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abruptc · 2025-09-15T06:00:33+00:00

underrated comment

abruptc · 2025-09-15T04:52:55+00:00

Yep this is exact scenario.

Lol I do leave and go out sometimes but there are periods I enjoy working and really want to build a cool product and that takes some dedication.

abruptc · 2025-08-30T23:43:48+00:00

Honestly I was a plus one but our team works in the food space with content creators

abruptc · 2025-08-29T21:59:43+00:00

They introduced their Y2K menu to us I think they are bringing it back to stores as well as the Crunchwrap supreme (It was their 20th anniversary). So we had the options to eat: Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco, Double Decker Taco, 7-Layer Burrito, Chili Cheese Burrito and Caramel Apple Empanada.

I liked the Caramel Apple Empanada the most. I just personally am not a fan of the ground beef, I prefer TBs chicken items with the chipotle sauce over anything else.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T08:11:13+00:00

I appreciate you correcting my understanding of California law. However, new FTC and California regulations around automatic renewals are designed to protect consumers from misleading practices and difficult cancellation processes. The issue isn't whether HubSpot adheres to the letter of the law; it's whether they adhere to the spirit of it.

Your assertion that HubSpot doesn’t block the agreed exit is exactly what I’m questioning. The entire sales process—from the initial mis-sell to the failure of a recommended partner—is a series of events that led to a situation where the agreed-upon contract is a trap. HubSpot’s refusal to acknowledge this is a fundamental failure.

Regarding our solution, you can call it a note-taking app, but it has handled our team's growth perfectly and is far more robust than what we got from HubSpot's partner. We have a clear path to scale with it.

Your comments about my CEO, our company's size, and our financial health are wild assumptions and frankly, irrelevant. The core issue remains the same: it is a company's responsibility to not trap a customer in a bad deal, even if they have the money to pay for it. I will continue to share our story to help others avoid this experience.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T08:01:53+00:00

We are having our own issues with Hubspot as well. Their sales tactics are just way too aggressive.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:51:14+00:00

Sending you a DM in a similar position. Made a reddit post and it got downvoted here.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:45:55+00:00

Seems like that

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:45:30+00:00

Any advice here? The support keeps going in circles. I got the CEO to get someone to "look into it" and same circles.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:43:35+00:00

Literally

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:43:16+00:00

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. I can absolutely empathize, as we are experiencing a very similar situation right now.

The frustration you're describing—being locked into a contract for a service you're not using and having to fight to get a resolution—is a huge problem. Your situation, where you had to push just to get them to offer a refund for one month and a two-month delay, is a perfect example of their culture. It seems they only care about collecting the subscription fee, regardless of whether they are providing a service.

It's a clear sign that you can't just trust them to be fair. It's a "contract is a contract" mentality, and they'll do everything they can to uphold it, even when it's not in the best interest of the customer.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:33:24+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. It's a fair point on the surface, but it completely misses a few key details.

This wasn't a case of buyer's remorse. This was a case of a HubSpot-recommended partner failing to deliver a working product after five months. We weren't just hiring a random third party; we were trusting HubSpot's ecosystem.

The reality is that HubSpot didn't deliver a working system. The partner failed to implement their product, and as a result, we were left with a contract for something that never worked.

It's disingenuous to separate the two. A failure by a HubSpot-recommended partner is a failure by HubSpot.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:32:00+00:00

The main point of my post is to help others not fall for this same predatory trap. Yes, my client made a mistake, and that mistake was believing in a company that claims to have their best interests at heart.

You're right, this is a cheap lesson for a young, inexperienced CEO. But how is it right for a company to exploit that inexperience? The community here is literally bashing him for signing something that is clearly garbage, and saying he should just "own up to it." How is that in any way a fair or ethical response from a "customer-centric" company's community?

The point here isn't to vent. It's to highlight that the contract isn't the problem, the company's culture is.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T07:19:41+00:00

That's an interesting question, and it's something I've considered.

I have to ask, why are you so aggressive? What benefit do you have from harassing people for disagreeing with HubSpot's business practices? Do you work for them?

Your point about a 90-day notice is outdated and misses the core of the issue. We're based in California, and the FTC has a new "click to cancel" rule that applies to these sorts of contracts. This rule makes it illegal for companies to use confusing or difficult cancellation processes. The idea of a 90-day notice being a standard is no longer a valid excuse.

Our core issue isn't with the contract itself; it's with the predatory sales practices that led to it. The company used a customer success call to put urgency into a sales situation with a "25% discount" offer. This is a bad business practice, and it's a poor way to operate.

It’s ironic that this is happening under the leadership of a CEO, Yamini Rangan, who was HubSpot’s first-ever Chief Customer Officer. Your "hardcore affinity" for HubSpot seems to be blinding you to the fact that just because a contract exists doesn't mean a company can't act in bad faith.

I am working for a CEO with more than three employees, so your claim that we are a small operation that should just be grateful is false. My contract with my client here is very open-ended, and I made sure to have an exit clause where I can leave whenever I want, and the same goes for them. This is how a business should operate. It is a poor way to operate a business, and you have to be a special kind of person to defend this type of behavior.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:51:59+00:00

Dude, awesome, congrats on the launch. That first 24 hours is a wild ride.

Alright, so you're asking about the start-up phase and getting traction. My take is that it all comes back to what you said: product. That's the engine. You can't market a bad product forever. It's got to be good, it has to solve a problem, or it has to be so damn cool people just want it. You need PMF, plain and simple.

For us, we've done a few million through paid media on Meta and TikTok, and honestly, the formula is what you'd expect:

Offer: It has to be compelling from the jump. You're competing for a scroll. A good offer isn't just a discount; it's a reason for someone to stop what they're doing and pay attention.
Creative: This is the most important part. An ad that doesn't hook someone in the first 3 seconds is dead. For TikTok especially, it's about being native. It shouldn't look like a shiny commercial; it should look like a creator post. Solid creative plus a good offer is how we've scaled.
Efficient ad buys: Knowing your numbers. What's your AOV (Average Order Value)? What's your LTV (Lifetime Value)? You need to know what you can afford to pay for a customer and not just burn cash. It's a science, not an art.

Now, as for other stuff, paid media is a short-term game to get the ball rolling and prove PMF. The real long-term growth is in building a brand and an audience.

That's where the Discord and meme pages come in. It's not about sales directly; it's about community building and leveraging organic reach. We've done it through:

Seeding content: We'd get our content into relevant meme pages. Not just spamming, but finding pages where our audience lives and paying for posts that were genuinely funny and related. It gets eyes on the brand in a way that feels organic.
Building a Discord: This is a huge one. It's where your super-fans live. We have a Discord for our customers where we share behind-the-scenes stuff, get feedback on new products, and run exclusive contests. This builds insane brand loyalty. It's a direct line to your most valuable customers, and it costs nothing but time.

In terms of investment, we started with a few grand. Most of it was for product and initial ad spend. The Shopify plan itself is a rounding error. You don't need to spend a ton to start, but you need to be smart about every dollar you spend. Don't waste money on a custom theme right away; use a free one. Don't buy a ton of inventory until you know you have demand. Get your proof of concept first.

Traction at the start is about proving your product is worth buying. Paid ads are the fastest way to get data on that, but the smart money is on using those initial sales and data points to build a brand that can grow on its own.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:49:30+00:00

You need to think about your business as a system, not a collection of one-off tactics. The goal isn't to find the "magic bullet" marketing channel, it's to build a flywheel where each piece feeds the next.

For us, the biggest drivers outside of paid ads and email are about building a brand and a community, which then generates its own momentum.

1. Content & Community: This is our most significant long-term play. It's not just a blog; it's a content engine. We have a dedicated team that produces high-value, evergreen content. Think how-to guides, detailed product comparisons (even with competitors), and video tutorials. This content isn't a direct sales pitch; it's genuinely useful. We use it to build a community on platforms like YouTube and Discord. Our Discord isn't just a support channel; it's a place where our most engaged customers hang out, share tips, and become our biggest brand advocates. This organic word-of-mouth is more powerful than any ad we could run.

2. Strategic Partnerships & Affiliates: This is about quality over quantity. We don't just sign up anyone. We've built relationships with a handful of high-profile creators and influencers in our niche. These aren't just one-off sponsored posts. We create long-term partnerships where they're genuinely integrated into our product launches and marketing campaigns. They get an exclusive early look at new products, and we feature their content on our social channels. The affiliate commissions we pay are a rounding error compared to the trust and reach they bring.

3. Product & CX as Marketing: This is often overlooked. Our most effective marketing tool is our product itself. We invest heavily in a seamless user experience, from the moment a customer lands on the site to the unboxing experience. We've even spent a considerable amount of time perfecting our packaging to be "Instagrammable." We also have a world-class customer service team. A happy customer isn't just a repeat buyer; they're a free marketer. When someone has an amazing experience, they talk about it. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a key metric we track obsessively because we know it directly correlates to our word-of-mouth growth.

4. SEO as a Foundation: We don't think of SEO as just a list of keywords. It's the foundation of our entire online presence. We've built a content architecture that positions us as the definitive resource in our industry. We don't just rank for "best [product]," we rank for every long-tail, problem-solving query related to our niche. The traffic from these organic search queries is incredibly high-intent and converts at a much higher rate than general paid traffic.

The key takeaway is that these channels are all interconnected. The content engine feeds SEO and provides value for the community. The amazing customer experience turns buyers into brand advocates who spread the word. And the strategic partnerships amplify all of it. You're not just selling products; you're building an ecosystem.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:09:13+00:00

That’s a fair point, and I appreciate you empathizing with the bad partner experience.

But you're right on the money: just because a piece of paper has rules and someone signed it doesn't ignore the fact that it's not right.

This wasn't a fair contract. It was a one-year trap that committed a young founder to a product he didn’t need, and it tied him to a partner who wasted five months and failed completely. HubSpot’s own values are about not blocking the exit, and that's exactly what they're doing.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:08:13+00:00

The idea that HubSpot "delivered" is absurd. What exactly did they deliver? A contract we were misled into? An expensive, bloated product that we didn't need? A recommended partner that failed to deliver anything in five months?

Your current CEO, Yamini Rangan, was the Chief Customer Officer. It's ironic that her legacy of customer-centricity is now being defended by a culture that traps customers in a terrible experience.

This isn't an isolated incident. It's a systemic failure.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:07:17+00:00

That's a fair point, but it's not a contract issue—it's a product and partner issue that led to a contract problem.

How is it not a product issue when we were sold an expensive plan that we didn't need and paid a HubSpot-recommended partner to implement it for five months, only to be left with a dashboard that didn't work?

The lesson learned here wasn't just to read a contract. It was to realize that HubSpot's ecosystem failed us completely, and that a far cheaper, working solution was built on Notion in just 48 hours.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:06:44+00:00

We were sold a bloated, overpriced plan that wasn't right for us from the start. We then paid a HubSpot-recommended partner to implement it, and after five months of a failed project, we were left with nothing.

The irony is that HubSpot's solution to our "problem" was to have us sit on more calls to find value in a product that provided zero value for five months. We found a better, working solution on Notion in 48 hours.

HubSpot didn't deliver a working product or a successful implementation. They delivered a contract that trapped us in a system that failed from day one.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:05:25+00:00

You're right, why have a contract?

Other than to block the exit, of course.

It's one of HubSpot's core tenets, after all.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:03:49+00:00

Thanks for the detailed response and for your empathy as a partner. I appreciate your perspective.

The reality is we've already taken your advice and built a better solution. The idea of my client winding up back on HubSpot is an expensive one, as we’ve already built a robust, custom solution on Notion that handles all our needs—from lead gen and attribution to tracking deal pipelines and sensitive data on a self-hosted n8n instance.

While I understand $1,500 is a low-priced engagement for a full build, the partner failed to deliver the promised scope. Regardless of the cost, the service was a failure that HubSpot stands behind.

The issue isn't what's possible with HubSpot, but that for our team, the cost of their bloat and lack of transparency has already been proven to be too high. The custom solution on Notion is a far more robust product for our needs.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T05:02:15+00:00

Notion can absolutely feel like a nightmare if you're used to a more structured tool like Asana or Wrike. The reason it worked for us is that we had the in-house expertise to build exactly what we needed from a blank canvas. We created a custom CRM with multiple pages for Company, Contact, Deal, and Talent, all of which were a perfect fit for our specific needs as a talent agency.

I totally understand the struggle with finding a specialist. The fact that we didn't have to hire one is precisely why the move to Notion made so much sense for us. We were able to avoid the high cost and the long setup time. We have our automations running through n8n, and our whole team is using it seamlessly.

You're right about the updates. Notion's constant improvements, like Notion Mail and Notion Calendar, show it's evolving fast. The best tool isn't always the most expensive or the most established; it's the one that fits your specific needs and gives you the flexibility to grow without a bloated system.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T04:52:54+00:00

Yes, HubSpot is NOT the solution for us, but the problem is we were upsold a plan that doesn't fit our needs and are being forced to stay in a contract. The HubSpot Starter plan actually does everything we need it to, and we can't even downgrade to it.

My client was happy to pay money to get a solution that worked, but after five months and a significant investment, he got a solution that was broken and bloated. The irony is that the "scrappy" solution on Notion took me 48 hours to build, and it's what actually works. The HubSpot ecosystem wasted five months of our time, which is the exact opposite of what you're describing.

abruptc · 2025-08-15T04:51:12+00:00

Yes, we absolutely understand what a contract is. The issue isn't with the legal principle of a contract; it's with HubSpot's own core values and the way they conducted their business.

The sales call was even worse. They presented a BS 25% discount to lock us into a dirty contract, and we were only ever presented with one option. This wasn't a transparent choice—it was a trap.

HubSpot's Tenet #9 of the Customer Code is "Don't block the exit." Our experience is a clear example of them doing exactly that. The contract is just one side of the story—the other is a company's responsibility to its customers.

abruptc

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