I had the opportunity to visit the HubSpot offices in Cambridge, Mass. the other week.  As I was leaving the building, the thought came to mind that, from a business model perspective, I may have just walked out of the next Salesforce.com.  A variety of parallels immediately jumped into my mind.

Creation of a New Category

Over eleven years ago, Salesforce.com created the category of what was then known as Software as a Service or SaaS.  HubSpot has created the category of Inbound Marketing.  To Salesforce.com’s credit, they also created an entire industry.

A Platform for Sales Growth

Both companies developed a platform that helps companies sell more stuff.  Salesforce originally did it by better organizing sales efforts and sales execution, and has since expanded into other areas.  HubSpot is doing it by attracting more site visitors and generating more leads.  In fact, the two applications are complementary — there’s a bi-directional integration available on Salesforce’s appexchange.

Widespread Appeal

Just as almost any company that sells a product or service needs CRM, almost any company that sells a product or service needs ways to generate more leads.  Just as Salesforce hosts mom and pop shops on the same instance as companies with thousands of users, HubSpot can address companies of all sizes.  For a small company on the Small version, use of HubSpot’s Content Management System (CMS) is required.  However, larger companies can leverage just specific parts of HubSpot’s offering without having to move their entire site to HubSpot’s CMS.

A Substitute for the Normal Way of Doing Things

Salesforce disrupted the client/server computing world and HubSpot is disrupting the traditional way of managing Web sites and content.  There remains a very large number of companies that have beautiful Web sites with virtually no marketing effectiveness.  HubSpot is disrupting the traditional “glamor site” approach and can even tell you why beauty isn’t necessary.

“Seems Expensive”, But Isn’t Really

To a lot of the marketplace, Salesforce.com initially “seemed expensive”.  When a company could purchase a contact manager for a one time cost of $150, an ongoing annual subscription of many times this amount felt, well, expensive.  However, when companies started to look at the costs of the underwater part of “iceberg” of traditional systems and the benefits provided by Salesforce, it stopped seeming so expensive.  Plus, Salesforce upped the ante on end-user engagement and training, which made their application even more effective than traditional ones and further justified the cost.

When a company can host a Web site for almost free and plug in or access a bunch of free resources, why spend thousands of dollars every year for HubSpot?   The argument is similar to what it was for Salesforce.  There are a large number of soft costs just below the water’s surface when a company’s marketers try to consolidate, manage and understand all the components of an effective Web presence by themselves.  Components such as: keyword research; Web analytics; site visitor tracking; blog setup and maintenance; social media integration; drip marketing; and landing pages with forms that feed into — yes — Salesforce.com.  Just as Salesforce better educated users and administrators on the effective use of CRM, HubSpot provides a deep education to customers on all the components related to “being found”.

Massive Marketing Reach

Both companies have a huge marketing reach.  As a younger company, Salesforce.com almost perfectly leveraged the marketing channels of the day.  HubSpot, by simply eating their own caviar (“dog food” has become overworked), is doing a phenomenal job of leveraging today’s marketing channels, including blogging, video and social media.

A Strong Sales Team

When a company has created a new category, has an excellent platform with proven benefits, and has a huge marketing reach, that just leaves two things — closing new business and retaining customers.  Salesforce grew quickly by hiring a large and talented sales team.  They made their application very sticky, so that there’s little motivation for a customer to leave.  All indications are that HubSpot is following suit on both fronts.

Growing a Channel and Creating Alliances

Both companies spent the first few years getting their internal house in order and then turned to the channel for value add.  Both companies continue to sell deals only through their own account executives, but both look to the channel for consulting, integration and other values adds.

Count me in as a fan and hopefully as a participant.  This is going to be a fun story to watch.