Building and Growing a Media Network Inside a SaaS Company - with Rob Litterst, Head of Growth HubSpot Media Network

**Ray Wright** (0:00)
Hello, I'm Ray Wright, Founder and CEO of Benchmarkit, and your host of the Metrics at Measure Up podcast. We talked to a wide variety of the top B2B SaaS and Cloud thought leaders, CEOs, executives, investors, and people just like you to discuss the metrics and benchmarks they use to make metrics informed and benchmark validated decisions. Now, on to today's show.
Welcome to today's episode of the Metrics It Measure Up Podcast. Today, I am joined by Rob Litterst, Head of Growth at the HubSpot Media Network. We'll be covering three primary topics today with Rob. First, the vision for building a media asset within a B2B SaaS company. Second, measuring the business impact of building that internal media asset. And third, Rob's lessons learn from growing the HubSpot Media Network. So with that, Rob, would you take a moment to give a brief overview of your journey to becoming a guest here on the Metrics at Measure Up podcast?

**Rob Litterst** (1:13)
Absolutely. So I started my career in SaaS back in 2012 as a business development rep for HubSpot. So I started on the sales side, was in sales at HubSpot for about four years and got the startup bug and jumped to a couple of startups, then wanted to do something a little bit more strategic. And I found a company called ProfitWell that was doing pricing consulting for SaaS companies. I fell in love with it during the interview, just had to work there. And so I was a SaaS pricing consultant for about three years at ProfitWell. Along the way, I started a substack called Good Better Best about SaaS pricing strategy, built up a modest audience and a few of the people that were actually reading the newsletter were the managing editor and head writer for The Hustle. And they had reached out and asked if I had any interest in writing for The Hustle a few times. And the first few times, I kind of brushed them off because I was happy to profit well and wasn't really looking for a change. But they came back after The Hustle got acquired by HubSpot and made a really compelling pitch to kind of build this media company within this B2B SaaS company. And I thought it sounded super interesting. I also always kind of wanted to see what it was like to write for a living. And so for about two years, I was writing The Hustle, became managing editor, and eventually an opening came up on the growth side to run the newsletter network, which I did for a little while. And now these days, I'm actually running newsletters, YouTube, podcasts, and blog growth for HubSpot Media. So it's been an awesome journey, and we've learned a ton along the way.

**Ray Wright** (2:46)
Benchmarkit conducts original benchmarking research programs in partnership with leading B2B SaaS companies, including Gainsight, SalesLoft, LeanData, Pavilion, Pendo, CloudZero, and Xactly. Our original benchmarking programs result in a compelling content marketing asset in the form of both a report and interactive benchmarking portal that engages executive buyers to see how their internal performance metrics and processes measure up to their light company cohort. Our partners report that our original benchmarking research programs are a top-producing content marketing asset as measured by downloads, target buyer engagement, and executive buyer awareness. If you would like to learn more about how you can partner with BenchMarket to conduct an original benchmarking research program that increases awareness and engagement with your economic buyers, send an email to Ray at benchmarket.ai. That's Ray at BenchMarket with an it.ai. Was Mark Roberge at HubSpot when you were there, or was that after your tenure?

**Rob Litterst** (3:50)
He was the head of sales when I started. I think for the first few years, a guy named Hunter Madley came in midway through my first tenure and kind of like led our sales work to the next level. But Mark was awesome. Love him. He's actually involved with HubSpot Media too. We work with him on Science of Scaling, a podcast that he's doing.

**Ray Wright** (4:11)
Well, it's interesting. Mark Roberge and Patrick Campbell, the Founder CEO of ProfitWell before they were acquired by Patil, both have been my guests here at Metrics Major Up. So you're in good company, Rob.

**Rob Litterst** (4:22)
I'm in great company. I love Patrick. He's one of my favorites. I loved working for him.

**Ray Wright** (4:27)
I still remember when I heard HubSpot bought The Hustle. And I think it was public knowledge that it was a pretty big deal, right? I think mid 20 million dollars. And it was a newsletter primarily. So I have to ask, what's the high level vision that HubSpot has for building this media network?