If you’ve spent any time in the world of bootstrapped businesses, online startups, or the indie founder community, you already know what Starter Story is. But if this is your first introduction, buckle up, because this brand has a story worth telling.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Back in 2017, a software engineer named Pat Walls was burning the candle at both ends. His first startup had just failed to get into Y Combinator. He was spending his days at work and his nights trying to build something that would stick\u2014a story most entrepreneurs know all too well.<\/p>\n Refusing to give up entrepreneurship, Pat started a side project \u2014 something low-cost, scrappy, and built from genuine curiosity. He wanted to know how real founders actually built their businesses from the ground up. So he started calling them up and asking.<\/p>\n He built the first version of Starter Story from a Starbucks<\/a>, posting his early founder interviews to Reddit and Hacker News to see what would happen. People loved it. He kept going. By October 2017, Starter Story was live, and it grew from there in a way that would feel right at home on its own pages.<\/p>\n Today, Starter Story is a full-on multi-channel media brand reaching over 100 million people per year. The numbers are hard to argue with:<\/p>\n But what makes Starter Story culturally significant isn\u2018t the scale \u2014 it\u2019s the trust. For the bootstrapped founder community, getting featured on Starter Story has become something of a rite of passage. These aren\u2018t fluffy success stories. They\u2019re honest, transparent breakdowns of how founders built their companies<\/a>: what they charged, how they found their first customers, what nearly broke them, and what finally clicked<\/a>. Revenue figures included.<\/p>\n That combination of radical honesty and practical insight is rare. It’s also precisely why Starter Story has built such a loyal, high-intent audience.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Let’s zoom out for a second.<\/p>\n The media landscape is shifting in ways that marketers feel every day. Organic traffic is getting harder to earn. Paid acquisition costs keep climbing. Audience attention is scattered across more channels than ever. The playbooks that worked five years ago \u2014 keyword stuffing, algorithmic content at scale, banner ads \u2014 are increasingly hitting diminishing returns.<\/p>\n What’s working? Trusted, creator-led brands that audiences actively seek out. Brands that people subscribe to, share, and come back to \u2014 not because they were served a retargeted ad, but because the content is genuinely worth their time.<\/p>\n That\u2018s what HubSpot Media has been building toward. Rather than rent attention through paid channels, we\u2019re investing in media properties that own<\/em> it. The Hustle, Mindstream, and now Starter Story are all part of that same thesis: if you want to reach the people who matter most to your business, build (or acquire) the media they already love.<\/p>\n Starter Story fits this strategy exceptionally well because of who<\/em> it reaches. The Starter Story audience is made up of early-stage founders \u2014 people at the exact moment they\u2018re deciding which tools to build their businesses on. Pre-seed through Series A, they\u2019re evaluating options, moving fast, and forming opinions about which brands they trust. That\u2018s a core segment for HubSpot, and Starter Story reaches them in their element, when they\u2019re actively learning and making decisions.<\/p>\n It\u2018s not a demographic fit. It\u2019s a mindset<\/em> fit. And that makes all the difference.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n We don’t make these kinds of moves lightly, and we have the results to back up why we keep making them.<\/p>\n HubSpot’s media network now drives over 50 million engagements and tens of thousands of leads each month<\/strong> \u2014 a number that reflects genuine audience behavior, not inflated impressions. On YouTube alone, HubSpot’s channels collectively pull in over 20 million views per month<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Hustle, which HubSpot acquired in 2021, is a clear proof point. It\u2018s remained editorially independent, kept its voice and community, and continued to grow. The same goes for Mindstream. We\u2019ve learned how to be good stewards of the media brands we invest in \u2014 adding resources without adding interference.<\/p>\n With Starter Story joining the network, our combined YouTube subscriber count rises to 2.9 million<\/strong>. That’s a real, engaged audience of people who want to build things.<\/p>\n![\"Subscribe](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/53\/32eef311-4dcd-4599-9813-f5711a112059.png\")
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What Is Starter Story?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Why HubSpot Media Acquired It<\/strong><\/h2>\n
HubSpot Media: A Track Record Worth Talking About<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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