HubSpot acquires Starter Story in bet on YouTube-driven customer acquisition

HubSpot is doubling down on creator-led media, and this time it’s buying one of the internet’s most recognizable founder storytelling platforms. The CRM giant’s media arm has acquired Starter Story, the bootstrapped entrepreneurship brand built by Pat Walls, marking HubSpot’s latest move to turn content into a lead-generation engine. The deal, confirmed to ADWEEK by HubSpot Media VP Jonathan Hunt, did not disclose financial terms.

The acquisition folds Starter Story into HubSpot’s growing media portfolio, a collection the company has been quietly building as audience attention shifts toward video, newsletters, and personality-driven business content.

HubSpot Acquires Bootstrapped YouTube Media Brand Starter Story, Adding 1.6M-Strong Creator Audience

Starter Story began in 2017 as a simple project: interview founders and publish how they built their companies. Over time, it evolved into a video-first media operation with more than 800,000 YouTube subscribers, roughly 275,000 newsletter readers, and a combined audience of nearly 1.6 million. According to founder Pat Walls, the business is profitable and generates seven-figure revenue.

Walls’ early days were far less certain.

Image credit: Pat Walls / StarterStory

“For a year, I woke up at 6am and went to that Starbucks before work.

Cold emailed founders.
Coded the platform.
Published content.

For months, nothing really moved. Then slowly… it did.

Eventually it started making $3-4K/month.

Then, I quit my job.

But it was too early,” Walls said.

The Starbucks Coffee shop where Walls started Starter Story (Image credit: Pat Walls / StarterStory”

The company has stayed intentionally lean. Starter Story operates with three full-time team members: Walls, his sister and COO Sam, and producer Gus Tiffer. All three are joining HubSpot Media as part of the transaction, where they will sit alongside existing properties such as The Hustle, My First Million, and Mindstream.

What makes this deal unusual is how publicly it began.

According to Walls, the process traces back to a tweet he posted on September 23, 2025.

“hubspot should acquire starter story

the SEO ship is sinking

IMO hubspot needs to pivot wayyyy harder to video, specifically youtube

i’m biased, but acquiring starter story would take their youtube game to the next level

thank you for coming to my ted talk,” Pat Walls said in an email to his subscribers.

Walls said the tweet quickly snowballed into real discussions with HubSpot.

hubspot should acquire starter story

the SEO ship is sinking

IMO hubspot needs to pivot wayyyy harder to video, specifically youtube

i’m biased, but acquiring starter story would take their youtube game to the next level

thank you for coming to my ted talk https://t.co/YZn1P5fTJr

— Pat Walls (@thepatwalls) September 23, 2025

“Then, a tweet turned into a conversation. That conversation turned into an offer,” Walls added in an email to the Starter Story community.

The timing of the acquisition reflects a broader shift in digital media. Major publishers and emerging media startups alike are moving deeper into YouTube and creator partnerships as video, podcasts, and short-form formats capture a larger share of audience attention. Vox Media and ESPN have both signed deals with prominent YouTube creators in recent months, and newer entrants like Dynamo and NewPress are building media strategies that prioritize YouTube over traditional websites.

For HubSpot, the strategy is tightly linked to its core business.

The company has been investing heavily in media as a demand-generation channel for its software products. Hunt said HubSpot Media now drives more than 50 million monthly engagements and tens of thousands of leads. Over the past year, YouTube-driven lead generation grew 68 percent year over year, and newsletter-driven leads climbed 53 percent.

Starter Story adds meaningful scale. With the new property, HubSpot’s combined YouTube network reaches about 2.9 million subscribers, a footprint Hunt says exceeds Morning Brew’s YouTube audience and more than doubles Salesforce’s.

Walls struck a reflective tone in his message to subscribers, pointing to how far the company has come.

“Starter Story grew more than I could have ever imagined.

• 4K+ founder stories

• 1.6M+ followers

• 250K+ newsletter subscribers

• 10K+ paid members

• Hundreds of millions of views

• Multi-million-dollar revenue

All bootstrapped & profitable!

And over time, Starter Story became more than just me.

It became a real team.

This outcome belongs to them, too.”

The deal gives HubSpot a profitable creator brand with deep reach among founders and builders. It also reinforces a trend that keeps gaining momentum across tech and media: the path to software customers increasingly runs through creator-led video ecosystems.