Learn how we advertise.go viral.content market.use webinars.get customers.
Follow along with us as we share everything that works and fails to grow Hubstaff.
The Story of Hubstaff
Why We Built Hubstaff: Personal Pain and a Need to Be Free
0 Customers / $0 MRR
The deeply personal story of how Hubstaff came to be and why we do what we do. Includes our core values, why we exist, and where we are going. Must read for anyone that wants to know Hubstaff on a deep level.
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How to Test your Startup Idea Before you Build
0 Customers / $0 MRR
Here’s a quick list of tests to think about before you embark on the long journey of building a startup.
How I Used LinkedIn to Find a Technical Co-Founder
0 Customers / $0 MRR
A breakdown of Dave’s journey of finding and pitching to Hubstaff’s technical co-founder, Jared Brown. Filled with tips and tricks for those seeking a business partner.
First Paying Customer
Acquiring Early Adopters: How Hubstaff Got Its First 25
25 Customers / $1,222 MRR
When we first launched Hubstaff, it was important for us to get feedback on the experience. That’s why we searched far and wide for early users. We tried inbound marketing, reaching out in person, paid ads and more. Here’s what worked and what didn’t.
How we Determine the Real Priorities in our Startup
99 Customers / $3,637 MRR
There are thousands of things to work on. Which tasks get attention vs. the hold button.
Our Big Free Plan Mistake: Why Giving it Away Didn't Work
122 Customers / $5,748 MRR
Read about Hubstaff’s failed attempt at offering a three-user free plan. Learn what we discovered and why we don’t offer it anymore.
High Quality Content: How it helps us automatically drive laser targeted leads
239 Customers / $7,292 MRR
Content marketing keeps our communication efforts laser-focused on quality leads. Learn how we create and leverage the excellent content we showcase to drive leads and get sales.
250 Customers / $7,373 MRR
How to Evaluate Market Size and Pricing
388 Customers / $11,566 MRR
How and why to evaluate market size, product pricing, and your customers BEFORE starting your business.
Investing: Software or marketing?
496 Customers / $14,295 MRR
By late 2014, we had a difficult decision to make: invest in marketing or invest in our software. Ultimately, we decided an investment in software was an investment in our future — and our loyal customer base.
500 Customers / $14,224 MRR
Software that helps us Grow Hubstaff
694 Customers / $20,143 MRR
We use third party software whenever we can. Here are the systems we use and how we use them.
750 Customers / $21,959 MRR
1000 Customers / $29,590 MRR
The Decision to Embrace Revenue Transparency at Hubstaff
1026 Customers / $29,920 MRR
The decision to embrace revenue transparency at Hubstaff was long discussed and extensively analyzed. Ultimately, we decided to go transparent down to the core of our business.
Virtual Employees: How We Find and Hire the Best
1131 Customers / $35,658 MRR
If we’re going to build our virtual startup to $1 million in MRR and beyond, we need to have an all-star team on board. Here’s our process for finding and hiring our awesome virtual team members.
1250 Customers / $40,039 MRR
How We Built and Manage a Successful Remote Company
1,336 Customers / $43,611 MRR
Since the inception of Hubstaff, we understood the kind of team we wanted to create. This post goes over how we built our successful virtual team, management strategies, communication tools and why we think 9 to 5 is dead.
1500 Customers / $47,053 MRR
Paying Independent Contractors
1,592 Customers / $47,176 MRR
Once we started working with independent contractors, it was of the utmost importance to find a solution that allowed us to pay them in a fair and efficient way. Here is what we learned.
Entrepreneurial Mindset: Setting the record straight
1,611 Customers / $47,739 MRR
There are a lot of things I didn’t expect when becoming an entrepreneur. Here are a few unexpected challenges and the mindset I’ve had to develop to get over them.
2000 Customers / $61,329 MRR
The Full Guide to Scaling Your Business with Virtual Assistants
2,186 Customers / $68,404 MRR
I built 3 multi-million dollar businesses with outsourced teams, and in this post, I’m going to lay out exactly how we do it the right way.
2250 Customers / $76,787 MRR
Why Bootstrapping Our Startup Was One of the Best Decisions We Ever Made
2,268 Customers / $77,315 MRR
An in-depth look at why we choose to retain ownership of Hubstaff and remain bootstrapped instead of accepting investment offers.
What I Learned Starting, Buying, and Selling 3 Businesses
2,485 Customers / $86,382 MRR
I don’t care about building a unicorn, and you shouldn’t either. This guide covers what every entrepreneur should know about buying and selling businesses, based on my personal experiences growing businesses to millions in annual revenue.
2500 Customers / $88,261 MRR
Revising Our Social Media Content Strategy Boosted Visits by 230%
2,655 Customers / $94,589 MRR
Thanks to a newly appointed social media manager, our social media profiles went from no-mans-land to center stage.
Building a Content Strategy
2,652 Customers / $95,623 MRR
The Golden Ratio. The Motown sound. Sometimes there’s a hidden formula behind creative success. Instead of leaving it to chance, we created a content strategy to consistently produce great work.
2750 Customers / $98,716 MRR
The Secret of Our Growth: Successful Integration Partnerships
2,959 Customers / $109,000 MRR
Our partners’ successes are our successes. We share how and why we invest so much time to build meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships with our integration partners.
3000 Customers / $112,000 MRR
Building and Scaling a Curated Newsletter
3,020 Customers / $112,000 MRR
Our users deserve to know what we’re up to. That’s why we built a curated newsletter that got us 213 subscribers in the first two months.
Is Paid Acquisition Worth It? Lessons Learned at Hubstaff
3,155 Customers / $117,000 MRR
We’ve experimented across a number of different channels to see what works best for our business. This post contains examples of the campaigns we’ve used, the channels we’ve explored, and the results we’ve generated.
The SaaS Free Trial Is Essential to the Success of Our Startup. Here’s What We’re Doing to Improve It
3,202 Customers / $120,000 MRR
Our free trial has been crucial to the success of our SaaS. We go over what worked to convert our trial users into paying customers.
3250 Customers / $125,000 MRR
Developing Marketing Strategies: The Effective 7-Step Process We Use at Hubstaff
3,286 Customers / $125,000 MRR
Finding the right way to build a sustainable marketing strategy isn’t exactly easy. After some trials and errors we created a proven 7-step system for developing effective marketing strategies.
The Super-Detailed Guide to Setting Up an Editorial Calendar
3,387 Customers / $128,000 MRR
Publishing useful and engaging content is a top priority for marketers from all fields today but nobody said doing it is easy. Learn how to take back control with this detailed guide on how to set up a content calendar.
3500 Customers / $137,000 MRR
Entering the Webinar Wormhole
3,600 Customers / $137,000 MRR
We finally took the leap and became webinar people — but can you blame us? If you want to connect with a large number of prospects of customers online, there’s no better way to do it than with a webinar. Our webinars helped free trial users become 2x more likely to convert.
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How Trust 'Just Happens' Inside Our Remote Team of 25
3,726 Customers / $141,000 MRR
Trust is a common theme when it comes to remote teams but trust in remote teams isn’t really something you build. It’s something that just happens when you focus on putting the right systems in place. Discover how trust just happens for us.
Starting a Successful Podcast
3,773 Customers / $144,023 MRR
Just a year after launching, we hit some impressive milestones with our podcast. We published 57 episodes, saw tens of thousands of downloads, and delivered actionable content to a core segment of our target market.
43 Lessons Learned from Growing Three Startups from Zero to $1M+
3,915 Customers / $152,000 MRR
In this post, I review the most significant lessons I’ve learned from growing three startups from zero to over a million (including Hubstaff).
10886 Customers / $636,008 MRR
Everything You Need to Know About Leading Remote Teams
10,886 Customers / $636,008 MRR
I’ve been leading Hubstaff’s remote team for the past nine years. Here’s what I’ve learned about being an effective remote leader.
A Day in the Life of a Startup CEO
11,500 Customers / $701,357 MRR
My day has changed drastically over the years as we’ve gone from 1 to 86 team members. Some routines I’ve followed since the beginning. Here’s what a day looks like for a startup CEO.
14,000 Customers / $1,001,300 MRR
Startup Ground Zero: What I Wish I Had Known Then
14,500 Customers / $1,086,899 MRR
Now that we’ve reached $1MM in monthly recurring revenue, one of the most common questions I hear is this: If you could start over again, what would you do differently? This article answers that question.
