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Who he is: Chief technology officer and founder of HubSpot Inc., where he heads up HubSpot Labs, which developed the company’s social media applications.
Track record: Founded Pyramid Digital Solutions Inc., which sold to SunGard Data Systems.
Education: M.S., MIT Sloan School of Management; B.S., University of Alabama Birmingham.
What makes him tick: He isn’t the typical brash, outgoing entrepreneur. He looks at the world with what he calls a “pragmatic passion,” being neither overly optimistic, nor overly pessimistic.
Looking back: People he went to high school with in India would be surprised at his career choice. “I would have probably been voted least likely to start a business.”
Shah the investor: Besides his pride in his startups, he’s proud of his track record as an investor. As of September he’d made 11 investments in startups, including Twitter app store OneForty Inc. He’ also invested in LifeStream Backup, a company that backs up your social networking activity; and Shareaholic, which makes a plugin that lets users share web content across their social networks. “It’s really fun to live vicariously through entrepreneurs,” he said.
And Shah the author: Shah and HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan wrote the newly released “Inbound Marketing: Get Found in Google, Blogs and Social Media.” In his usual writing routine of blogging at OnStartups.com he gets incremental, constant feedback. Not so with the book. “You’re off in a dark corner for months,” he said.
Mentorship: When Shah was starting Hubspot, he asked Constant Contact CEO (and 2009 MHT All-Star) Gail Goodman to discuss his plans for the startup. Goodman was generous with her time, even though she had no idea who he was. She even toook a board seat.
On Dharmesh Shah, from Gail Goodman:
Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman said someone she respected — she couldn’t recall who — must have introduced her to Shah and his co-founder, HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, otherwise she likely wouldn’t have taken the meeting.
First Impressions:
“What was clear was they were going to get there or die trying,” she said.
Goodman, who sits on the company’s board, said Shah stood out as a driven technical entrepreneur with a good understanding of the customer.
She did remember the pair being smart and energetic, with an impressive toy to show off — HubSpot’s Website Grader.
During Shah’s demo of Website Grader, Goodman noticed the tool returned a full report without asking any information of the user. She suggested a tweak — the product should ask for an email address and send the full report later. Three months later, she said Shah and Halligan mentioned how helpful grabbing that information was.
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