Dave Barron is a high velocity HubSpot revenue leader who has been to the far reaches of the GTM universe. I don’t know anything about the odds of Dave’s ability to survive on a deserted island but with a laptop, internet connection, and whiteboard he has Bear Grylls-like abilities to parachute into markets and build bonfires from scratch.
He grew up locally in the Boston area and admits he didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his life. Welcome to the club, Dave. He set off for James Madison down in Virginia where he majored in Management, Technology Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. A self described average student and generally bored, the fire hadn’t yet been lit. He worked at a hardware store, waited tables, and interned at a pharmaceutical company hopping across departments and doing some BDR work making cold calls to set appointments for the sales team.
One professor suggested he go check out a Lean Startup event up in D.C. where he met Kevin May, a future business partner. There were embers! After school, he went back to the same pharmaceutical company where he interned. He did ride alongs with the field reps for a couple weeks before he was launched into the field himself to sell. A fresh college grad, he was traveling across Alabama and Mississippi trying to build relationships.
Showing up to the same doctors offices for weeks on end, trying to access decision makers, he learned some of those early valuable sales skills. One mentor taught him a timeless lesson he still uses today that, when you go visit (or call on) a prospect, imagine a stack of papers on their desk. Try to remove one piece of paper (or problem) from their pile.
Dave ended up moving to Virginia to try his hand working in technology. He partnered with Kevin May, who he met at that startup event in D.C., on a new agency as their Project & Product Manager. His first task? Flying to Poland to meet the Engineering team. At GenB he built websites, mobile apps, and worked with government agencies. He learned how software was built, interfacing with engineers all day every day. He learned he loved building things.
Eventually it was time to move back to Boston to be closer to family. With his outside sales experience he landed at private equity backed SmartBear as a renewal manager. He worked on behalf of six product lines building their renewal program and also spent time on their Sales team too.
In early 2014, HubSpot reached out to him. They were building a new CRM, with a freemium approach, and were looking for sellers who also understood the product. This team would function as a startup within HubSpot and Mark Roberge would be leading the team and managing this role. To Dave, Mark was the sales leader in Boston. This was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
He started in September 2015, just a few weeks before their October IPO. When he signed his offer letter, he remembers receiving his shares and thinking “shares in what?” You’re not the only one there either, Dave. He still has his mini bottle of IPO champagne on his office bookshelf.
Over his first two years, as HubSpot learned how to be a public company, Dave and his team were hunkered down in a basement building a separate product. He was on a seriously talented team now referred to as the “Signals Mafia”, building HubSpot’s Sales Hub. In addition to Mark Roberge leading the revenue efforts, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) was their growth marketer. They were one of the first teams in software, many of whom have gone on to do some seriously impressive things, trying to figure out a freemium sales motion through “product qualified leads”. What is now more commonly known today as PLG (product led growth). Shoutout to Kyle Poyar at OpenView here in Boston and this co-authored post with Dave here.
How did they get Signals (Sales Hub) off the ground? They called free users to figure out their discovery script. The Product team created mock ups and Dave would present them to customers, tweaking between calls. 40% of his time wasn’t even spent selling, just building alongside them. His product & project experience working with the agency engineering team in Poland paid off in a big way.
Dave became a Top 3 rep in revenue at HubSpot globally selling a $50 product. He thinks he sold 400+ logos personally in 2016 and the team sold 964 (!!) that year. They would race through half hour calls, do discovery and a demo, and then close. Rinse, repeat. The average deal size was $150 MRR for 10-15 person businesses.
Dave learned that his brain works best in high velocity, analytical selling environments. The big, long enterprise sales cycles just aren’t for him. By doing 10 calls per day you can get pretty good, pretty fast at the quickest paths to closing. He led a team of AEs before the business line was integrated into the broader HubSpot platform.
With Sales Hub launched, he made it known that if they were going to do it again he wanted to be a part of it. Dave shared “you need to be the squeaky wheel and specific about what you want. And you only get that opportunity if you perform at the highest level of the job you’re currently in”.
He got that opportunity and took a new role in Product, working on the Commercialization of HubSpot’s Service Hub, leading their sales & marketing strategy. He wrote emails, wrote website copy, and led the team all the way through a successful launch to $30M+ ARR.
He wasn’t done. Next, he was a part of the team that launched Operations Hub, their BI tooling service, and also the fastest growing product in HubSpot history. The power of a platform, right??
Today Dave works in Central Operations & Corporate Strategy as an overlay to the revenue teams, working in the research phase of “Horizon 2” products – projects that are a bit farther out from commercialization.
Dave understands that his career at HubSpot is about luck, timing, and working with a world class engineering team. If he didn’t sit next to two future HubSpot Chief Product Officers, his career would be very different. Building new product lines is a big part of how they continue to grow the business, stay creative, and keep proving it. Every day.
Product Market Fit – A Combination of Great Product & the Right People
Dave is a big believer that the overarching solution to most problems, at least in technology, is product market fit. “It solves all your problems, hard stop”. HubSpot has challenges that all businesses have. But because it has such strong product & engineering teams building in the right market, they continue to see success. Being a part of the company building process that already has product market fit is one of the most important things to having a long career (with a good financial outcome too).
Ok, sure we know product market fit is important. Build things people want and all that stuff. But what does that mean for someone looking to have a career like Dave?
Great Product
For a great product, it’s about simplicity. Whether you’re selling to enterprises or individuals, find products (and companies) that create great consumer experiences.
- Use It! – Is it easy to use? Delightful? Talk to customers. Get NPS feedback. Listen to sales calls if you can! Is the seller really fighting to get the deals or does it sound pretty natural?
- Social Signals – search hashtags on Twitter, read reviews, and see what other content is online about their product(s)
Finding the Right People
Sales is all about people. It’s about committing to training and upskilling all the time. It’s about building a diverse team, not just in looks but personality too in order to uplevel your culture. To create really high performing teams it helps to find the people or “something” you don’t already have.
From a revenue perspective, it helps to pair personalities to personas. When you’re bringing on people and training them, it really helps to think about who they’re selling to and bringing on the right people who have different perspectives to uplevel your team to new heights.
Career Insights / Learnings
- Working Hard Still Worth It – “There is a time to work hard, especially early in your career. Showing up, doing the work, grinding, and being passionate about what you do is important to early career success”
- Build Relationships – “You have to build your network. You have to help people across departments in your business, being curious about what they’re working on and trying to help. That helps you build your brand and do your job more effectively because you’re more aware of the bigger picture. Externally, talk to people who are doing your job or are 5-10 years ahead of you. Helping the people behind you is just as important too!
Dave is going to be at HubSpot as long as he’s working with people smarter than him on gnarly, curious problems where he can keep learning. He’s lucky enough to be in an environment where there is no shortage of any of those things! Ultimately, Dave could see himself leading a revenue organization. But for now, look for him to continue working on new spokes of the HubSpot platform, spreading orange to the far reaches of the Internet…and beyond.
If you want to learn more about Dave, you can check him out on LinkedIn or at HubSpot’s upcoming September INBOUND conference. Thanks for sharing. Excited to see the Horizon 2 products you’re researching impact the HubSpot ecosystems in the coming years!