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The HubSpot Culture Code: Creating a Company We Love

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

Case Studies  |  Marketing  |  Best Practices

My friends over at HubSpot published a deck on Slideshare called The HubSpot Culture Code: Creating a Company We Love.

The presentation deck started out as an internal document years ago (it doubles as the company handbook). As a company who values transparency (and inbound marketing), they decided to share it with the community as a manifesto.

As I write this, it has generated a remarkable 384,000 views in just one month!

I have seen the HubSpot culture up close since I joined the company's advisory board in 2007. It is an absolute joy to walk into their ever expanding offices in Cambridge, MA. The energy and enthusiasm is everywhere. People love their work and it shows.

An organizational culture is a critically important factor that drives marketing and HubSpot proves that. The company now has about 9,000 customers and over 460 people work at the company. When I joined the advisory board it was less than 100 customers and about a dozen people worked there. Their growth rate makes HubSpot the fastest growing company in Massachusetts. They’ve raised over $100 million in venture capital to fund continued growth, having recently opened a European headquarters in Dublin.

Most senior management teams either completely ignore culture, or they try to force something unnatural onto people. Worse, some executives say one thing ("we love our employees") but their actions show something completely different.

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot co-founder, wrote about the HubSpot Culture Code in his blog. Included in the post, are some highlights:

1) Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.

2) Whether you like it or not, you're going to have a culture. Why not make it one you love?

3) Solve For The Customer -- not just their happiness, but also their success.

4) Power is now gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.

5) "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

6) You shouldn't penalize the many for the mistakes of the few.

7) Results should matter more than when or where they are produced.

8) Influence should be independent of hierarchy.

9) Great people want direction on where they're going -- not directions on how to get there.

10) "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."

11) We'd rather be failing frequently than never trying.

Check out the deck and see what has been behind HubSpot’s success.