Brian Halligan
Senior Advisor @ Sequoia Capital
HubSpot co-founder. Now advises at Sequoia, runs climate fund Propeller Ventures, and teaches at MIT Sloan.
“Brian Halligan co-founded HubSpot, ran it as CEO for about 15 years, and now coaches Sequoia’s fastest-growing founders as their in-house CEO coach.”
Career History
| Company | Role | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Sequoia Capital | Partner / CEO Coach | ~2022-present |
| Propeller Ventures | Founder & Managing Director | 2022-present |
| HubSpot | Co-Founder & CEO (now Executive Chairman) | 2006-2021 |
| MIT Sloan School of Management | Senior Lecturer | ~2010-present |
| Groove Networks (acquired by Microsoft) | VP of Sales | 2000-2004 |
Vault Colleagues
Episodes (1)
Top Topics
Related People
Quotable Clips
“Our hit rate at HubSpot's improved. We also have shrunk the pool of people on that interview panel from eight to four. We just hired a head of product, and there were just four of us that interviewed ...”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“Well, I'm a big sports fan, a big Boston Red... And the Boston Red Sox hadn't won, Lenny, a World Series in 86 years, since they traded Babe Ruth.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“I am a part owner of the Red Sox, yes.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“Yeah. If you look at HubSpot, half the management team are folks who had been there for approximately 150 years, which I like. And same with, you look at Apple, a lot of those people are homegrown.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“Those types of conversations are very tricky and quite unnatural for homo sapiens to have if you're 25 and you've never done anything like that before. So, I see the best ones getting really good at t...”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“[inaudible 00:25:45]. And the reason I break it out is the problems with the kids' table are very different than the problems of the adult table. And they all rhyme, they rhyme a lot.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“Has it ever been easier to start a company? It's so easy-”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“Yeah. And it's hard to learn that. You didn't grow up doing distribution, you don't know. So, they're all learning it, and the ones that learn fast... It's like a learning game, the faster you learn, ...”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“I think both. I think me as a knowledge worker, what I really want as a homo sapien is I have a Delphi clone that I really like.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“They find it on my footer, they can find it on Delphi-”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“It's going to be great, Lenny. You and I are going to be sitting on-”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“We're in Turks and Caicos, relaxing, on a month-long vacation, sending our avatars to all the meetings.”
Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)