n00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:48.360\nBut it'll be, it'll be okay.\n\n651\n00:32:48.360 --> 00:32:52.080\nThere was just moment of silence and then complete support for that.\n\n652\n00:32:52.080 --> 00:32:56.240\nAnd that is what solving for the customer looks like in terms of making\n\n653\n00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:57.200\ndecisions.\n\n654\n00:32:57.200 --> 00:33:02.680\nAnd it's really, I am just proud to be in an organization that takes solving\n\n655\n00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:03.200\nfor the\n\n656\n00:33:03.200 --> 00:33:04.800\ncustomer so seriously.\n\n657\n00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:11.320\nI'm so grateful to be at HubSpot for that very specific reason.\n\n658\n00:33:11.320 --> 00:33:17.160\nWe'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Yomini in just a moment.\n\n659\n00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:21.410\nYou know, as we're talking about the power of Focus today, I'm reminded of the\n\n660\n00:33:21.410 --> 00:33:21.840\ngreat\n\n661\n00:33:21.840 --> 00:33:26.400\nconversation I had with Jim Weber, CEO of Brooks Running.\n\n662\n00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:28.480\nThey built a billion dollar business.\n\n663\n00:33:28.480 --> 00:33:32.920\nThat's a billion dollars with a B based on one brave decision to focus on a\n\n664\n00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:33.840\nsingle type\n\n665\n00:33:33.840 --> 00:33:37.800\nof customer, the focused runner.\n\n666\n00:33:37.800 --> 00:33:42.400\nYou walk into any given category today and there's usually a market leader.\n\n667\n00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:46.030\nI think if you're not the lead brand, the platform in the category, you're a\n\n668\n00:33:46.030 --> 00:33:47.360\nniche brand, which\n\n669\n00:33:47.360 --> 00:33:51.680\nis I think the biggest choice every brand makes is who their customer focus is.\n\n670\n00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:55.030\nYou know, I'd rather win at something and dominate it, be known for it, get\n\n671\n00:33:55.030 --> 00:33:55.760\ncredit for\n\n672\n00:33:55.760 --> 00:34:01.160\nit, try to create a successful profitable business behind it, than be eight\n\n673\n00:34:01.160 --> 00:34:01.840\nthings to\n\n674\n00:34:01.840 --> 00:34:05.520\nlots of different people and be an also random category.\n\n675\n00:34:05.520 --> 00:34:09.040\nOne of our biggest strengths we think is our focus.\n\n676\n00:34:09.040 --> 00:34:13.170\nIt's a perfect case study in the power of Focus and you can hear the whole\n\n677\n00:34:13.170 --> 00:34:14.240\nstory in episode\n\n678\n00:34:14.240 --> 00:34:24.160\none oh six here on how leaders lead.\n\n679\n00:34:24.160 --> 00:34:28.360\nI heard that you have customers that many of the meetings that you hold, even\n\n680\n00:34:28.360 --> 00:34:29.040\nyour board\n\n681\n00:34:29.040 --> 00:34:30.720\nmeetings.\n\n682\n00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:34.160\nWhat's one of your more memorable experience with a customer at one of those\n\n683\n00:34:34.160 --> 00:34:34.840\nmeetings where\n\n684\n00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:36.880\nyou really uncovered something?\n\n685\n00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:41.530\nSo many. I would say that our board meetings start with customer panels, our\n\n686\n00:34:41.530 --> 00:34:42.360\ncompany monthly\n\n687\n00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:44.280\nmeetings start with customer panels.\n\n688\n00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:49.560\nThe first email of the week is customer sentiment scoring.\n\n689\n00:34:49.560 --> 00:34:53.520\nSo it is in built into our customers.\n\n690\n00:34:53.520 --> 00:34:59.920\nThe most memorable stories are when people, our champions are successful.\n\n691\n00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:05.450\nWe just had our annual customer conference about two weeks ago in early in\n\n692\n00:35:05.450 --> 00:35:06.800\nSeptember.\n\n693\n00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:12.020\nAnd I got to meet a few customers and their stories were not about how many\n\n694\n00:35:12.020 --> 00:35:13.080\ndollars they\n\n695\n00:35:13.080 --> 00:35:16.640\nwere able to save or how many leads they were able to generate.\n\n696\n00:35:16.640 --> 00:35:22.770\nThey told me stories of how they made a bet on HubSpot and because of that they\n\n697\n00:35:22.770 --> 00:35:24.360\ngot promoted.\n\n698\n00:35:24.360 --> 00:35:29.770\nBecause of that they bought their first home because of that they have been\n\n699\n00:35:29.770 --> 00:35:30.880\nable to really\n\n700\n00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:35.920\nprotect and drive through this macro environment.\n\n701\n00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:40.000\nThose are the stories that make a difference and that really brings us to what\n\n702\n00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:41.000\n's our mission.\n\n703\n00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:45.670\nWe all love having purpose in our jobs and our purpose as an organization is to\n\n704\n00:35:45.670 --> 00:35:46.080\nhelp\n\n705\n00:35:46.080 --> 00:35:49.080\nthese companies grow, help small, medium businesses grow.\n\n706\n00:35:49.080 --> 00:35:53.010\nSo every single customer conversation where we are helping someone grow both in\n\n707\n00:35:53.010 --> 00:35:53.360\ntheir\n\n708\n00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:58.640\ncareer or the company itself is deeply fulfilling.\n\n709\n00:35:58.640 --> 00:36:00.080\nYou're a big believer in culture.\n\n710\n00:36:00.080 --> 00:36:05.920\nI know this and I learned that you treat your culture as another product.\n\n711\n00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:09.640\nYou know, I've never heard of anybody really talk about it that way.\n\n712\n00:36:09.640 --> 00:36:11.560\nYou know, what you're thinking?\n\n713\n00:36:11.560 --> 00:36:12.560\nAbsolutely.\n\n714\n00:36:12.560 --> 00:36:16.080\nI love that you are asking this question because we take it seriously.\n\n715\n00:36:16.080 --> 00:36:20.940\nOur first product is of course, you know, the product that we create and that\n\n716\n00:36:20.940 --> 00:36:21.400\nis for\n\n717\n00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:26.720\nour customers and the product's mission is helping millions grow.\n\n718\n00:36:26.720 --> 00:36:33.580\nThe second product that we have is our culture and that is for our employees\n\n719\n00:36:33.580 --> 00:36:35.320\nand that mission\n\n720\n00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:38.080\nthere is to help HubSpotters grow.\n\n721\n00:36:38.080 --> 00:36:41.400\nSo we think about, you know, two products.\n\n722\n00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:43.720\nLet me tell you how we take it even further.\n\n723\n00:36:43.720 --> 00:36:48.080\nThe question that we have to ask ourselves is as much as we are evolving our\n\n724\n00:36:48.080 --> 00:36:49.880\nprimary product,\n\n725\n00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:54.170\ncan we evolve our culture and how do we make sure that we are evolving the\n\n726\n00:36:54.170 --> 00:36:55.000\nculture?\n\n727\n00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.240\nWe have something called the culture code, which is online.\n\n728\n00:36:58.240 --> 00:37:00.360\nYou can go and look for HubSpot's culture code.\n\n729\n00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:04.920\nIt has been downloaded something like 6 million times and it has evolved.\n\n730\n00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:10.460\nIt's now, I think, version 100 plus because we are constantly updating how we\n\n731\n00:37:10.460 --> 00:37:11.360\nthink about\n\n732\n00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:15.080\nthe culture and the concepts make a ton of sense.\n\n733\n00:37:15.080 --> 00:37:16.720\nWhat do you do in terms of your product?\n\n734\n00:37:16.720 --> 00:37:20.000\nYou say, what are the best features of your product?\n\n735\n00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.120\nAnd you figure out like what are the features that customers love the most.\n\n736\n00:37:24.120 --> 00:37:25.520\nSame thing with the culture.\n\n737\n00:37:25.520 --> 00:37:29.040\nWhat are the features of your culture that your employees love the most?\n\n738\n00:37:29.040 --> 00:37:30.360\nAnd keep doing that.\n\n739\n00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:35.000\nThen you ask yourself, what are the most requested features of your product?\n\n740\n00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:37.800\nAnd go build those things in.\n\n741\n00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:41.160\nAnd it's the same thing with employees and culture.\n\n742\n00:37:41.160 --> 00:37:45.360\nYou just ask, what are the most requested features of the culture?\n\n743\n00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:49.710\nAnd if you pay attention to it, it becomes really obvious how you need to\n\n744\n00:37:49.710 --> 00:37:50.480\nevolve the\n\n745\n00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:51.480\nculture.\n\n746\n00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:55.900\nIn the last couple of years, the most requested feature, David, has been\n\n747\n00:37:55.900 --> 00:37:56.960\nflexibility.\n\n748\n00:37:56.960 --> 00:38:00.000\nThat's why we leaned into hybrid.\n\n749\n00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.480\nOur employees can go into work, they can stay at home, or they can go into the\n\n750\n00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:04.960\noffice\n\n751\n00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:06.560\nlike a couple of days a week.\n\n752\n00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:10.990\nWe found that flexibility is one of the most requested features in the world\n\n753\n00:38:10.990 --> 00:38:11.760\nthat we live\n\n754\n00:38:11.760 --> 00:38:15.600\nin, and that's now evolved into part of the culture.\n\n755\n00:38:15.600 --> 00:38:19.670\nAnd we want to be not just a great company that people want to work at, we want\n\n756\n00:38:19.670 --> 00:38:19.920\nto be\n\n757\n00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:23.200\na great hybrid company that people want to work at.\n\n758\n00:38:23.200 --> 00:38:26.760\nThat's how we think about evolving culture like a product.\n\n759\n00:38:26.760 --> 00:38:27.760\nThat's great stuff.\n\n760\n00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:32.330\nAnd you know, as I understand it, you actually have a program where you allow\n\n761\n00:38:32.330 --> 00:38:33.040\nemployees\n\n762\n00:38:33.040 --> 00:38:36.200\nto work remotely in different countries for up to 90 days.\n\n763\n00:38:36.200 --> 00:38:37.200\nThat's right.\n\n764\n00:38:37.200 --> 00:38:38.200\nInternal mobility problem.\n\n765\n00:38:38.200 --> 00:38:40.280\nWhat was the genesis of that?\n\n766\n00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:42.760\nWhat was your thinking behind that?\n\n767\n00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:46.040\nExactly this, which is flexibility.\n\n768\n00:38:46.040 --> 00:38:52.720\nThe ability to be in a place, a country, maybe visiting family, visiting\n\n769\n00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:54.520\nfriends, being with\n\n770\n00:38:54.520 --> 00:38:59.920\na loved one that deserves care, needs care, that is where we started.\n\n771\n00:38:59.920 --> 00:39:04.810\nAnd again, as you evolve your culture, and if you're paying close attention to\n\n772\n00:39:04.810 --> 00:39:05.400\nwhat your\n\n773\n00:39:05.400 --> 00:39:11.100\nemployees are requesting on a quarterly basis or a half yearly basis, you know\n\n774\n00:39:11.100 --> 00:39:12.400\nwhat is needed\n\n775\n00:39:12.400 --> 00:39:18.190\nin order for us to support them in their jobs, but also as a person, as an\n\n776\n00:39:18.190 --> 00:39:19.440\nindividual that\n\n777\n00:39:19.440 --> 00:39:20.960\nis working as part of HubSpot.\n\n778\n00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:25.180\nAnd a lot of our programs, whether it is flexibility in terms of where you work\n\n779\n00:39:25.180 --> 00:39:26.600\n, flexibility in\n\n780\n00:39:26.600 --> 00:39:31.020\nterms of how you get your work done, that all comes from keenly listening to\n\n781\n00:39:31.020 --> 00:39:31.960\nour employees\n\n782\n00:39:31.960 --> 00:39:35.160\nas much as we listen to our customers.\n\n783\n00:39:35.160 --> 00:39:39.720\nSomething else I know that you're driving in your culture is focus.\n\n784\n00:39:39.720 --> 00:39:41.400\nHow are you doing that?\n\n785\n00:39:41.400 --> 00:39:42.760\nIt's a great question.\n\n786\n00:39:42.760 --> 00:39:45.600\nSo we talked about SFTC, which is solved for the customer.\n\n787\n00:39:45.600 --> 00:39:50.450\nWe have another leadership guiding principle, which is fortune favors the focus\n\n788\n00:39:50.450 --> 00:39:50.760\n.\n\n789\n00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:56.070\nYou know, if you look at the history and you look at a lot of companies that\n\n790\n00:39:56.070 --> 00:39:56.920\nhave been\n\n791\n00:39:56.920 --> 00:40:03.500\nmaybe at our scale and have grown, they don't do it by diversifying and peanut\n\n792\n00:40:03.500 --> 00:40:05.000\nbutter spreading\n\n793\n00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:06.840\nall of their resources.\n\n794\n00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:12.180\nThey get from good to great by being focused on a handful that you can truly\n\n795\n00:40:12.180 --> 00:40:12.840\nwin.\n\n796\n00:40:12.840 --> 00:40:15.950\nSo one of the things that we have done is to get the leadership team together\n\n797\n00:40:15.950 --> 00:40:16.640\nand say,\n\n798\n00:40:16.640 --> 00:40:21.170\nwhat are the guiding principles that we can really focus on to help this\n\n799\n00:40:21.170 --> 00:40:22.440\ncompany scale?\n\n800\n00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:25.960\nAnd they came up with fortune favors the focus.\n\n801\n00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:30.400\nAnd so in the last couple of years, we've said, what are the omissions?\n\n802\n00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:34.630\nAs much as we pay attention to the things that we will execute, we're paying\n\n803\n00:40:34.630 --> 00:40:35.360\nattention\n\n804\n00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:38.520\nto the things that we say no to.\n\n805\n00:40:38.520 --> 00:40:43.580\nYou have to be able to say no to good ideas in order for you to be able to\n\n806\n00:40:43.580 --> 00:40:44.800\nexecute great\n\n807\n00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:45.800\nideas.\n\n808\n00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:49.720\nAnd that comes with this principle of fortune favors the focus.\n\n809\n00:40:49.720 --> 00:40:52.840\nAs a CEO, how you spend your time is so critical.\n\n810\n00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:58.080\nDo you have anything that you do to really get you focused on the right things?\n\n811\n00:40:58.080 --> 00:40:59.720\nAbsolutely, David.\n\n812\n00:40:59.720 --> 00:41:00.720\nHere's a thought.\n\n813\n00:41:00.720 --> 00:41:07.480\nI've always thought of my calendar as the most strategic tool.\n\n814\n00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:09.880\nAnd a lot of people have different ideas about this.\n\n815\n00:41:09.880 --> 00:41:14.200\nI think my time and my calendar is the most strategic tool.\n\n816\n00:41:14.200 --> 00:41:18.280\nAnd I really prioritize what gets on that calendar.\n\n817\n00:41:18.280 --> 00:41:19.360\nAnd I measure it.\n\n818\n00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:21.040\nI'm pretty specific about it.\n\n819\n00:41:21.040 --> 00:41:23.480\nIf you look at my calendar, it is color coded.\n\n820\n00:41:23.480 --> 00:41:29.110\nIt has got every possible heuristic built in so I can measure where I spend\n\n821\n00:41:29.110 --> 00:41:29.480\ntime.\n\n822\n00:41:29.480 --> 00:41:34.310\nAnd it's very clear I need to spend time with our leadership team so that they\n\n823\n00:41:34.310 --> 00:41:34.680\nwork\n\n824\n00:41:34.680 --> 00:41:37.800\nas a team and they're making all the decisions in the right way.\n\n825\n00:41:37.800 --> 00:41:39.560\nI need to spend time with our employees.\n\n826\n00:41:39.560 --> 00:41:44.840\nSo I do round tables with frontline employees twice a month and connect with\n\n827\n00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:45.920\nacross levels\n\n828\n00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:47.320\nwithin the organization.\n\n829\n00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:50.360\nI need to spend time with partners, with customers.\n\n830\n00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:52.480\nAnd that is prioritizing the calendar.\n\n831\n00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:58.510\nAnd I need to spend time on things that others cannot do, which is if someone\n\n832\n00:41:58.510 --> 00:41:59.080\nelse in my\n\n833\n00:41:59.080 --> 00:42:01.440\nteam can do it, they should do it.\n\n834\n00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:05.720\nIf some others in the team cannot do it and it requires my time and energy,\n\n835\n00:42:05.720 --> 00:42:06.040\nthen I want\n\n836\n00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:07.960\nto spend time only on those.\n\n837\n00:42:07.960 --> 00:42:11.080\nAnd I spend a lot of time on deep work and learning.\n\n838\n00:42:11.080 --> 00:42:16.970\nSo a good 30% of my time on the calendar is actually for deep thinking and\n\n839\n00:42:16.970 --> 00:42:18.000\nreading.\n\n840\n00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:21.880\nAnd I preserve that as much as I preserve the time for meetings.\n\n841\n00:42:21.880 --> 00:42:27.500\nAnd so I think of like my time is really important and it needs to be part of a\n\n842\n00:42:27.500 --> 00:42:28.520\nstrategic way\n\n843\n00:42:28.520 --> 00:42:33.520\nin which I prioritize on the right set of conversations every single week.\n\n844\n00:42:33.520 --> 00:42:36.760\nYou know, this has been so much fun and I want to have some more with my\n\n845\n00:42:36.760 --> 00:42:37.760\nlightning round\n\n846\n00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:38.760\nof questions.\n\n847\n00:42:38.760 --> 00:42:39.760\nAre you ready for this?\n\n848\n00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:41.880\nLet's go.\n\n849\n00:42:41.880 --> 00:42:45.960\nWhat's one word others would use to best describe you?\n\n850\n00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:47.800\nAuthentic.\n\n851\n00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:51.120\nWhat would you say is the one word that best describes you?\n\n852\n00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:52.520\nHigh integrity.\n\n853\n00:42:52.520 --> 00:42:55.200\nWho would play you in a movie?\n\n854\n00:42:55.200 --> 00:42:56.840\nSalma Hayek.\n\n855\n00:42:56.840 --> 00:43:01.280\nIf you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be?\n\n856\n00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:04.040\nPresident Barack Obama.\n\n857\n00:43:04.040 --> 00:43:06.440\nWhat's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n858\n00:43:06.440 --> 00:43:08.240\nNot being on time.\n\n859\n00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:09.880\nI know you're a big reader.\n\n860\n00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:13.240\nWhat's a book every leader should read?\n\n861\n00:43:13.240 --> 00:43:16.840\nLeaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.\n\n862\n00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:22.120\nWhat's the biggest lesson you've gleaned from your regular yoga practice?\n\n863\n00:43:22.120 --> 00:43:27.120\nPlay grounded and stay humble.\n\n864\n00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:30.360\nIf I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?\n\n865\n00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:31.360\nNPR.\n\n866\n00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:35.280\nWhat's something about you few people would know?\n\n867\n00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:40.320\nI love to grow vegetables and I like to cook a lot.\n\n868\n00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:43.560\nAll right, we're out of the lightning round.\n\n869\n00:43:43.560 --> 00:43:44.560\nWell done.\n\n870\n00:43:44.560 --> 00:43:45.560\nThat was great.\n\n871\n00:43:45.560 --> 00:43:47.560\nJust a few more questions for you.\n\n872\n00:43:47.560 --> 00:43:53.000\nI've read articles where you've called yourself an AI geek.\n\n873\n00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:54.480\nYes.\n\n874\n00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:55.800\nWhy is that?\n\n875\n00:43:55.800 --> 00:44:01.890\nI started my career as a computer engineer and back then, neural networks were\n\n876\n00:44:01.890 --> 00:44:02.440\na thing\n\n877\n00:44:02.440 --> 00:44:03.680\nin computer engineering.\n\n878\n00:44:03.680 --> 00:44:07.960\nI spent a lot of time as a computer engineer thinking about neural networks.\n\n879\n00:44:07.960 --> 00:44:13.640\nIn fact, I did research back then on neural networks and it felt like it was\n\n880\n00:44:13.640 --> 00:44:14.360\ntoo early\n\n881\n00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:16.200\nfor it to be meaningful.\n\n882\n00:44:16.200 --> 00:44:23.980\nNow fast forward 20 years, neural networks and transformer networks is what has\n\n883\n00:44:23.980 --> 00:44:24.680\ncost the\n\n884\n00:44:24.680 --> 00:44:30.760\nwhole generative AI wave to come into existence right now.\n\n885\n00:44:30.760 --> 00:44:38.640\nI'm fascinated by this concept of thinking about brain and thinking about how\n\n886\n00:44:38.640 --> 00:44:39.800\ncomputers\n\n887\n00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:43.440\ncan become that in the future.\n\n888\n00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:48.040\nI spent a lot of time besides listening to NPR, listening to YouTube videos on\n\n889\n00:44:48.040 --> 00:44:49.480\ndeep learning,\n\n890\n00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:52.520\non neural networks, on transformer models.\n\n891\n00:44:52.520 --> 00:44:57.410\nIt's just absolutely fascinating how quickly things have moved in the last\n\n892\n00:44:57.410 --> 00:44:58.520\ncouple of years\n\n893\n00:44:58.520 --> 00:45:01.680\nbut how long it took for it to get here.\n\n894\n00:45:01.680 --> 00:45:07.810\nSo I am totally into AI and the whole transformation that's happening right now\n\n895\n00:45:07.810 --> 00:45:08.160\n.\n\n896\n00:45:08.160 --> 00:45:12.630\nSpeaking of AI, tell me about chat spot and the biggest challenge you face is\n\n897\n00:45:12.630 --> 00:45:13.280\nthe leader\n\n898\n00:45:13.280 --> 00:45:15.600\ngetting that off the ground.\n\n899\n00:45:15.600 --> 00:45:17.120\nChat spot is absolutely fascinating.\n\n900\n00:45:17.120 --> 00:45:21.530\nWe basically took the power of HubSpot and connected it with large language\n\n901\n00:45:21.530 --> 00:45:22.280\nmodel which\n\n902\n00:45:22.280 --> 00:45:25.520\nis chat GPT and we have provided a new interface.\n\n903\n00:45:25.520 --> 00:45:26.680\nNow think about this.\n\n904\n00:45:26.680 --> 00:45:32.360\nI've been now in application software for more than a couple of decades and the\n\n905\n00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:33.080\nbiggest\n\n906\n00:45:33.080 --> 00:45:40.020\ndifficulty in application software is the ability for someone to get just easy\n\n907\n00:45:40.020 --> 00:45:40.840\nanswers\n\n908\n00:45:40.840 --> 00:45:42.800\nto questions.\n\n909\n00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:46.820\nIf you're so good, you should be able to get the answers from the software but\n\n910\n00:45:46.820 --> 00:45:47.680\nyou cannot.\n\n911\n00:45:47.680 --> 00:45:54.240\nSo chat spot for the first time provides a natural language interface into Hub\n\n912\n00:45:54.240 --> 00:45:55.000\nSpot.\n\n913\n00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:56.400\nYou can ask questions.\n\n914\n00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:59.080\nWhat happened last week in terms of our pipeline?\n\n915\n00:45:59.080 --> 00:46:02.840\nHow does that compare to the previous month in terms of the pipeline?\n\n916\n00:46:02.840 --> 00:46:06.360\nCan you just schedule this report and send it to me every Monday?\n\n917\n00:46:06.360 --> 00:46:12.120\nThat's the conversation that you can have with chat spot and it's a game chang\n\n918\n00:46:12.120 --> 00:46:13.080\ner in terms\n\n919\n00:46:13.080 --> 00:46:18.390\nof application software, the level of engagement it can drive and just the ease\n\n920\n00:46:18.390 --> 00:46:19.560\nof using natural\n\n921\n00:46:19.560 --> 00:46:22.760\nlanguage to get more out of technology.\n\n922\n00:46:22.760 --> 00:46:24.720\nSo I'm huge on this.\n\n923\n00:46:24.720 --> 00:46:29.760\nI would give full credit to Dharmesh who is our other co-founder.\n\n924\n00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:33.720\nHe came up with chat spot over nights and weekends.\n\n925\n00:46:33.720 --> 00:46:37.240\nHe saw how generative AI was taking off the ground.\n\n926\n00:46:37.240 --> 00:46:42.590\nHe saw the power and potential of having an interface that can just make it\n\n927\n00:46:42.590 --> 00:46:43.280\neasy for\n\n928\n00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:47.350\nour customers and he created it and then we had to get everybody behind it as a\n\n929\n00:46:47.350 --> 00:46:47.880\ncompany\n\n930\n00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:50.120\nand it's really taken off.\n\n931\n00:46:50.120 --> 00:46:54.420\nIt's been about six months and we're pretty excited about where it's going in\n\n932\n00:46:54.420 --> 00:46:55.240\nthe future.\n\n933\n00:46:55.240 --> 00:47:00.520\nSpeaking of engagement, tell us about inbound and how that's grown.\n\n934\n00:47:00.520 --> 00:47:01.520\nAbsolutely.\n\n935\n00:47:01.520 --> 00:47:06.880\nSo for those who don't know inbound is HubSpot's customer conference and we got\n\n936\n00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:07.680\nstarted with\n\n937\n00:47:07.680 --> 00:47:13.490\nthis many, many years ago and the premise for starting something like this was\n\n938\n00:47:13.490 --> 00:47:14.720\nvery simple.\n\n939\n00:47:14.720 --> 00:47:21.250\nWe want to educate and we want to help other customers, prospects, industry\n\n940\n00:47:21.250 --> 00:47:22.320\npeople grow\n\n941\n00:47:22.320 --> 00:47:25.400\nbefore they even become our customers.\n\n942\n00:47:25.400 --> 00:47:30.560\nSo the philosophy was much more about education and inspiration and thought\n\n943\n00:47:30.560 --> 00:47:31.920\nleadership within\n\n944\n00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:35.280\nthis conference and we have done that across the company.\n\n945\n00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:38.960\nWe have a whole university inside HubSpot.\n\n946\n00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:43.330\nIt's a little known but we call it the HubSpot Academy where we teach market-he\n\n947\n00:47:43.330 --> 00:47:44.120\narer sales\n\n948\n00:47:44.120 --> 00:47:49.000\npeople, service people, how to become great at their jobs.\n\n949\n00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:51.200\nInbound is the conference where they all come.\n\n950\n00:47:51.200 --> 00:47:56.710\nThey exchange ideas, they are part of this community and they learn from each\n\n951\n00:47:56.710 --> 00:47:57.800\nother and\n\n952\n00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:03.120\nwe get so much fulfillment by looking at the community grow and it's grown.\n\n953\n00:48:03.120 --> 00:48:09.560\nWe had this time over 12,000 attendees in Boston attending this conference and\n\n954\n00:48:09.560 --> 00:48:10.080\nwe had\n\n955\n00:48:10.080 --> 00:48:14.990\nmore than 100,000 participate online virtually through all of the breakout\n\n956\n00:48:14.990 --> 00:48:15.960\nsessions as well\n\n957\n00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:17.480\nas the spotlight sessions.\n\n958\n00:48:17.480 --> 00:48:24.390\nIt's just become a thriving community to exchange great ideas about a front\n\n959\n00:48:24.390 --> 00:48:25.160\noffice.\n\n960\n00:48:25.160 --> 00:48:26.160\nSo love that.\n\n961\n00:48:26.160 --> 00:48:29.600\nYou know, you're obviously in love with what you do and you're thinking about\n\n962\n00:48:29.600 --> 00:48:30.320\nthis business\n\n963\n00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:32.840\n24/7 all the time.\n\n964\n00:48:32.840 --> 00:48:40.350\nHow do you handle all the pressure of being a CEO and bring the balance that\n\n965\n00:48:40.350 --> 00:48:41.520\nyou obviously\n\n966\n00:48:41.520 --> 00:48:42.520\nhave?\n\n967\n00:48:42.520 --> 00:48:43.520\nI can tell you have balance.\n\n968\n00:48:43.520 --> 00:48:44.920\nI mean, there's no question about it.\n\n969\n00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:48.680\nI know your mother and you have a family and you know, how does it all come\n\n970\n00:48:48.680 --> 00:48:49.440\ntogether with\n\n971\n00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:51.120\nyou?\n\n972\n00:48:51.120 --> 00:48:56.840\nYou just have to set an intention to stay exceptionally grounded and balanced.\n\n973\n00:48:56.840 --> 00:49:01.480\nAnd I actually like the word presence more than balance, David.\n\n974\n00:49:01.480 --> 00:49:02.480\nHere's why.\n\n975\n00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:03.480\nLike, you know, I have two boys.\n\n976\n00:49:03.480 --> 00:49:04.480\nThey are teens.\n\n977\n00:49:04.480 --> 00:49:06.160\nThey're 16 and 14.\n\n978\n00:49:06.160 --> 00:49:12.350\nAnd in many years, it just felt like a constant struggle to balance my role as\n\n979\n00:49:12.350 --> 00:49:13.680\na mom, balance\n\n980\n00:49:13.680 --> 00:49:19.320\nmy role at HubSpot, balance my role as a friend, as a daughter.\n\n981\n00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:22.640\nAnd it feels like a tightrope walking where I'm like going to fall every single\n\n982\n00:49:22.640 --> 00:49:23.200\nmoment.\n\n983\n00:49:23.200 --> 00:49:28.980\nAnd so I really adopted this whole idea of life presence, being exceptionally\n\n984\n00:49:28.980 --> 00:49:29.680\npresent\n\n985\n00:49:29.680 --> 00:49:31.160\nin where you are.\n\n986\n00:49:31.160 --> 00:49:32.560\nAnd I'll tell you a quick story.\n\n987\n00:49:32.560 --> 00:49:38.210\nI took my son on a field trip at his school when he was about fourth grade and\n\n988\n00:49:38.210 --> 00:49:38.800\nit was\n\n989\n00:49:38.800 --> 00:49:41.120\nalso end of quarter.\n\n990\n00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:45.690\nSo I spent most of the time in the field trip holding my ears and being on the\n\n991\n00:49:45.690 --> 00:49:46.400\nphone the\n\n992\n00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:47.400\nentire time.\n\n993\n00:49:47.400 --> 00:49:48.880\nAnd I was proud of myself.\n\n994\n00:49:48.880 --> 00:49:50.800\nI said, I've balanced everything.\n\n995\n00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:53.720\nYou know, it's the end of the quarter, but I'm still there for my son.\n\n996\n00:49:53.720 --> 00:49:57.480\nAnd I came back that evening and I asked him, that was great, right?\n\n997\n00:49:57.480 --> 00:49:59.040\nYou know, I was there with you.\n\n998\n00:49:59.040 --> 00:50:01.440\nAnd he said, Mom, you were not there.\n\n999\n00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:05.000\nYou were there physically, but you were on the phone the entire time.\n\n1000\n00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.320\nAnd it was this moment, that moment where I said, it's not about balance.\n\n1001\n00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:10.320\nIt's about presence.\n\n1002\n00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:12.200\nI was absolutely not present.\n\n1003\n00:50:12.200 --> 00:50:16.170\nAnd the fourth grader that he was pointed out very clearly that I was not\n\n1004\n00:50:16.170 --> 00:50:16.960\npresent.\n\n1005\n00:50:16.960 --> 00:50:21.520\nSo now I think about being present in every conversation, whether it is this\n\n1006\n00:50:21.520 --> 00:50:22.440\nconversation\n\n1007\n00:50:22.440 --> 00:50:25.520\nor the time I spend every night with my two sons.\n\n1008\n00:50:25.520 --> 00:50:29.000\nIt's only 30 minutes maybe with them individually, but I'm there.\n\n1009\n00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:30.840\nI have no other electronics.\n\n1010\n00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:32.680\nI'm not a CEO.\n\n1011\n00:50:32.680 --> 00:50:37.120\nI'm just a mom listening to a teen complain about what teens complain about.\n\n1012\n00:50:37.120 --> 00:50:42.120\nAnd that has helped me in a stay in the moment.\n\n1013\n00:50:42.120 --> 00:50:45.450\nIt's interesting because one of the concepts we really tried to drive deep in\n\n1014\n00:50:45.450 --> 00:50:45.880\nthe young\n\n1015\n00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:47.760\nbrands was be here now.\n\n1016\n00:50:47.760 --> 00:50:48.760\nYes.\n\n1017\n00:50:48.760 --> 00:50:51.440\nYou know, and I think that's exactly what you're talking about.\n\n1018\n00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:55.210\nOne last question here for you and I'll let you let you go be present with\n\n1019\n00:50:55.210 --> 00:50:56.000\nwhatever the\n\n1020\n00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:58.080\nnext thing is on your agenda.\n\n1021\n00:50:58.080 --> 00:51:02.120\nWhat's the single best advice you can give to aspiring leaders?\n\n1022\n00:51:02.120 --> 00:51:07.840\nI would say be authentic and stand out.\n\n1023\n00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:12.850\nThat would be the single best advice that I would give, especially maybe other\n\n1024\n00:51:12.850 --> 00:51:13.320\nwomen\n\n1025\n00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:18.830\nwho are looking to break through other underrepresented minorities, embrace\n\n1026\n00:51:18.830 --> 00:51:19.920\nyour strength\n\n1027\n00:51:19.920 --> 00:51:22.200\nand just stand out.\n\n1028\n00:51:22.200 --> 00:51:24.240\nDon't be afraid of standing out.\n\n1029\n00:51:24.240 --> 00:51:28.630\nAnd when you do that consistently, people will really appreciate you for who\n\n1030\n00:51:28.630 --> 00:51:29.320\nyou are.\n\n1031\n00:51:29.320 --> 00:51:35.740\nWell, Yamini, I really enjoyed this conversation and really congratulate you on\n\n1032\n00:51:35.740 --> 00:51:36.680\nhow you're\n\n1033\n00:51:36.680 --> 00:51:41.730\nthinking through your business, centering it around the customer and your\n\n1034\n00:51:41.730 --> 00:51:42.520\npeople and,\n\n1035\n00:51:42.520 --> 00:51:44.760\nyou know, generating all kinds of innovation.\n\n1036\n00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:46.400\nSo congratulations.\n\n1037\n00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:47.640\nWell done.\n\n1038\n00:51:47.640 --> 00:51:49.960\nIt's such a pleasure.\n\n1039\n00:51:49.960 --> 00:51:52.280\nI listened to your podcast.\n\n1040\n00:51:52.280 --> 00:51:55.670\nI've learned so much from you and I look forward to meeting you in person one\n\n1041\n00:51:55.670 --> 00:51:56.240\nday, but\n\n1042\n00:51:56.240 --> 00:52:00.650\nthank you so much for having me join you and thank you for what you do for\n\n1043\n00:52:00.650 --> 00:52:01.480\nleaders in the\n\n1044\n00:52:01.480 --> 00:52:03.240\nworld.\n\n1045\n00:52:03.240 --> 00:52:15.680\nWell, Yamini has to be one of the most dynamic leaders around.\n\n1046\n00:52:15.680 --> 00:52:18.480\nI'm so energized just by talking to her.\n\n1047\n00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:23.760\nI love her enthusiasm, her bravery and how she's just as comfortable leaning\n\n1048\n00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:24.440\ninto her\n\n1049\n00:52:24.440 --> 00:52:28.640\nstrengths as she is opening up about her vulnerabilities.\n\n1050\n00:52:28.640 --> 00:52:32.680\nBut you know what I really want to focus on is her sense of focus.\n\n1051\n00:52:32.680 --> 00:52:37.080\nAs Yamini points out, getting focused on what really matters means letting go\n\n1052\n00:52:37.080 --> 00:52:37.560\nof what\n\n1053\n00:52:37.560 --> 00:52:38.920\ndoesn't.\n\n1054\n00:52:38.920 --> 00:52:41.320\nSo this week, here's what I want you to do.\n\n1055\n00:52:41.320 --> 00:52:47.880\nTake a look at what's on your plate and ask yourself, what really, really\n\n1056\n00:52:47.880 --> 00:52:49.040\nmatters?\n\n1057\n00:52:49.040 --> 00:52:55.340\nWhat can we put more process and discipline around that will really drive the\n\n1058\n00:52:55.340 --> 00:52:55.560\nneedle and\n\n1059\n00:52:55.560 --> 00:53:01.000\nthen drop the things that really don't matter that much?\n\n1060\n00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:05.450\nI guarantee you, if you go through that discipline, you'll be working on the\n\n1061\n00:53:05.450 --> 00:53:06.520\nthings that will\n\n1062\n00:53:06.520 --> 00:53:09.480\nhave the biggest impact on your business.\n\n1063\n00:53:09.480 --> 00:53:11.840\nAnd that's really what you want.\n\n1064\n00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:13.760\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1065\n00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:18.800\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders know that fortune favors the focus.\n\n1066\n00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:23.010\nComing up next on How leaders lead is Jim Levine, a world-renowned literary\n\n1067\n00:53:23.010 --> 00:53:23.760\nagent that's\n\n1068\n00:53:23.760 --> 00:53:27.620\nhad something to do with many, many of the books you've read, including a\n\n1069\n00:53:27.620 --> 00:53:29.880\ncouple of mine.\n\n1070\n00:53:29.880 --> 00:53:34.230\nWe have a set of guiding principles and we say our mission, our goal is to\n\n1071\n00:53:34.230 --> 00:53:35.440\nignite talent.\n\n1072\n00:53:35.440 --> 00:53:37.240\nThat's what it's all about for us.\n\n1073\n00:53:37.240 --> 00:53:39.200\nYou know, that's not just for our clients.\n\n1074\n00:53:39.200 --> 00:53:42.320\nIt's really for everybody who shows up at work.\n\n1075\n00:53:42.320 --> 00:53:47.260\nIt's like every day, everybody shows up with a sense that working together,\n\n1076\n00:53:47.260 --> 00:53:48.040\neach person's\n\n1077\n00:53:48.040 --> 00:53:51.960\ngoing to become better at it, you know, just by being together.\n\n1078\n00:53:51.960 --> 00:53:56.980\nI am so much better in doing what I do when I have a team of people that I'm\n\n1079\n00:53:56.980 --> 00:53:58.840\nworking with.\n\n1080\n00:53:58.840 --> 00:54:03.880\nSo be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation.\n\n1081\n00:54:03.880 --> 00:54:07.180\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How leaders lead, where every\n\n1082\n00:54:07.180 --> 00:54:07.680\nThursday\n\n1083\n00:54:07.680 --> 00:54:11.560\nyou get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the\n\n1084\n00:54:11.560 --> 00:54:12.160\nworld.\n\n1085\n00:54:12.160 --> 00:54:15.760\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1086\n00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:16.480\napply to your\n\n1087\n00:54:16.480 --> 00:54:19.840\nbusiness so that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1088\n00:54:19.840 --> 00:54:29.840\n[BLANK_AUDIO]\n\n1089\n00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:39.840\n[BLANK_AUDIO]","

David Novak 0:04

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, as a leader, I bet you've got a lot of things vying for your attention. How do you know what deserves your time and focus and what doesn't? Well, today's conversation is going to help you answer that big question. I'm joined by the CEO of HubSpot Yamini rockin. Now if you don't know, HubSpot is a $2 billion online customer relationship management platform. And it's growing by leaps and bounds. And a big reason for their success is this very clear sense of focus that Yamani has instilled to help everyone make better decisions and prioritize the right opportunities. In fact, Yamini even has a phrase for it, Fortune favors the focused way you apply your attention, and focus has a huge bearing on the results you can achieve. So if you're feeling spread a little thin, or you're just not sure what you need to be focused on right now, to really move the needle for your organization, then you're going to love my conversation with my good friend head soon to be yours. Yamini Iranian?

You know, I've had so much fun researching you, it because you you are one heck of a CEO. And I just love your approach to culture and people and customers. So I can't really wait to get into this. But if if you could give us a snapshot of HubSpot, and the business you're leaving today, I'd really appreciate it. Yeah,

Yamini Rangan 1:52

thank you for having me, again, a HubSpot. We are really focused on helping millions of organizations grow better. That's the purpose. That's our mission. That's what we care about. That's our bread, butter and jam, the way we do it is by providing a customer platform. So think about this, David, if you want to connect to your end customers, you need to be able to look at their entire journey, whether they're coming to your website, they're buying something online, or they're interacting with your support, you got to be able to connect. That's what we enable small and medium businesses to do. We're about a 17 year old company, we are all over the world. And we are passionate people that are mission driven about helping customers grow.

David Novak 2:40

Fantastic, you know, you became CEO in a bit of an unexpected way. Tell us that story and what it was like for you to just to be thrust into that role.

Yamini Rangan 2:50

Yeah, you know, this will resonate deeply with you. I'm an accidental CEO. In many ways. Now, I've been in the tech industry for about a few decades. And I joined HubSpot as their first chief customer officer. And the reason I was the first chief customer officer is that HubSpot really believes in building and bringing together marketing sales and service in service of the end customer. So my job was to come in and bring together marketing, sales and service and really help focus on the customers. And I joined at a very cool time, January 2020. And I didn't know what the world was going to be. But I still remember Brian, who is the CEO, co founder, phenomenal leader, mentor coach. He said, well take your time. Yamane take a lot of time, and spend the time knowing our team, knowing our culture, and then March hit and he is like, move fast. Give me answers today, I can't wait one more day, what are the changes we need to do to really go into this mode of dealing with COVID. And so I was thrust into this position of reinventing what we needed to do during the pandemic and help our small medium businesses who at that time, were honestly churning, they were closing down and shuttering there was a question of how they were going to survive. And we said we need to do our part to help them get digital and help them get digital really quickly. And so we changed a lot of what we did for customers in a matter of days, we went to the board and we said that we are slashing our price. We're helping our customers, we're giving them a really fun, and we are going to help them survive during the pandemic. And turns out that was a good call. Because three months later, all small medium businesses needed a way to digitally connect, digitally grow and they came to us and we earn their trust and that period, then what happened the next March. So I'd kind of gone through one march to the next March, I got another call from Brian. And this time, he was calling me unfortunately, from his hospital bed, he had met with a snowmobile accident, and had broken a lot of big bones. And thankfully, all the Oregon survived. And he said, You're going to have to step up, and you're going to have to run the company until I recover and get back. And the My first thought was, Wow, pretty big shoes. And wow, no playbook. He basically called from the hospital and said, Don't mess this up. And I said, Okay, I'll try my best. The good part is that we had clear guiding principles as a company, we had great leadership team. And six months later, he came back, again, a call. And he said, Well, do it, you're doing a reasonable job, keep doing it and become become the CEO. My first reaction was, no, no, no, no, I, this is not what I had planned for, I plan to take a month off after, you know, kind of helping shepherd the company over this period. And I'm not really the person I never ever thought of becoming a CEO. And he said, Well, it's you or I'll hire someone else. And you might not like that person. What do you want to do?

David Novak 6:25

You know, Yamini, that's, that's so interesting, because so many women that I've talked to become CEOs, they don't think they're ready, they should be doing something else, or whatever. And, you know, I love how he just said, Hey, I can hire somebody else. It's up to you. When you're faced with that alternative. The answer was something else.

Yamini Rangan 6:42

Exactly. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me let me think about this. And in 24 hours, I got back to him. And I said, Well, I will do it. But I think I have big shoes to fill. And I'll need your coaching, mentoring and support. And he has been a phenomenal coach, mentor guide for me throughout this process. And it's now been about two and a half years since I got that first call in March.

David Novak 7:08

It's interesting, I want to ask you about this. And I want to get back into this particular situation. But you mentioned you were the chief customer officer. You know, that's a unique title in a lot of companies. Do you think companies need to think more about what they call their leaders

Yamini Rangan 7:24

100% 100%. And, for me, words matter, you stand in commitment to every word you say and what you drive. And so the Chief Customer Officer conveys that customer is at the center. Now, you could call that Chief Business Officer or Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, you could call any of those things. But it signals that the job of that C level leader is to put the customer at the center, and then make sure everything else works in order to serve that customer. And 10 years ago, that title was not existent. And I think the industry is embracing it for the right reasons, which is the focus on the customer, it's probably the most important thing in terms of a business. Now

David Novak 8:13

I want to get back to what Brian says, Okay, you're the CEO, you've got this transition to make, you know, you're you're basically interim says, don't mess it up. We got a great company here. But now you got to move from caretaker, you know, to Hey, you got to be the driver, you got to figure out the future. Where are you going? How does the leader manage that kind of transition?

Yamini Rangan 8:37

It's funny because again, this time he had like a one liner, which is be the driver of the bus was the was the conversation that we had. And so I thought about that a lot. What does being a driver actually mean? And how does like one goal from being a go to market leader to accompany leader, and it really starts with who are your constituents and who are your key stakeholders. Of course, all employees within the company, of course, all of the customers, partners, investors, board members, and overall stakeholders. So it really broadens who you're communicating. But it starts with the mindset of how do I learn what is important for every one of these stakeholders? I think from my perspective, I started as an engineer, then became a sales leader and then became a customer focused executive. And I've always put the customer at the center. Now I had more stakeholders and understanding the motivations. The key priorities for each of these stakeholders is where I started in terms of my journey as a CEO.

David Novak 9:50

You know, that's always a great place to start. But you know, one of the things that is I think about that is you're taken over for a founder or he's been driving that bus. Yet. He wants you to drive the bus. And you got to create a new agenda. How do you really do that? I mean, how do you really make big changes to something that's really big, while that founders around without maybe hurting his or her feelings or causing a ripple?

Yamini Rangan 10:19

I mean, first of all, you start with imposter syndrome. Not a lot of CEOs actually talk about this not a lot of like, C suite leaders talk about this. But, you know, when he said, Hey, take this on, the first thing was, am I the right person for this? And how do I actually set in, then the next question is, well, he's done a phenomenal job, you know, do I step into his shoes? Or do I create different shoes for myself? And I think from my perspective, I started with saying, what is the future that I want to help create as a leader, one of the lessons that I have learned as a leader is not to focus on the past, and where you're coming from, but really focus on the future and work backwards, I had to make that choice, David, because I could be sitting there and I could be thinking about what choose, am I filling? How am I going to get this role, you know, to be where it needs to be? And do I have the capability, the credibility to be able to lead this company. But that's not where I started, I made a choice. I made a choice. And I thought about 2030. And where HubSpot can be as a company, and what would be my role in getting the organization to where it needed to be in the next decade? And what would a great leader do? And how could I be part of that journey? So I started in the future. And then the answer became clear, I wanted to be the best CEO that the company and the employees and the customers deserved, not where I was coming from, but where it needed to be in the future. And so working backwards from the future really helped create a vision for where I can go with this company.

David Novak 12:12

Did you ever have to dismantle something that everybody thought was really good before? That, you know, could have been perceived to be ruffling a feather? And if so, how did you do it?

Yamini Rangan 12:23

That's a fantastic question. I think we've made a lot of changes over the last couple of years, but nothing dramatic. And I always say that a CEOs role is much easier when it's a turnaround role. Because you can come in and you know you're at the bottom, and then you start slashing, burning, making changes, HubSpot is not that we are going from good to great, which means you really need to be curious, you need to be open, you need to deeply keenly listen, to know what changes are necessary in order to scale the company, versus making changes quickly for the sake of you being a leader there. So part of my process was going on a 90 day listening tour, I listened to our employees all across the board, I listened to investors, I listen to our board members, and then I created a plan. And part of that evolved naturally, the changes that we needed to do was investments in certain areas within the organization to bring a leadership team together much more closely and be very clear that we're building a company for the future. So more of those changes versus a drastic dramatic change that we needed to make day one.

Koula Callahan 13:47

Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested and hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do, too. My name is Kula Callahan and together with David I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes and in them I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading yum brands and all of His answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight David shared and one of our most recent, three more questions episodes.

David Novak 14:30

There are going to be many times when you don't necessarily agree with your boss. And I think the first thing you need to do is let your boss know that you understand where they're coming from, that you've heard them and you know what they want to do, then what I think you need to do is to provide your perspective and your point of view and as respectful way as you can. And you know, I think that's a way how you You can really have a good discussion on what the actual best next step ought to be. Get

Koula Callahan 15:06

the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to how leaders lead wherever you get your podcasts.

David Novak 15:24

I want to get back into how you're leading HubSpot. But But first, I want to take you back, you know, tell us a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today.

Yamini Rangan 15:35

I love that. So I grew up in India, and I grew up in a super small town. My mom was a homemaker. And my dad was a mechanical engineer who had a small business. The town did not have a high school that went up to 12th grade in the English medium. It had it in the local language, but not an English medium. So part of the conversations at dinner tables was, what am I going to do? Where am I going to finish high school. And it was interesting. One of those days, my mom gave me an article about a woman who was attempting to climb Mount Everest. And I said, Well, I want to do that. And we were literally having this conversation of how could I complete my high school degree. And at the same time, I was like, I want to climb the Mount Everest, my mom's like, yeah, you can do it. And then the next week, I'd come and say, I want to become a lawyer. And she'd be like, yeah, you can do it. And literally, I had so many different ideas of what I wanted to do living in this super small town that didn't even have a high school. And my parents encouraged me every step of the way. They believed in me as a human being not as a woman growing up in the 80s in rural India, but as a person with potential. And to me that just a power of someone believing in my ability, when I didn't have any at the time certainly didn't have rock climbing or mountain climbing abilities, but someone believed in me, and I think that has propelled me over so many ups, downs, failures, successes, I just believe in myself, I just have a level of perseverance and the ability to dust it off and start back again. And probably the those dinner table conversations had a lot to do with the grit that I now have,

David Novak 17:33

as I understand it, your your parents might have liked you to go on be a doctor, that you you went on to be an engineer, and you've been described, I don't know if you really like hearing this so much. But you've been described as someone who can be a bit defiant. Okay. Tell me a story of how that trait has shown up in the way how you lead? Oh,

Yamini Rangan 17:57

absolutely. You have to be defined. And you're absolutely right. My parents, you know, it said that I could do anything but really secretly wished I became a doctor, just like my elder sister. And I chose not even go to the take the exam. That was how defiant I was I was like, Well, I'm not going to take the exam, which means I will never have any probability of becoming a doctor. That's how defiant I was. And you got to be, you know, somewhat defined that way. When later on, I'll tell you a couple of different places that did happen. I graduated from business school at Berkeley, and the first job that I got was accidental in the sales organization. When I joined the sales organization, I'd been an engineer for a few years, then went into business school and gotten to sales. And people looked at me and they looked at how I was approaching sales and said, Wow, she's just not going to make it maybe a first year, at the end of the year, we're going to give her a performance plan, she's probably going to leave because I approached, you know, sales like an engineer. And then I looked at people around me, they approach sales, like the art of sales. And I was like, No, I'm going to do the science of sales. And part of the Defiance came from knowing that I was strong analytically. And I was strong in getting customers to talk to me about their business. I was curious, and I was a learner. And all of that came from my engineering background. And so I said, I'm going to lean in on that. I don't play golf. I certainly don't know how to banter about, you know, Sunday night football, but I know how to analyze a 10k and I was really defiant. And at the end of the first year, I crushed you know, my goals for the year and gained a level of confidence and how I can present myself in front of customers and Yeah, almost every time someone says you can't do it, I I say well, I will

David Novak 19:53

and you grew rapidly and then you've moved into leadership roles and and you started out first by being This Rockstar salesperson, you know, that was crushing your numbers. And then all of a sudden now you get thrust in I think it's about eight years later, you know, into this role of being a leader, how did you evolve and handle that transition because people have to move from individual contributor to leader.

Yamini Rangan 20:19

It was really rough. And by the way, I don't think my role and value sales was like that easy. I had to prove every step of the way. But when I first got into management, I did what every individual contributor that moves into a manager role does, which is like, my way or the highway. It is I know exactly how I know how to do this. I've done it for so many years. So here's a playbook and giving answers. One of the first lessons that I learned in those early days is that people don't want answers. They want questions. People want to get to answers themselves. And one of the first skills that I had to learn as a manager was asking better questions, more thoughtful questions that would lead someone to get to their answers themselves. And that really meant that I had to go from being someone with a sprinter mindset go fast to being a cross country coach, coaching them to last to pace to get to where they need to do and to feel a sense of success themselves. A still recall, one of the first performance reviews that I got, as a manager was brutal. Here, I was thinking, I've done this role, I know how to do this role. Here's this amazing playbook. So all I have to do is give this playbook to others, and they're all going to be successful. And it absolutely did not work. And I had to completely reinvent and have a playbook for asking more questions, enrolling people, helping them see their potential. And ultimately, slowing down in order for the team to go far was huge, huge lessons there.

David Novak 22:09

You say that something that you've learned throughout your career is to be a T zone executive? I'd never heard that one before. Explain what you mean by that?

Yamini Rangan 22:17

Oh, yeah, this is one of my favorite lessons. So T zone. And the way I think about it is that you have functional leadership. So you can be an engineering leader, a sales leader, and you know, your function really well. That is the eye you know, or the the vertical, the T zone is your ability to connect across multiple functions. That is what gets you to break through from being director level VP level position into the C suite and beyond. And I learned this the really hard way. One of the first things that I did as I was working with sales and marketing was tried to bring sales and marketing together. And if you're worked in high tech, you know, organizations, sales and marketing are notorious for pointing fingers at each other. You're not good enough. You're just not good enough. You didn't give me the right leads? No, you didn't follow this through how many sales and marketing organizations sit in the same place? So one of my jobs was to bring sales and marketing together as a strategy leader. And the way I did it is connected the dots across both of these teams, and I said, What is your focus? What do you care, really, you all care about winning customers, acquiring customers and making them successful. So let's start with what is common. And let's connect the dots across all of this. And turns out it was exceptionally important that dot connecting across functions and the relationships across marketing and sales, at the time that I was working in the organization improved quite a bit. And to the point where people started trusting me, then I took it to product and engineering. And I said, this is what we're trying to do in the go to market side. And here's what you can do to help us and here's what we can do to help you. And so as I grew in my career, I stopped being a functional leader, and started being much more of a T zone leader connecting the dots. That's when I started seeing breakthroughs in terms of my career and progress.

David Novak 24:20

If you really thought about what makes you tick as a leader, what would you describe as your your guiding principles of leadership and how did you come up with them, be

Yamini Rangan 24:30

authentic, operate with high integrity, and be customer obsessed? I would say those are probably foundational for me. And I'll say on authenticity, I joined tech when there were not that many women, and there were certainly not that many Asian women in the go to market parts of the organization. And for a number of years as I was growing up in debt I tried to be someone else, I tried to be the person who played amazing golf. But I really was terrible at golf, I tried to be the person that had this amazing banter. And the first five minutes of a conversation I was an introvert didn't quite do do that well. And I started embracing who I was. And I'm a first principles thinker, and problem solver, I really focus on customers, and I want the company to win. And when I started being just authentic and embracing what I was good at, and just calling it as it is, I started seeing more people resonate with my style and resonate with my leadership. And so authenticity has been just so important in terms of my journey of finding my own voice. When you grow up in India, most of the time, Indian women are asked to kind of keep their opinions to themselves. And part of being authentic and figuring out who I am is to be able to voice out my opinions in the most authentic manner in the most high integrity manner. And I've had to find that voice as I've grown as a leader, and then the customer obsession that just comes from being in the sales organization, talking to customers and solving for customers and seeing how, if you truly wanted to be successful, it had to come to making your customers champions and making them win in their career. So I'd say those three are probably my North Stars as a leader. You

David Novak 26:31

know, a lot of leaders are told, Don't let your people ever see his sweat. You know, what's your take on that? You

Yamini Rangan 26:39

know, I've heard that advice many times in terms of my early career, I said, how do I be a leader? Well, do not show any vulnerability, be strong, Never show your weakness and keep working hard. And I think it's complete BS, I don't think that advice is good at all. And in fact, we have to not just embrace our authenticity, but also be vulnerable. We got to tell our people, here's where I'm learning, here's what I don't know, here's where I need your help. Here's where I've failed in the past. And the more you do that, the more you open up for others going through that big journey themselves. And for me, one of the biggest things that I've enjoyed is learning and growing as a human being not just a professional learning, growing and being curious. And curiosity can only come from a place of comfort with saying, I don't know this, I don't know. And I don't have the answer, and being deeply vulnerable. But what you don't know. And so I've learned, and I've grown as a person, as a professional, as a leader, because of the vulnerable moments that I've had in front of my team. And I think you would agree with that. David, right.

David Novak 27:57

Absolutely. I think people want to want you to share what you're wrestling with. In my leadership programs, the things that people always enjoyed hearing the most. With the times I failed, and the times where I really messed up, people know why you're successful. They don't know. They don't know all the struggles that you've had getting there along the way. And, and now it's pretty much been open book like you I would say, you know, you spent time at SAP, then it worked day, and then Dropbox where you were the chief customer officer. And then, you know, three really good companies before you joined HubSpot, and you know, really found this phenomenal opportunity that your your your enjoy driving the bus on. How did you know it was time to move on and join another team?

Yamini Rangan 28:41

Oh, that's a great question, David, I don't think I had a plan. And I don't think that there is a one clear way to look at when do you need to transition. And in fact, if you'd asked me early in my career, I just wanted to join a company stay there forever. And get through the ranks. And I think I have focused a lot more on learning and growing, and not on the company that I work for, or the role or the title that I have. And that has governed how I have transitioned. So let me give you an example. I did start my career in enterprise companies SAP workday being enterprise companies. And after about a decade in those companies, I felt like I knew the playbook for large customers sales really well and really wanted to figure out, you know, can I do this in a small medium business? Is the playbook the same. Turns out the playbook is completely different. And when Dropbox actually approached me, it was all about product led growth, which was a new thing that was happening in industry, and it was all about small medium businesses. And I knew Nothing about either of those. And that's when I'm like, Oh, this is phenomenal. If I know nothing, that's the place for me to be, because that's where I will get growth. And I will learn and I will be able to, you know, just get better as a professional with my competency. And so what I have actually held as my Northstar is do things that help you get breakthrough growth in your career, don't follow anything else, but just follow the biggest opportunity for learning and growing. And that's probably the advice I would say, you know, when the time is right, when you're not growing as much, and you know, some other places, right when you feel like you don't know anything, and you're going to have to reinvent yourself to be successful there. You've

David Novak 30:50

mentioned how obsessed you are with customers, and you definitely are and you've carried this love for your customer and into your role as CEO. Tell us about SF TC.

Yamini Rangan 31:03

Love it. sfdc is our Northstar at HubSpot, and it stands for solve for the customer. And it's not just a poster, it's not just what we talk about on day one of onboarding, this is how we run our company guide decisions, empower every single employee within the company to make decisions for the customer. And I'll give you an example. I mentioned this early, that when COVID hit in March 2020, we were looking at a really, really bad scenario of small medium businesses going out of business and churning. And the best way we want it to respond is by solving for the customer. And when you think about solving for the customer, at the beginning stages of the pandemic, the thing that stood really true for us is they're running out of cash, they will not be able to pay their employees. And so we got to give them breaks. And so that was the first principle. So we then designed every other pricing and policies associated with that. And we said, well, we're going to give our solutions at a deep deep discount, we're going to give them relief so that they can survive for six months, nine months a year till it takes for them to find their feet again, that was a policy that was purely from the first principle of salt for the customer. And when you know, I still remember the board meeting where we went and presented this whole series of decisions that we had made. And the board asked us this question of how are you going to recover all of this. And we said, we don't know. We're doing the right thing for the customer. We don't know. But it'll be it'll be okay. And there was this moment of silence and then complete support for that. And that is what solving for the customer looks like in terms of making decisions. And it's really I am just proud to be in an organization that takes solving for the customer. So seriously, I'm so grateful to be at HubSpot for that very specific reason.

David Novak 33:13

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Yamani in just a moment. You know, as we're talking about the power of focus today, I'm reminded of the great conversation I had with Jim Weber, CEO of Brooks running, they built a billion dollar business that's a billion dollars with a B based on one brave decision to focus on a single type of customer, focused runner.

Jim Weber 33:36

You walk into any given category today, and there's usually a market leader. I think if you're not the lead brand, the platform in the category, you're a niche brand, which is I think the biggest choice every brand makes is who their customer focuses. You know, I'd rather win at something and dominate it be known for it credit for tried to create a successful, profitable business behind it, then be eight things to lots of different people. And being all surrounding the category. One of our biggest strengths we think is our focus.

David Novak 34:08

It's a perfect case study and the power of focus. And you can hear the whole story in Episode 106 here on how leaders lead.

I heard that you have customers that many of the meetings that you hold even your board meetings. What's one of your more memorable experience with a customer at one of those meetings where you really uncovered something? So

Yamini Rangan 34:36

many? I would say that our board meetings start with customer panels. Our company monthly meetings start with customer panels. The first email of the week is customer sentiment scoring so it is inbuilt into our customers. The most memorable stories are when people are champions or successful. We just had our annual customer conference about two weeks ago, in early in September, and I got to meet a few customers. And their stories were not about how many dollars they were able to save or how many leads they were able to generate. They told me stories of how they made a bet on HubSpot. And because of that, they got promoted. Because of that they bought their first home. Because of that, they have been able to really protect and drive through this macro environment. Those are the stories that make a difference. And that really brings us to what's our mission, you know, we all love having purpose in our jobs. And our purpose as an organization is to help these companies grow, help small medium, businesses grow. So every single customer conversation where we are helping someone grow, both in their career, or the company itself is deeply fulfilling.

David Novak 35:57

You're a big believer in culture, I know this, and I learned that you treat your culture as another product. You know, I've never heard of anybody really talk about it that way. You know, what's your thinking?

Yamini Rangan 36:10

Absolutely. I love that you are asking this question, because we take it seriously. Our first product is, of course, you know, the product that we create, and that is for our customers, and the products mission is helping millions grow. The second product that we have is our culture. And that is for our employees. And that mission there is to help hub spotters grow. So we think about, you know, two products. Let me tell you how we take it even further. The question that we have to ask ourselves is, as much as we are evolving our primary product, can we evolve our culture? And how do we make sure that we are evolving the culture, we have something called the culture code, which is online, you can go and look for HubSpot culture code, it has been downloaded something like 6 million times, and it has evolved. It's now I think, version 100. Plus, because we are constantly updating how we think about the culture. And the concepts make a ton of sense. What do you do in terms of your product? You say? What are the best features of your product? And you figure out like, what are the features that customers love the most same thing with the culture? What are the features of your culture that your employees love the most? And keep doing that? Then you ask yourself, what are the most requested features of your product and go build those things in? And it's the same thing with employees and culture, you just ask what are the most requested features of the culture, and if you pay attention to it, it becomes really obvious how you need to evolve the culture. In the last couple of years, the most requested feature, David has been flexibility. And that's why we leaned into hybrid, you know, our employees can go into work, they can stay at home, or they can go into the office like couple of days a week. And we've found that flexibility is one of the most requested features in the world that we live in. And that's now evolved into part of the culture and we want to be not just a great company that people want to work at. We want to be a great hybrid company that people want to work at. That's how we think about evolving culture, like a product.

David Novak 38:25

That's great stuff. And you know, you as I understand it, you you actually have a program where you allow employees to work remotely in different countries for up to 90 days.

Yamini Rangan 38:36

That's right internal mobility problem.

David Novak 38:37

What was the genesis of that? What was your thinking behind that? Exactly,

Yamini Rangan 38:41

this which is flexibility, the ability to be in a place a country, maybe visiting family, visiting friends, being with, you know, a loved one that deserves care needs care, that is where we started. And again, as you evolve your culture, and if you're paying close attention to what your employees are requesting on a quarterly basis, or half yearly basis, you know what is needed in order for us to support them in their jobs, but also as a person, as an individual that is working as part of HubSpot. And a lot of our programs, whether it is flexibility in terms of very work, flexibility in terms of how you get your work done, that all comes from keenly listening to our employees as much as we listen to our customers. Something else

David Novak 39:35

I know that you're driving in your culture is focus. You know, how are you doing that?

Yamini Rangan 39:40

It's a great question. So we talked about sfdc, which is solve for the customer. We have another leadership guiding principle, which is Fortune favors the focused. If you look at the history, and you look at a lot of companies that have been maybe at our scale and have grown They don't do it by, you know diversifying peanut butter spreading all of their resources they get from good to great by being focused on a handful that you can truly win. So one of the things that we have done is to get the leadership team together and say, what are the guiding principles that we can really focus on to help this company scale? And they came up with Fortune favors the focused. And so in the last couple of years, we have said, what are the omissions as much as we pay attention to the things that we will execute, we're paying attention to the things that we say no to, you have to be able to say no to good ideas in order for you to be able to execute great ideas. And that comes with this principle of Fortune favors the focus.

David Novak 40:48

As a CEO, how you spend your time is so critical. Do you have any thing that you do to really get you focused on the right things? Absolutely,

Yamini Rangan 40:58

David, here's the thought, I've always thought of my calendar as the most strategic tool. And a lot of people have different ideas about this, I think my time and my calendar is the most strategic tool, and I really prioritize what gets on that calendar. And I measure it, I'm pretty specific about it. If you look at my calendar, it is color coded. It has got every possible heuristic built in so I can measure where I spend time. And it's very clear, I need to spend time with our leadership team so that they work as a team, and they're making all the decisions in the right way. I need to spend time with our employees. So I do roundtables with frontline employees twice a month and connect with across levels within the organization, I need to spend time with partners with customers. And that is prioritizing the calendar. And I need to spend time on things that others cannot do, which is if someone else in my team can do it, they should do it. If some others in the team cannot do it, and it requires my time and energy then I want to spend time only on those. And I spend a lot of time on deep work and learning. So a good 30% of my time on the calendar is actually for deep thinking and reading. And I preserve that as much as I preserve the time for meetings. And so I think of like my time is really important. And it needs to be part of a strategic way in which I prioritize on the right set of conversations every single week.

David Novak 42:32

You know, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this?

Unknown Speaker 42:39

Let's go.

David Novak 42:41

What's one word others would use to best describe you?

Unknown Speaker 42:44

Authentic?

David Novak 42:46

What would you say is the one word that best describes you? high integrity?

Speaker 1 42:51

Who would play you in a movie? Salma Hayek,

David Novak 42:55

if you could be one person for a day besides yourself? Who would it be?

Speaker 1 43:00

President Barack Obama. What's your biggest pet peeve? Not being on time?

David Novak 43:07

I know you're a big reader. What's a book every leader should read?

Unknown Speaker 43:12

Leaders eat last by Simon Sinek.

David Novak 43:15

What's the biggest lesson you've gleaned from your regular yoga practice?

Speaker 1 43:20

stay grounded, and stay humble.

David Novak 43:25

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

Unknown Speaker 43:29

NPR?

David Novak 43:32

What's something about you? Few people would know.

Yamini Rangan 43:34

I love to grow vegetables. And I like to cook a lot.

David Novak 43:41

All right, we're out of the lightning round. Well done. That was great. Just a few more questions for you. I've read articles where you've called yourself an AI geek. Yes. Why is that?

Yamini Rangan 43:55

I started my career as a computer engineer. And back then neural networks were a thing in computer engineering. I spent a lot of time as a computer engineer thinking about neural networks. In fact, I did, you know, research back then on neural networks, and it felt like it was too early for it to be meaningful. Now fast forward 20 years, neural networks and transformer networks is what has caused the whole generative AI wave to come into existence right now. And so I'm fascinated by this concept of thinking about brain and thinking about how computers can become that in the future. And so I spent a lot of time besides listening to NPR listening to YouTube videos on deep learning on neural networks on transformer models. It's just absolutely fascinating how quickly things have moved in the last couple of years but how long it took for it to get here. So I am totally into AI and the whole transformation that's happening right now.

David Novak 45:07

You know, speaking of AI, tell me about Chatbot. And the biggest challenge you face as a leader getting that off the ground

Yamini Rangan 45:14

Chatbot is absolutely fascinating. We basically took the power of HubSpot and connected it with large language model, which is Chad GPD. And we've provided a new interface. Now think about this. I've been now in application software for more than a couple of decades. And the biggest difficulty in application software is the ability for someone to get just easy answers to questions. You know, if you're if you're so good, like you should be able to get the answers from the software, but you cannot. And so chatbot for the first time provides a natural language interface into HubSpot, you can ask questions, what happened last week in terms of our pipeline? How does that compare to the previous month in terms of the pipeline? Can you just schedule this report and send it to me every Monday, that's the conversation that you can have with chat spot. And it's a game changer in terms of application software, the level of engagement that can drive and just the ease of using natural language to get more out of technology. So I'm huge on this, I would give full credit to Dharmesh, who is our other co founder in a he came up with Chatbot. In overnights and weekends, he saw how generative AI was kind of like taking off the ground, he saw the power and potential of having an interface that can just make it easy for our customers. And he created it and then we had to get everybody behind it as a company. And it's it's really taken off. It's been about six months. And we're pretty excited about where it's going in the future. You

David Novak 46:55

know, speaking of engagement, tell us about Inbound and how that's grown.

Yamini Rangan 47:00

Absolutely. So for those who don't know inbound is HubSpot customer conference. And we got started with this many, many years ago. And the premise for starting something like this was very simple. We want to educate and we want to help other customers prospects industry people grow before they even become our customers. And so the philosophy was much more about education and inspiration and thought leadership within this conference. And we've done that across the company. We have a whole university inside. HubSpot. It's a little known, but we call it the HubSpot Academy where we teach marketers salespeople service people how to, you know, get become great at their jobs. Inbound is the conference where they all come they exchange, you know, ideas, they are part of this community and they learn from each other. And we get so much fulfillment by looking at the community grow. And it's grown. We had this time over 12,000 attendees in Boston, attending this conference. And we had more than 100,000 participate online virtually through all of the breakout sessions as well as the spotlight sessions. And it's just become a thriving community to exchange great ideas about front office. So I love that. You know, you're

David Novak 48:26

obviously in love with what you do. And you're thinking about this business 24/7 all the time. How do you handle all the pressure of being a CEO? And firing the balance that you obviously have? I can tell you how to balance it, there's no question about it. I know you're a mother and you have a family and you know, how does it all come together with you?

Yamini Rangan 48:50

You just have to set an intention to stay exceptionally grounded and balanced. And I actually liked the word presents more than balanced David. Here's why. Like, you know, I have two boys. They're teens, they're 16 and 14. And in many years, it just felt like a constant struggle to balance. My role as a mom balanced my role at HubSpot balanced my role as a friend as a daughter. And it feels like a tightrope walking where I'm like going to fall every single moment. And so I really adopted this whole idea of life presents being exceptionally present in where you are. And I'll tell you a quick story. I took my son on a field trip at his school when he was about fourth grade. And it was also end of quarter. So I spent most of the time in the field trip, holding my years and being on the phone the entire time. And I was proud of myself. I said I balanced everything. You know, it's the end of the quarter, but I'm still there for my son. And I came back that evening and asked him that was great, right? You know, I was there with you. And he said mom, you were not out there. You were there physically, but you were on the phone that entire time. And it was this moment, that moment where I said, it's not about balance, it's about presence, I was absolutely not present. And the fourth grader that he was pointed out very clearly that I was not present. So now, I think about being present in every conversation, whether there's this conversation, or the time I spend every night with my two sons, it's only 30 minutes, maybe with them individually, but I'm there. I have no other electronics. I'm not, you know, a CEO. I'm just a mom listening to a team complain about what teens complain about. And that has helped me in a stay in the moment. It's

David Novak 50:41

interesting, because one of the concepts that we really tried to drive deep in the yum brands was be here now. Yes, you know, and I think that's exactly what you're talking about. One last question here for you. And I'll let you let you go be present with whatever the next thing is on your agenda. What's the single best advice you can give to aspiring leaders, I

Yamini Rangan 51:02

would say, be authentic and stand out. That would be the single best advice that I would give, especially maybe other women who are looking to break through other underrepresented minorities, embrace your strength, and just stand out, don't be afraid of standing out. And when you do that, consistently, people will really appreciate you for who you are.

David Novak 51:28

Well, Yamini, I really enjoyed this conversation and really congratulate you on how you're thinking through your business, centering around the customer and your people and, you know, generating all kinds of innovation. So, congratulations, well done. It's such

Unknown Speaker 51:47

a pleasure.

Yamini Rangan 51:48

I listened to your podcast, I've learned so much from you. And I look forward to meeting you in person one day. But thank you so much for having me join you. And thank you for what you do for leaders in the world.

David Novak 52:12

Well, Yamini has to be one of the most dynamic leaders around I'm so energized just by talking to her. I love her enthusiasm, her bravery and how she's just as comfortable leaning into her strengths as she is opening up about her vulnerabilities. But you know, what I really want to focus on is her sense of focus is Yamini points out, getting focused on what really matters means letting go of what doesn't. So this week, here's what I want you to do. Take a look at what's on your plate and ask yourself, what really, really matters. What can we put more process and discipline around that will really drive the needle, and then drop the things that really don't matter that much. I guarantee if you go through that discipline, you'll be working on the things that will have the biggest impact on your business. And that's really what you want. So do you want to know how leaders lead? Well, we learned today is the great leaders know that fortune favors the focused. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Jim Levine, a world renowned literary agent that's had something to do with many, many of the books you've read, including a couple of mine.

Jim Levine 53:29

We have a set of guiding principles, and we say our mission, our goal is to ignite talent. That's what it's all about for us. You know, that's not just for our clients. It's really for everybody who shows up at work. It's like every day, everybody shows up with a sense that working together, each person is going to become better at it. You know, just by being together. I am so much better in doing what I do when I have a team of people that I'm working with.

David Novak 53:59

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen and while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be

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