--- title: 3 Observations from 3 Months at HubSpot description: A new hire's observations from 3 months at HubSpot. image: https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2667498325.jpg --- # Tech In Boston Blog ## [3 Observations from 3 Months at HubSpot](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/3-months-at-hubspot) [fa icon="calendar"] Mar 25, 2015 3:40:00 PM / by [Dave Gerhardt](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/author/dave-gerhardt) ![](https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2318924860.jpg?width=35&name=file-2318924860.jpg) - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) ![hubspot-office](https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2667498325.jpg) I'm coming up on three months at HubSpot and wanted to share a few observations from my first 100 or so days. ## Goals and Metrics Everyone has goals and metrics specific to their team and day-to-day job.  And these goals aren't fluffy like "drive more adoption of product X" or "run two webinars/month."  They are real, quantifiable goals.  This starts on day one when your manager gives you your 100 Day Plan, which is a document that has all of the things you need to get done in your first 100 days on the job -- similar to getting onboarded with a new product.   The plan has everything from a list of people you should meet for coffee and articles you should read, all the way up to job-specific goals.  Bloggers have traffic goals.  Campaign marketers have lead goals.  The PR team has a goal for number of media mentions.  My goals -- for example -- were 20,000 podcast downloads, getting featured in iTunes New & Noteworthy, and have a backlog of 5 recorded episodes.  Clear goals and metrics go a long way in giving everyone a purpose at work and a real sense of what success looks like.  ## Dog Food Depending on where you've worked, this one might be surpising: HubSpot uses their own product to do their marketing. The term for this is [dogfooding](http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldefranco/2014/03/04/not-eating-your-own-dog-food-you-probably-should-be-2/) -- which is a ridiculous name, btw -- but the impact is real.  This means that the product's biggest customers are right in the building.  If you're a product manager or developer at HubSpot, you don't even have to leave the building to talk to customers.  How's that for customer development Steve Blank? Similar to having goals and metrics, this product usage starts on day one.  All new hires goes through product training and there's a project as part of that training where you need buy a domain, transfer it, create a website, learn about on-page SEO, conduct keyword research, write blog posts, set up landing pages, create offers and and set up a drip campaign -- regardless of what your role will be inside of the company.  ## Testing and Teaching From the monthly Inside Marketing meeting where a few people on the team share expiriments and new approaches they tested that month to the product team's science fair, HubSpot has created a culture where everyone is testing and teaching. As long as you learn something, it's OK to fail.  This is the part of the company (well outside of the kegs and sneakers) that still feels like a startup.  If you present an idea to someone, more often than not the response is "Sure. Let's test it." ## **Others Receiving Votes* ** *Because I picked 3 months and everyone loves list posts, I obviously could only write 3 observations.  Here are a few others receiving votes: **Results matter way more than time spent in the office**. Work from home, take a half day, doesn't matter as long as you're GSD. **Use good judgement.**  This is the motto that guides everyone's decisions at HubSpot, and I think it works and says a lot about the culture.  Should you expense that Uber? Use good judgement.  Should you take Friday off and go to the beach? Use good judgement (aka is what you needed to get done done?) **Transparency, even as a public company**.  I wasn't here before, so I don't have a full view, but the transparency here has been eye opening (and a common theme among a lot of today's top software companies. **Editor's Note** I've been following the company since I started working in the Boston tech/startup world post-graduation in 2009, so these are mostly things that I didn't know about the company coming in. *Random sidenote that's probably only interesting to me*: My first day at my first real job ([LPP](http://www.lpp.com/)) was October 20, 2009 so I wanted to see where HubSpot was then.  Looked it up and on October 19, 2009, HubSpot just [announced their $16M Series C](http://www.hubspot.com/blog/bid/5176/HubSpot-Closes-16-Million-Series-C-Financing). Topics: [HubSpot](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/hubspot) ![Dave Gerhardt](https://470553.hs-sites.com/hs-fs/hub/470553/file-2318924860.jpg?width=100&height=100&name=file-2318924860.jpg) #### Written by [Dave Gerhardt](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/author/dave-gerhardt) [[fa icon="twitter-square"]](https://twitter.com/davegerhardt) ### Never miss a new blog post ### Posts by Topic - [Startups (7)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/startups) - [Hiring (3)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/hiring) - [Marketing (3)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/marketing) - [Ideas (2)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/ideas) - [Account Management (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/account-management) - [HubSpot (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/hubspot) - [Podcast (1)](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/topic/podcast) [see all](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/3-months-at-hubspot#) ### Recent Posts #### More Links #### Contact Dave [fa icon="envelope"]  david.a.gerhardt at gmail Copyright 2014 | Designed with [fa icon="heart"] by [HubSpot](http://www.hubspot.com) [[fa icon="chevron-up"]](http://470553.hs-sites.com/blog/3-months-at-hubspot#)