Last Thursday, marketing software company HubSpot acquired Performable. Read the coverage.
As a result of the transaction, Performable CEO David Cancel has become Chief Product Officer of HubSpot. He spoke to AdExchanger.com about his new role and the implications of the deal.
AdExchanger.com: Generally speaking, why did this feel like the right time to look to a strategic partner/acquirer for Performable?
DC: We actually weren’t looking for a strategic partner, it wasn’t an idea we were entertaining at the time. We were in the middle of closing a pre-emptive Series B round when the offer came in. In the end it came down to choosing between being acquired and one of the series B offers we had.
What is the challenge ahead that intrigues you with HubSpot?
We both shared a similar vision: to become the leading Internet marketing platform – to create the SalesForce.com for Marketing. We also shared a similar data-driven culture and the desire to create a company that outlived us all, something we could look back at one day and be proud to have built.
The opportunity we have is massive. It’s a space where billions are spent each year with very little accountability. To transform the way businesses and customers communicate with each other is something that excites us everyday. We have close to 5000 customers today. Having 100s of 1000s of customers is something I believe we can do in short order. We believe we are the second fastest growing SaaS company behind SalesForce.com.
The entire Performable team including our interns have come over to HubSpot. The quality of our team, especially our product team, was the #1 reason we were acquired. Our sales and marketing team have joined HubSpot’s phenomenal sales and marketing machine. Our product and engineering team is now leading their R & D team.
As Chief Product Officer at Hubspot, how will you manage your own responsibilities with a HubSpot team that has clearly had a vision for its product for quite some time?
I have a great job ahead of me, to integrate our innovative marketing automation (middle of the funnel) platform with their market leader inbound marketing (top of the funnel) platform. Together we believe we will create the best B2B marketing software platform in the market today.
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Finally, in 10 words or less for each, please share something that you learned from your experiences at Compete, Lookery, Ghostery and Performable?
- Compete – know your customers, give away your data for free, teach through data.
- Lookery – too early is still wrong, providing awesome customer service wins customers, ad networks aren’t early adopters.
- Ghostery – communities are a competitive advantage, privacy is a big deal even in the age of Facebook.
- Performable – solve customer problems, customer service is a true competitive advantage, engineers who talk to customers daily build the best products
By John Ebbert
