INBOUND25 Recap
Earlier this month, HubSpot brought it's annual INBOUND conference in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco's Moscone Center. For the second consecutive year, HubSpot for Startups had a bespoke experience in the middle of the main hall that included VC office hours, lounge areas, and a coffee bar.
Two other events that were the talk of the conference were our breakfast with Clay co-founder Varun Anand, and our long-anticipated pitch competition, "The Next Big AIdea." We're excited to share that we'll soon bring you videos of both events to "Scaling Smarter Magazine." So stay tuned.
Carly Baker from HubSpot media interview Clay at the exclusive breakfast event.
Breakfast with Clay
How do you foster a community of curiosity? That was one of the most provocative and engaging topics Varun Anand, co-founder of Clay, discussed with HubSpot Media's Carly Baker at our exclusive Clay breakfast. He talked about encouraging his team to create events and campaigns that are an "11" on the creativity scale.
Case in point: they literally hired Snoop Dog's personal joint roller (who knew) to teach a class on how to roll the perfect joint. What prompted Varun to engage in these kinds of questions was his meeting the founder of Humans of New York, Brandon Stanton, and asked him how he was able to get total strangers to open up to him and tell their stories. Brandon's answer: "Be genuinely and authentically curious." When you're authentically curious, the conversations and creative ideas flow.
Huge thanks to Nathan Lands, Clay, and Mindstream for their collaboration. And to the crew at Hungry Tables in SF for hosting the event.
The contestants and judges from our Next Big AIdea Pitch Competition.
The Next Big AI Pitch Competition
The Next Big AIdea Pitch Competition lit up the Innovation Stage as five startups went head to head: Harmony (GTM intelligence), InPress (media literacy meets matchmaking), Vector 👻 (predictive ad targeting), Troodie app (food, travel, and community), and Cello (AI-powered personal styling). Guiding the energy was host Mark Roberge , with judging from Kipp Bodnar (CMO, HubSpot), Ben Berkley (Editor in Chief, The Hustle), Bruno Estrella (Head of Marketing, Clay), Nathan Lands (CEO, Lore), and Marina Mogilko (aka "Silicon Valley Girl").
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