Thread by @TheCoolestCool

It's been a couple weeks since this news but @Hubspot acquiring @TheHustle could be the acquisition of the year.

While the cost of the deal hasn't been revealed, there are rumours floating that it was $20-30M.🔥

The real question is, why?

Let's dive into it! [THREAD] 🧵 $HUBS

The Hustle is estimated to have:

>Between 5-8M annual visitors to their main site
>Over 500k-2M annual visits to Trends (paid site)
>Over 11k members in various niche FB groups
>And over 1.5M newsletter subscribers

Now, Hubspot has access to all of it.🤯

Bowchicakwawah

Let's make sense of why this is a huge WIN for Hubspot:

Hubspot has been a staple in *marketing* as an example of best practices for blogging, SEO, and marketing.

It is estimated that their site generates 370M annual visits and the blog has 15,000+ pages.

Amazing right?

Well..

According to a variety of different traffic projection sites it seems like there recently was a dip in their organic traffic.

As shown in the image below, sources indicate a drop of anywhere between 500k-1M monthly visits.

That's a lot of lost value.

Hubspot's organic traffic value (volume x average PPC cost) is worth around $25M. Meaning...

You would have to drop $25M on PPC to get what they generate in organic.

So, where does theHustle come in to help with this dip?

1) New Traffic

and...

2) New Audiences

First let's talk traffic:

It's estimated that the Hustle generates between 5-8M visits per year. That alone covers the dip in Hubspot traffic.

But it gets better:

They also have a large "owned audience" in their newsletter with (1.5M+ subs) and Facebook group (11k+ members).

Now let's talk audiences. 🧠

Hubspot is known as THE marketing platform.

But for Hubspot to realize their platform vision (see image below) - they need to go beyond marketers and succeed in:

> Sales (CRM)
> Customer Service (Help Desk)
> Developers / IT (CMS)

The audience following Hubspot on @Twitter today is primarily made up of marketers.

The audience following the Hustle on Twitter (45k people) today is made up of entrepreneurs, investors, marketers & execs.

Brilliant right?

But once again. It gets better.

[Via @SparkToro]

Hubspot is targeting growth companies 🚀

They launched a “Growth Suite” which feels targeted at startups & SMBs looking to drive growth.

It's their full suite but for 25% off.

Know who loves growth?
Tech startups

Know who reads The Hustle?
People who work at and run startups

In fact:

Most of TheHustle's referral is estimated to come from:

> The front page of tech 👉 @ycombinator's HackerNews.

Hubspot now has a team of creators who have cracked the HN code and can attract that audience consistently.

That's valuable alone.

We're living in an age where attention is currency.

Smart brands are creating / buying niche media empires and adding them to their marketing mix.

Things like:

> Niche Media Sites
> Facebook Groups
> YT Channels
> IG Accounts
> Newsletters
> Podcasts

And so much more.

This trend is showing no signs of slowing down.

The research above / essay was originally published on @FoundationIncCo. Your competitors probably already read it. But don't worry.

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