Suggestions
Brian Halligan
HubSpot | Sequoia | Propeller Ventures
Brian Halligan is an American entrepreneur, author, and senior advisor at Sequoia Capital, where he mentors startup founders on transitioning into scaleup CEOs. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairperson of HubSpot, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform that he helped grow from a two-person startup in 2006 to a publicly traded company with over 200,000 customers globally. Halligan served as HubSpot's CEO until 2021, stepping down after a snowmobile accident.
Halligan is credited with coining the term "inbound marketing," which revolutionized digital marketing strategies by emphasizing content creation and customer engagement. He co-authored two books: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs and Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead. Beyond HubSpot, he is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, where he teaches entrepreneurial ventures and product development.
In addition to his role at Sequoia Capital, Halligan founded Propeller Ventures, a $100 million climate tech venture fund specializing in ocean innovation. He also serves on the boards of Navier and Aquatic Labs. Halligan holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont and an MBA from MIT Sloan. A passionate fan of the Grateful Dead, Halligan owns Jerry Garcia's iconic "Wolf" guitar and is working on a film about John Perry Barlow's life.1234
Highlights
Every board meeting
- We are growing v fast
- We need to fix gross margins
- We’re behind on enterprise reps
- We’re moving to credits pricing
- We have one pesky competitor
- We’re very worried re Anthropic
If this is you, you have a lot of company.
So many of the companies I see are building the same thing these days.



