🤘🤘 Why HubSpot's Clearbit Acquisition Is a Strategic Masterstroke

Howdy!

In this week’s newsletter, I am looking into:

• Why Clearbit is Hubspot’s most exciting acquisition to date

• Goldman Sach’s secret to partnerships, deals, and introductions

• Email Course: 7-Days to Competitive Enablement Program

Lezzgo!

Dejan - @dgajsek

Hubspot’s Thirst for Data Enrichment

It’s hard not to be impressed by Hubspot’s acquisition choices.

I’ve already fawned over the acquisition of The Hustle back in 2019 (read it here), but the big news today is Clearbit.

What does Clearbit do?

Clearbit is most known as data enrichment software.

I’ve been using the free version since 2016 and even back then it was known as one of the category leaders in business intelligence (at least for SMBs).

Clearbit helps businesses enrich customer records with over 100+ firmographic, demographic, and technographic data points from public and private data sources including social profiles, company websites, crowdsourcing, and more.

According to Clearbit’s Press Release the company has a database of 400,000 users and “robust data” (whatever that means) across 20 million companies and 500,000 million decision-makers.

Similar to The Hustle, Clearbit had some genius virality loops within their product.

Back in 2015, you could reveal someone’s email address and get basic information about a company. Imagine it as a lightweight Crunchbase report.

This already sounds really interesting tech for Hubspot and they didn’t hide their interest.

In 2019, Hubspot acquired PieSync — a lesser, indie version of Clearbit. Similar to Clearbit, PieSynch was a cloud-based data synchronization platform that allowed users to sync their contact lists and data across multiple devices and platforms.


But it’s been a little hodge-podgy. Clearbit could do all that plus extra.

PieSync was sunsetted in 2021.

 (funny world, sunset - it always gives me an image of Mario from Mario Kart driving into a sunset or a cowboy from Spaghetti Western riding out towards the sun.

How is Clearbit going to help Hubspot

The biggest leverage in B2B is context. The more clarity you can bring to the new prospect (or old one) the more chances you have to connect and establish a good relationship.

If you can get this in real-time this creates a huge competitive advantage.

I’m sure you’re just like me, deleting all the dry cold emails that are taking space in your inbox.

Most of them have:

• zero context

• are obviously mass produced

• try to sell you as fast as possible

But when you get a pitch from someone that actually looked at your website, read your recent content, and created a personalized outreach based on your industry, you’ve been impressed by it.

So long so, you’ve at least read it (and save it in your swipe file for inspiration).

Clearbit will be able to do this on the B2B company level - it will shortcut the time and path to relationship which is (and will become more important in the AI-rich space) a pre-requisite for a good sales call.

Another Huge List of Users… and its Data

With an acquisition of The Hustle, Hubspot got access to 1.5 million engaged users that fit its Ideal Customer Profile, a playbook on how to grow even further, and a free advertising channel.

By buying Clearbit, Hubspot got the technology that they can embed in their product, but also their “list of users”.

With an acquisition a buying company gets:

• access to a bigger market share

• hands on the product IP

• skilled workers

• and its customer base

• eat the competition

Since Clearbit isn’t a competitor, the primary move looks like a Hubspot’s main product enhancement first, and new users second.

The Main Benefit

In the book Eat Their Launch, the author Anthony Iannarino shares two wisdom nuggets.

All things being equal (product-wise), the relationship wins every time.

All things being unequal, the relationship also wins most of the time.

That’s why I’m such a big fan of this acquisition. The speed-to-context and quality information should lead to more qualified sales calls, more opportunities, and more closed-won deals.

In combination with Hunbpsot AI solutions, this could be a huge competitive advantage if done right.

Goldman’s Sachs 15 minutes Rule

I’ve never worked for a massive consultancy but I’ve listened to enough personal stories from ex-employees that the environment is often hard-hustle and dog-eat-dog place.

Which makes sense. The brand name carries so much weight that getting to a deal is expected from everyone in the company just based on that.

In the My First Million Interview with Sarah Moore - an entrepreneur who bought a company with no money and raised it to a multimillion company, she shared one secret that gives you an insight into Goldman Sachs’ culture and success.

This secret isn’t written anywhere.

It’s a 15-minute response time.

You have to respond to an email in 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Are you having a baby? 15 minutes

• Running a marathon? 15 minutes

• Are you at a funeral? 15minutes

• Taking a shower? 15 minutes

Now, I know that this sounds crazy (and I agree with you) but this is still an interesting story that creates a difference in the business world.

It’s the embodiment of the Time Kills All Deals heuristic.

Toxic? Hell yeah.

Unreasonable? Definitely.

A perfect recipe for burnout and some sort of business PTSD? You bet.

But that’s how it is.

Other companies have their own "unreasonable" practices that are much more mental health friendly:

• Zappos has a 365-day no-questions-asked return policy

• Starbucks offers a free drink if it's not perfect

• Patagonia has their Ironclad Guarantee repair service

• The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. allows their employees to spend up to $2,000 to solve a customer problem without approval

Once the product quality isn't a differentiating factor, the customer service and relationships are.

What makes you different?

Email Course: 7-Days to Competitive Enablement Program

I’ve put together an email course on how to get started with competitive intelligence and enablement.

90% of Fortune 500 companies are using this strategy to stay ahead and keep tabs on what’s going on with competitors.

If you want to try to establish a CI program in your organization, then sign up for this 7-day email course, where you’ll learn how to do this step-by-step.

It’s free.

Sign up here.

Have a wonderful week!

🤘🤘

d.

Lay it On Me

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