The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

15HubSpot's Most Successful Sales Experiments

In an attempt to illustrate the impact of sales experiments, let me walk through two very successful examples we ran at HubSpot. One example is a go-to-market experiment. The other is a sales methodology experiment.

The HubSpot Value Added Reseller (VAR) Program

In the fall of 2007, I hired Pete Caputa as HubSpot's fourth salesperson. Like me, Pete was a nontraditional sales hire. He was an engineer by training. He was coming from a small startup, where he'd been CEO. He had some solid sales training under his belt.

Only a few months into the job, Pete became extraordinarily passionate about starting a VAR program. Up to that point, we had been acquiring 100 percent of our business through a direct sales model, calling on the inbound leads from our website and converting them into customers. Pete envisioned a new sales channel. He wanted to focus on all of the small marketing agencies, web design shops, and SEO consultants that were following the HubSpot story. He believed we could convince these organizations to resell our software.

Prior to Pete's arrival, we had considered a VAR program. In fact, we had even experimented with the program with a large reseller. I find that most start-ups consider selling through resellers as an attractive starting point. Rather than invest in the hiring and management of a large direct sales force, wouldn't it be great to just get someone else to do it for you?

For most early start-ups, this approach ...