This is What it Takes to Become Product Led—According to HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar

Kristin Hillery

August 19, 2020

So you want to become a product-led organization. We love to see it.

Knowing that this is nowhere near as simple as flipping a switch, the question is: Where do you even begin?

On the newest episode of the BUILD Podcast, host Blake Bartlett posed this question to HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar, whose team drives top-of-funnel demand for their world-class B2B marketing software. Using an example of a 15-year-old company that’s never had a self-service product and wants to evolve in the direction of product led growth, Blake asked Kipp to share his best piece of advice.

Kipp’s answer: You have to create a space for product led growth. Going all-in all at once just won’t work—too much change too soon will result in failure.

“The antibodies are going to reject it. Everybody in your organization is used to doing things a different way,” explained Kipp. “So you have to carve it out. Put dedicated people on it until it’s big enough that the antibodies can’t reject it and force it out, and it becomes your business. And then you merge everything back together.”

As Blake responded in the episode, this might mean creating a startup within your organization whose mission is to completely reinvent the company.

Kipp had a whole lot more to say about the secret to collaboration between marketing and growth, and how a self-service journey fundamentally changes B2B marketing. Listen to the entire conversation now and then subscribe so you never miss another episode.

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Managing Editor<br>OpenView

Kristin joined OpenView after spending over four years at InVision managing their Inside Design publication and helping build brand love as chief storyteller, lead producer and editor. Before InVision, she co-founded the digital strategy agency Four Kitchens, spent several years in the restaurant industry as a chef, and was Editor-in-Chief of the nation’s largest college humor publication, the Texas Travesty, as an undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin.