Approximately one year ago, I was attending an event in Boston called “Inbound,” which is an annual conference held by HubSpot to unite people and agencies from across the globe to celebrate and share new ideas regarding inbound marketing methodologies.
For those of you who may not be familiar with HubSpot, it’s the software my agency uses to build websites and handle our clients’ inbound marketing needs.
When I attended this conference for the first time with my agency I was still relatively new to the world of web development and inbound marketing. The workshops were amazing, the speakers were engaging and the content HubSpot unveiled was revolutionary. The daytime festivities focused on workshops taught by some of the thought leaders in inbound marketing and of the HubSpot platform.
Being a rookie in web development, I intended to find every tech workshop I could so that I could soak up as much knowledge about the HubSpot platform as I possibly could with the hope that I could eventually become a valuable asset to my team.
I looked through the Inbound app that showed the week’s schedule of events and mapped out all of the classes I was interested in attending the night prior.
The event was held in a massive convention center that was several thousand square feet wide and multiple stories high. I had never seen anything like it, especially not in my relatively small home city of Amarillo, Texas!
My boss had mentioned the event would probably have well over 14,000 attendees and that we should be prepared to hustle from workshop to workshop. Boy, was he right! As I sprinted to my first workshop, I encountered a giant flock of HubSpotters and marketers who were trying to enter the same classroom. As the HubSpot employees managing the flow of traffic into the classroom were counting down the available seats, I was just praying I wouldn’t miss this first workshop. “3 left, 2 left, 1 left,” they announced to the line. I missed this workshop by a hair…
The Moment My Faith In HubSpot Was Solidified
As I walked away from the door, I grabbed some complimentary coffee available in the hallway and decided to take a seat on a bench nearby to plan my next steps. I was disappointed I missed my first class, but I was determined to not let this happen again.
As I was waiting outside, a younger gentleman whom I assumed was an attendee sat down next to me and we struck up a conversation about the conference. I mentioned to him that I was a new developer for a small HubSpot Partner agency in Amarillo and that my boss brought us all out to Boston to open my team’s eyes to the HubSpot and inbound marketing culture.
I told this stranger my main goal for the week was to become more familiar with the tech behind HubSpot. This gentleman, whose name was Chris, started telling me about some amazing workshops from the days before the Inbound event that were geared toward developers. Toward the end of our conversation, he offered to send me information about the HubSpot platform. This was fantastic news and made me completely forget the fact that I had missed my workshop.
As the classroom doors in front of us cracked open and the attendees were dismissed, I had to ask Chris which agency he worked for and how he knew so much about HubSpot and web development in general. I was so impressed with not only his depth of knowledge, but also his willingness to share his information with me, who up until that point, was just some random stranger to him. He dropped a bombshell on me and told me that he, in fact, was not there attending the event, but rather he was working it because he was a HubSpot employee.
My mind was blown. Before I was hired at my agency, I noticed just how immersed the agency was in HubSpot; after my conversation with Chris, I understood why. My first interaction with a HubSpot employee couldn’t have gone any better. It was at that moment that I understood how fortunate my team was to be using a platform like HubSpot. I always knew the software was great and improving all of the time. But the fact their employees are so willing to go the extra mile to help out fellow marketers and developers is something that is almost impossible to find in any other company of a comparable size.
HubSpot Developer Day 2016
Fast-forward to a week ago at HubSpot’s Developer Day, where I would meet up with Chris and several other developers from HubSpot and from around the world.
I’ve had a year to play around with HubSpot and I’m loving virtually everything I’ve seen from it so far. My boss decided to send me out to Developer Day this year because we always knew there were some amazing features we haven’t been able to fully utilize yet because I just didn’t quite understand how to implement them. I knew if I attended this event that focused solely on HubSpot developers, I would gain better insight into how other developers were creatively using the platform.
The workshops were all in one room and because all of the attendees were required to purchase tickets beforehand, we were all guaranteed spots in the classroom. This meant no sprinting for me!
The classroom where this event was being held was located within HubSpot’s main headquarters. This place was insane! Just to gain entrance into the offices I had to type information into a touchscreen, which would then send information to someone from the HubSpot staff to come let us in.
The place was massive, but had a fun and cozy feel to it. There were accents of HubSpot’s signature orange color decorating different parts of the office. A brief and accidental detour allowed me to see their cool coffee bar, beer garden and ping pong room.
I’ve suggested some of these office upgrades to my boss back home but I’ve yet to hear back from him regarding the matter…
The workshops were everything I had hoped they would be. There were presentations from HubSpot employees detailing creative ways and best practices for using HubSpot’s programming language. There were also workshops taught by high-level HubSpot partners that shed light on their unique processes and techniques.
Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot’s CTO and co-founder, also made an appearance to break some amazing news about some new features that will be coming soon to HubSpot. I met him briefly at Inbound last year and I also see his face every time I create a custom module in HubSpot, but this was the first time that I was able to have a real conversation with him. There was so much information presented throughout the day that I almost couldn’t keep up with my notes.
Although I enjoyed everything about Developer Day, my favorite part came at the end when all of us were able to chat as a big group during happy hour in the beer garden. I met some incredible developers and was able to have some fascinating conversations with many of them at this happy hour.
One developer who really impressed me was Patrick O’Neal from Web Canopy Studio, who had given a presentation during one of the workshops. Although he mentioned to me the lecture he gave was the first time he had ever presented anything in front of a large group of people, I thought that he did an excellent job of teaching us about how he came up with cool ways to use HubSpot’s programming language, Hubl.
He and his teammates John and Ryan were incredibly gracious and helpful and just like so many others within the HubSpot community, they were more than willing to share their knowledge with all who wanted to listen. I also spoke to people like Mike Del Cuore and Michelle Villalobos from Revenue River Marketing. Mike was so kind and engaging and Michelle had a story that really resonated with me because we both took similar paths to get to where we are today. Both of them offered some business tips without asking for anything in return and I hope to meet up with them again someday.
Developer Day, Inbound, and all of the other events HubSpot hosts are microcosms of the inbound movement and HubSpot culture in general. If you haven’t noticed, there is a trend to all of the experiences that I’ve had during my time using HubSpot.
That trend is the sharing of knowledge and willingness to help others grow. Although there may be some friendly rivalries, each and every one of us in the HubSpot community understands that the community will only grow when we share ideas with each other. As one of the developers eloquently put it after I asked him why he was so willing to share his secret techniques, “We share our knowledge without hesitation, because we believe that there is enough success to go around for all of us.”
If you enjoyed this blog or if your company needs help telling its story please subscribe, leave a comment below, or email me at jim@getroionline.com. If you’d like to read more of my musings regarding the importance of conferences please check out my other blog post, “4 Professional & Personal Benefits of Attending a Conference.”
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