Another day, another honking big funding for another online start-up (and yet another broken embargo too!).
It’s like Groundhog Day in Silicon Valley as usual.
Today, Cambridge, Mass.-based HubSpot wins tech’s version of the lottery, grabbing $32 million from Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and also Salesforce.com.
It is unclear what the valuation for HubSpot is now, although it is likely high given it has raised $65 million now.
HubSpot makes marketing software for businesses, who use it to find prospects and generate leads, along with tools to analyze the process. It claims it has “4,000 customers, over 50 percent market share, five million leads managed, and 70 million page views tracked monthly.”
The Series D financing included HubSpot’s existing venture investors–General Catalyst Partners, Matrix Partners, and Scale Venture Partners–and part of it will be used to cash out existing shareholders. In previous rounds, the start-up has raised $33 million.
Here is the official press release:
Sequoia, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com Invest $32 Million in HubSpot
Marketing Software Company Attracts New Strategic InvestorsCAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – March 8, 2011)–Today, for the first time ever, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Salesforce.com all invested together in one company, providing HubSpot with a Series D round of financing through a $32 million investment. HubSpot provides all-in-one marketing software used by over 4,000 businesses to get found by more prospects, convert them into leads and sales, and analyze the entire marketing process.
“The fundamental way that people shop, learn, and buy has changed radically in the last few years. HubSpot helps transform the way businesses market from outbound marketing (cold calls, email blasts, and direct mail) to inbound marketing (Google, blogs, social media, mobile, etc.),” said Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot.
Sequoia Capital has a long history of partnering with founders to help them build long-term, multi-billion dollar companies, including Google, LinkedIn, AdMob, YouTube, Yahoo!, Apple, and Oracle. “We back companies that are transforming their industries,” said Jim Goetz, General Partner at Sequoia Capital. “HubSpot is the emerging category leader in the SaaS marketing sector. Their customer base exceeds that of all the other relevant marketing software companies combined, including Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, and Manticore.”
“Today, every company needs to succeed in search, social, sales, and marketing–I can’t think of a more powerful trifecta than Google, Salesforce.com, and HubSpot. With 4,000 customers, HubSpot is already a clear marketing leader–now, with this new infusion of capital and recognition by Google’s venture arm and Salesforce.com, HubSpot has a great opportunity to separate itself from the pack and become the leading marketing platform in the small and medium business space,” said Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials.
Google Ventures Partner, Rich Miner (formerly co-founder of Android) said, “We agree with HubSpot’s belief that search engines, social media, and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves. We’re thrilled to support their efforts to help thousands of small and medium businesses reach potential customers.”
Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot commented, “We founded the company based on a simple premise: Businesses want an easy-to-use, complete and integrated marketing platform that helps them get more leads and customers. We plan to use this new capital to further invest in this ambitious vision and further our existing lead in the marketing software category.”
If you don't know much about Justin Bieber's rise to superstardom, James Parker provides a good primer:
How did he do it? With YouTube, that’s how. Kissed in his cradle by the witch of the Web, Justin was throwing up little promo reels by the time he was 12. Singing a Brian McKnight song into the bathroom mirror. Or sitting on some municipal steps somewhere, busking mightily about the Lord: “You’re my God and my Fa-ther!” he bellows through the legs of passersby, the wooden body of his guitar reverberating with his shouts. ...
Bieber wasn’t from the Disney factory, and he didn’t have a show on Nickelodeon, so the marketing plan was skewed toward his already established constituency in social media: lots of Facebooking and YouTubing and sugary tweets to his millions-strong Twitter army.
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Chad Ochocinco of Cincinnati Bengals gets reserve spot on Sporting KC
After a five-day tryout, NFL star Chad Ochocinco has been awarded a spot on the reserve team for Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer.
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This Week's Health Industry <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
A look at what's coming up in the drug and health fields.
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Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Brand
What is your social media brand? Do you have one? Sure, many small business owners and entrepreneurs are coming around to the enormous importance of social.
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Apple advertises its products as magical. They’re at the intersection of “technology and the liberal arts,” Steve Jobs said today. Something that moves your heart, not just your lust for technology. Will consumers still buy that in 2011?
The big picture question of the day is whether Apple has done it again. With the original iPad, Apple crushed its rivals, taking more than 90 percent of the tablet market in 2010 and selling more than 15 million units. Jobs predicted today that 2011 will be the year of the iPad 2. Based on what I have seen today, I think he’s mostly, but not entirely, right.
Competitors will discover that Apple has a lot of inherent financial advantages, including being a low-cost leader. That may not sound intuitive, but I believe it has to be true. It is selling so much volume of its products that it can get discounts on parts and manufacturing services that no one else can get.
When it sells its products in stores, it also doesn’t have to give away 20 percent of the margin to a retailer. That is a huge financial advantage. Carriers are also willing to subsidize the costs of Apple products in a way that they won’t with other tablet vendors. All of these things may explain why the Motorola Xoom, a very cool product, is selling for $800 while Apple has priced its new devices at $499 to $829, (and dropped the price of the old iPad to $399). Apple has also left very little room for rivals here, since it has signed up both AT&T and Verizon. Perhaps there is room for rivals to sell $199 machines, but users probably aren’t going to like them.
Those are reasons why any cool Apple mobile product could beat other rivals. But Apple has also done some smart things with the iPad 2. It has created another rev of its microprocessor, the A5, which has two cores, or computing brains. And it has nine times faster graphics than its old A4 chip. Since Apple designs this chip itself, it doesn’t have to give away much margin to a chip design firm. It only has to give a small margin to a chip manufacturer such as Samsung to make the chips.
Apple has also custom-designed the A5 to run Apple applications on a device with a 10-hour battery life. Apple should have an edge there, as it won’t sell the A5 to rivals. But if this is an advantage, it isn’t likely to last long, as Nvidia is being very aggressive with a new quad-core chip that it could sell to any Android rivals.
The design of the iPad 2 is where Apple has more advantages. The iPad 2 will have faster web-browsing with a new version of Safari. It has two cameras that will inspire a lot of video and photo-related apps. The availability of the Mac applications — iMovie, Garage Band, and Photo Booth — on the iPad 2 will make a lot of users happy. More interesting features will come with new releases of the iOS, or Apple’s operating system in the fairly near future.
There are some users who won’t like the restrictions of Apple’s ecosystem. If they want universal serial bus (USB) and SD card ports, they are out of luck. Apple didn’t change the resolution of its screen either, leaving it at 1024 x 768. Competitors could add these options and put emphasis on them as selling points. (Critics are disappointed that Apple did not improve the display, but that’s a big cost issue others have too).
Apple has also made great improvements in the feel of the product. It’s 33 percent thinner, 2 ounces lighter, and it has a wonderful new screen cover that doubles as a stand for the device. (It wakes up the device when you peel it back and it has micro-fibers that clean the screen when the cover is on).
Now here is why Jobs is not entirely right. Apple has come up with a stunning machine at prices that the competitors will have a hard time beating. But it is almost inevitable that Android-based tablets will gain market share on Apple.
So far, I don’t see the Android machine that will beat the iPad 2. But the potential is there, given ingredients such as Android 3.0, Nvidia Tegra 2 chips and other fast microprocessors, and 4G LTE. The latter is the main weakness in Apple’s armor.
LTE is fast, with a minimum speed on Verizon at around 12 megabits a second and actual speeds running much higher than that now. Getting access to 4G LTE is as big a benefit as having access to lots of cool apps, from my point of view. Right now, the timing of the still-young LTE technology means that Apple cannot yet put it into its mass-produced, lowest-cost tablet computers.
If LTE costs come down sometime soon, then Apple can launch a new version of the iPad to incorporate the technology. But it’s not a simple upgrade, as it means that the hardware of the machine — including the radio chip — has to change. And for now, LTE chips are larger than their 3G equivalents, so the heat dissipation and product size are affected. In other words, LTE can force Apple to redesign the iPad.
Apple can do that. But Android tablet makers might be able to move faster than Apple directly into the 4G LTE tablet market. If they do that, then they will have found a scenario where they could steal a march on Apple. Apple is not likely to let that gap last for a long time, but it might be enough for Apple to lose some share this year.
Apple’s leadership position in this market will be hard to beat, but the collective weight and reach of Android rivals could erode it. And here’s a sobering thought: If Apple eventually winds up with only 30 percent of the tablet market, it could still be No. 1, and its place as the largest technology company in the world will not be at risk.
Check out Apple’s overview video on the iPad 2 and Jobs’ comments on technology and the liberal arts below.
Next Story: Loot Drop banks on talented game designers as it takes on social gaming’s giants (exclusive) Previous Story: Electric car startups to square off against Big Auto competition
Editor’s Note: Jim Dalrymple has been writing about Apple for more than 15 years. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple and on his Web site at The Loop.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday introduced the iPad 2 at a special event in San Francisco, taking even more momentum away from its competitors.
I’ve had a lot of people in the last 24 hours tell me that the iPad 2 isn’t as revolutionary as the first generation device. Yes, that’s true. But not every device a company releases has to be or can be revolutionary.
Apple has released three revolutionary products in the last decade alone: iPod, iPhone and iPad. I really can’t think of any products from Apple’s competitors that fit in the revolutionary category in that same time period.
People also said that Apple wasn’t very forthcoming with the specs of the iPad 2. Again, that’s true, but there’s a good reason for that—nobody cares.
Well, some people care. Those of us who are geeks care about specs. However, have you ever noticed that when you sit with your non-geek friends and start listing off specs their eyes glaze over and they rest their chin in their hand.
That’s because they couldn’t care less.
The iPad 2 is no slouch either. It lost one-third of the thickness of the previous generation, and therefore it is one-third less than the size of the iPad competitors too. It also has new technologies like a gyro built-in that will launch another round of cool apps.
Yesterday’s iPad 2 announcement wasn’t about the geeks—it was about all the other people who will buy an iPad. What those people want to know is “what can I do with it?”
If it fits into their lifestyle, most people are good with that. Apple showed many ways how the iPad 2 can fit into your lifestyle.
From the very beginning, Apple was very smart with how it marketed the iPad. The first thing it did was get the device into businesses and promote the fact that it could be used to get work done. And it was quite successful with that.
In an analyst call in October 2010, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the iPad was already being used in 65 percent of Fortune 100 companies. That was four months ago and the iPad has grown since then, so we can only imagine where that number is now.
This strategy allowed Apple to do two things. If it came out with the iPad and pushed the gaming capabilities of the device, the business world would have looked at it as a toy. That would have certainly meant slower adoption. It also allowed them to work on some consumer software, two of which we saw yesterday.
In addition to the iPad 2, Jobs also unveiled iMovie and GarageBand for the iPad. This is what people want to know about—what can I do with the iPad that’s exciting and new.
Obviously, creating movies and being able to edit and share them with friends and family is a very popular thing to do these days. iMovie makes that easy.
Creating music, whether a novice or pro is also a cool thing to do. GarageBand is a great app to get that done and you can move your projects to your Mac and continue working on them.
It’s not just about the hardware. Apple delivers the whole experience that nobody else can. Jobs said yesterday that there are 65,000 apps on its App Store specifically designed for the iPad. That’s a lot of things you can do.
If you think Apple’s competitors are jumping for joy because the iPad 2 isn’t revolutionary, I believe you are wrong. I think they’re scared. Yesterday, they figured out Apple’s strategy too, but a little too late.
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What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.
THE QUAKE IN JAPAN, A GOOFBALL IN VENEZUELA Japanese earthquake damage is estimated at $310 billion and could be the costliest natural disaster ever. Japanese exports suffer. Kate Rogers of Fox revisits how to protect your business from catastrophe. “Small-business owners can determine if they should be seeking disaster coverage by weighing their investment in the business itself, among other factors. If the business is the sole form of income, the risk is much greater than if it is a hobby or part-time project.” Elsewhere around the world, the war industry gets a boost in Libya. And Hugo Chávez of Venezuela says capitalism may have destroyed life on Mars.
REAL ESTATE FALLS, JOBS RISE Mark Thoma says commodity prices are increasing because of world demand. A small-business owner in Georgia is trying not to pass on the cost of high gas prices. Detroit’s population declines 25 percent. Existing-home sales fall to the lowest on record. Meredith Whitney, an investment adviser, says, “Unless the government comes out with a 50-year mortgage, this market is in trouble longer term.” Gallup’s job-creation index is the highest since September 2008. Durable goods orders fall.
ANNE HATHAWAY AND WARREN BUFFETT The Fed earns $79 billion and predicts that the recovery is taking hold. Nonetheless, one of its officials warns that the United States is approaching insolvency. Meanwhile, Warren E. Buffett predicts growth but some think his company’s stock is buoyed by Anne Hathaway. Household balances sheets continue to improve. Scott Grannis says “the Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook Survey came in very strong. It hasn’t been this strong since the economic boom times of the early 1980s. It’s very difficult to ignore the mounting evidence of a strong economic recovery.” Architect billings increased slightly in February.
DEFICIT THRILLS The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is thrilled to see 64 senators calling for comprehensive deficit reduction. But Stan Collender, a budget expert, isn’t thrilled at all: “Does a letter that is so vanilla that it could have been written at any time over the past 40 years really indicate any movement on the current budget debate?” James Pethokoukis of Reuters says he thinks President Obama’s budget is wildly dangerous.
A NEW DEFINITION OF SMALL BUSINESS Timothy F. Geithner says that American small businesses need greater access to capital to spur innovation. The Small Business Administration, facing even more cuts, is for the first time in more than 25 years proposing to change the way it defines small businesses. JPMorgan Chase says it will cease its debit card rewards program because of new legislation that would restrict fees. Missouri gets $27 million in incentives for small-business growth. The Small Business Savings Account Act makes its way through Congress.
TAKING CREDIT The health care legislation celebrates its first anniversary and Ezra Klein defends it by saying, “Is it a perfect piece of legislation? Not even close. Will everything work as expected? Almost certainly not. But for all its flaws, it’s a good law. And it’s worth trying.” Many small businesses are still not taking advantage of the health care tax credit.
TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES A Google project manager pitches cloud computing: “Web-based software is much less costly for buyers than traditional software, and programmers can be so much more innovative, that it’s worthwhile for an entrepreneur to say, O.K., let’s start from scratch.” Paul Mah, an information technology expert, gives us eight reasons to upgrade to Internet Explorer 9. Firefox 4 is released. Microsoft jumps to second in video search and introduces a new PC tool for small business. Netflix suffers an outage. BlackBerry’s tablet is scheduled to arrive in April. AT&T buys T-Mobile but not for the reason you think. And boy. has computer technology come a long way in 10 years.
THE GROWING APPS MARKET Information Week reports that 38 percent of small- and medium-size businesses depend on mobile apps. Amazon introduces an Android app store, and Apple is not pleased. Minda Zetlin of Inc. asks if you should make a tablet app for your business: “The answer is likely a yes if one, your product or service is one where having tablet access could benefit customers; and two, your customers are the type who use tablets.” Just in time: a flood of royal wedding apps.
SPEAKING OF THE BIG WEDDING General Electric releases a much-needed William and Kate refrigerator. Jack Daniels introduces a new product — perhaps to help us forget the royal wedding. Danny Wong gives us three winning ideas to consider. A dating site features a new single man every day. Score plans an e-business learning Web site for small business. Small Business Television is rebranding itself and has introduced a new Web site. Small Business Opportunities magazine is doing the same. A small business introduces its first electric car. Sales of e-books have doubled. The group buying industry is projected to grow to $2.7 billion this year.
TWITTER’S TAX BREAKS Casey Hibbard explains how one company used social media to make $300,000 in a weekend. Robert Scoble discovers the future of work: “Just when we thought we figured out the new ’social enterprise’ market along comes Convofy.” Twitter shows San Francisco’s businesses how to save a bundle on taxes. A one-legged wrestler shows us how to become a national champ.
IT’S GOOD TO BE GREEN A woman in Canada gets a standing ovation for being green. The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce holds its green marketing event on Wednesday. The Clinton Global Initiative holds its university conference this week with a focus on entrepreneurship and a live webcast.
ADVICE FOR SXSW: HAND OUT PILLOWS The Global Entrepreneurship Congress meets in Shanghai this week. April 2 is International Pillow Fight Day. The South By Southwest conference: as seen from a bunch of social media video bloggers — which is yet another reason I won’t attend next year. American Airlines offers a big promo for California business travelers. John Jantsch wants to know the worst business advice you ever received. A third-base coach gives life advice.
SEARCHING FOR HELP WITH SEARCH An American Express survey finds that more than half of small-business owners say they need help with search-engine marketing. A video about why it’s not important to go viral goes viral. Dharmesh Shah shares a few low-cost advertising ideas for start-ups and cautions readers to “think of advertising not as a long-term traffic strategy but as a testing tool to improve your Web site and find out more about your ideal visitor.” An advertising blog discusses how to develop a relationship with the media. Lucy Thornton comes up with a few good marketing themes for April.
A 100-MILLION-MEMBER NETWORK LinkedIn officially reaches 100 million members. Seems like a good time to read the co-founder’s 10 rules for entrepreneurial success.
TRIED TALKING? Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker gives us his top 10 tricks for working while on the go. Example: “Whether it’s that old, dead iPod or the smartphone you’re already carrying with you, you probably have gigs of unused storage lying around waiting to be filled with portable apps, files and other digital travel necessities.” Melanie Brooks of Workawesome.com explains why she uses a leather day planner instead of a smartphone. Greg Schinkel warns against hiding behind our keyboards: “Before you hit ‘reply to all’ and send back a zinger to someone who maligned you, stop and go talk to the person.”
THIS WEEK’S AWARDS
BEST WAY TO GET YOUR CUSTOMERS TO LOVE YOU Ben Yoskovitz talks about the benefits of delighting your customers: “The rewards are immense. Loyal, rabid fans tweet shamelessly about how incredible you are, how valuable your Web application is and how successful your start-up will be.”
BEST WAY TO MARKET WITHOUT A BUDGET Shisha Dublin-Green explains how to market without a marketing budget: “Form an alliance: if you have a hair salon that’s mostly frequented by women with young children and elderly women, you can offer a service whereby you arrange to do their grocery shopping whilst they’re in the salon. You may decide to form an alliance with a local reputable grocer or delivery service to provide this for your customers. This could also be a way to reach out to new customers via your local grocer.”
BEST ADVICE FOR BOOTSTRAPPERS The Smart Bear says that the things money cannot buy are still the most valuable things: “Show proof of your ability to master the things money cannot buy — your ability to learn, change and improve.”
THIS WEEK’S QUESTION: How do you bring in customers without spending a lot? We do free webinars every month.
Gene Marks owns the Marks Group PC, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.
Preview of Final Result
Resources
- PT Sans Bold – FontSquirrel
- Free App Icons for Developers – WebAppers
Step 1
Open Photoshop and create a new document that is 1200 x 1200 pixels, 72 dpi, and RGB Color. Fill the layer with white. (Ctrl+Backspace or Delete)
Step 2
Now create a rectangle for the header and fill it with a white-grey color, then use the colors on the image for the “Gradient Overlay”. Our search and logo will eventually be part of the header.
Step 3
Create a new rectangle above the previous one, with attributes as shown below. The following drop shadow effect creates a look of a 1 pixel stroke which does increase the look of that simple bar. Note: this step creates a horizontal line.
Step 4
Now add the “Gradient Overlay” layer style with the hex codes indicated.
Step 5
Add a white 1 pixel stroke. The following stroke of 1 pixel will divide the grey shadow effect. It’ll eventually work as a divider.
Step 6
Make one more rectangle in the middle-right zone, and fill it with white and add a 1 px stroke as indicated – it will be our search box.
Step 7
One more rectangle should be created and filled with blue. Set the inner shadow as indicated below, this will be our search button. This blue works great in combination with grey, white and light-grey. Blue will be the major contrasting color we use as we work through this template.
Step 8
Add the Gradient Overlay details to the button with the details from image.
Step 9
Add a 1 px stroke to the button with the color indicated. Take a look at the first and the final result of the button so you can see the difference all these details made.
Step 10
Now add this drop shadow effect for the text placed in the search box, using PT Sans Bold. This will be the final step in creating your search button. You may want to try other fonts, but the PT Sans Bold is really good for this small button.
Step 11
Make another fill under the header section, this will be the navigation area. Here we will place the navigation links of our template.
Step 12
Write your navigation links using a dark-grey color, then add a white “drop shadow” effect. The effect used for the navigation links is the same used for the search button.
Step 13
With 1px vertical line, make divisions between each links. The lines should be black and will really increase the beauty of the navigation area.
Step 14
Over the home section, make a fill with the blue and then add a Gradient Overlay style as indicated.
Step 15
Copy the Home link, this time color it white and add a drop shadow effect.
Step 16
Create a big, grey zone under the navigation, it should be about 30% of the layout. This will be the background for the featured area.
Step 17
Now create a big, white rectangle and add some shadow with the details shown. A big stock image, a big headline and some text with another great button will be added.
Step 18
Add a any dummy image you want to that featured area. Be sure it covers more than 80% of the area. The one I chose is from a stock website.
Step 19
Add some text to it, use the PT SANS Bold font and make the font big.
Step 20
The remaining area should be filled with grey, in it we’ll place some text. This is really a secondary area which describes the image, the services, the company itself, or whatever you’d like.
Step 21
Place some blue-colored text which will be the title of the information below. Use the details in the image for Drop Shadow style.
Step 22
Add some dummy text. This could be some important information or whatever you’d like.
Step 23
Create another grey area under the featured zone, where we will add some text and icons later. Add the details as stated on the image. Mostly, the icons will promote the services offered by the company behind the website.
Step 24
Continue by adding a Gradient Overlay style for the last rectangle we have created in the anterior steps.
Step 25
Now we are adding titles and icons, as well as some divisions. The icons can be found in the resource list at the beginning of the tutorial. Be sure to choose your icons and text thoughtfully.
Step 26
At the border of both zones, create a small circle and fill it with dark brown color. Add some inner shadow as stated on the image.
Step 27
Continue by adding a drop shadow layer style. It is another small detail, but it really makes that button zone minimalistic, nice-looking and well designed.
Step 28
To finish, add a Gradient Overlay effect.
Step 29
By using the Custom Shape Tool (U), create an arrow in both circles. Now add the details shown on the screenshot.
Step 30
Continue by adding some Color Overlay for the arrow. It should also be a blue color because otherwise, it will not fit the contrast and the colors used on the whole template.
Step 31
Add a video screenshot in the free space and place a title for it. For this template, I have used a simple screenshot of a YouTube widget.
Step 32
Add the text “Product Highlights” and “Case Studies.” Let the text under the “Product Highlights” be links so you could showcase some friends’ websites or resources you admire/promote.
Step 33
Finish it by creating another form for e-mails, place all kind of other information, and whatever you’d like.
Step 34
Don’t forget to make a relevant/small footer for our template. If you have paid attention, you should know how to create the same effect as below.
All done! If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment. I hope you enjoyed this whole tutorial!
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This Week's Health Industry <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
A look at what's coming up in the drug and health fields.
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This Week in Credit Cards <b>News</b>: New Rules, More ATM Fees, End of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com New Rules Promote Smarter Use of Credit Cards The new consumer watchdog agency wants to help consumers understand the credit card offer they will receive before they apply for a credit card.
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