On Monday, HubSpot Media, the in-house media division of the enterprise software firm HubSpot, acquired the creator-led entrepreneurship publication Starter Story, Jonathan Hunt, vice president of media and content at HubSpot, confirmed to ADWEEK. Hunt did not disclose the terms of the deal.
Starter Story, which was founded in 2017 by software engineer Pat Walls, has evolved into a video-first media brand with more than 800,000 YouTube subscribers, a 275,000-person newsletter, and a total audience of roughly 1.6 million across platforms. It is profitable and generates a “seven-figure” revenue, according to founder Patrick Walls.
The business is run by a team of three full-time staff: Walls, his sister and chief operating officer Sam, and producer Gus Tiffer. Under the deal, all three will join HubSpot Media, which includes brands such as The Hustle, My First Million, and Mindstream.
The deal is the latest sign of the surging interest from media companies in popular YouTube channels.
Publishers including Vox Media and ESPN have signed deals with prominent YouTube creators in recent months, while media startups, like Dynamo and NewPress, increasingly use the platform, rather than a traditional website, as their base of operations. The trend comes as interest in video products, including podcasts and short-form video, continue to grab larger swaths of consumer attention.
A demand-generation media engine
The acquisition is part of HubSpot’s broader bet that media can drive customers to its core software business.
HubSpot Media currently drives more than 50 million monthly engagements and tens of thousands of leads per month, according to Hunt. Over the past year, YouTube-driven lead generation has grown 68% year over year, while newsletter-driven leads have increased 53%.
With the addition of Starter Story, HubSpot’s YouTube network will reach a combined 2.9 million subscribers, larger than the YouTube footprint of Morning Brew and more than double that of Salesforce, per Hunt.
Starter Story brings an audience that aligns closely with HubSpot’s core customer base: early-stage founders and small businesses looking to grow. It also builds on its strategy of acquiring creator-led media brands, as both My First Million and Mindstream are anchored by small, founder-centric teams.
With the tie-up, HubSpot is betting that the path to software adoption increasingly begins not with a search query or an ad, but with a YouTube video.
“Small business is a core audience for us,” Hunt said. “Starter Story is one of the largest non-traditional media brands speaking to founders who are gaining momentum and need tools to accelerate that growth.”
The logic behind the strategy reflects broader shifts in how buyers discover software.
As search traffic declines and social advertising costs rise, potential customers are increasingly gathering information across fragmented environments, from Reddit and ChatGPT to YouTube and newsletters. Owning niche media brands, according to Hunt, creates a defensible channel for reaching those audiences earlier in their journey.
A creator business built on video
Starter Story’s growth in recent years has been driven largely by its pivot to YouTube, where long-form founder interviews now generate between 1.5 million and 2 million monthly views, according to Walls.
“We saw the attention shifting toward video and jumped on that wave,” Walls said.
That trajectory mirrors a broader industry trend. YouTube has become the primary incubator for a new generation of media businesses, offering both discovery and monetization at a time when traffic to traditional websites is under pressure.
Starter Story’s revenue model has also evolved alongside its audience. Prior to the acquisition, roughly 75% of its revenue came from its own products—including subscriptions, courses, and a paid community of more than 10,000 members—rather than advertising.
For HubSpot, the deal is less about advertising revenue than about building a media ecosystem that feeds its sales pipeline.
The division already reaches millions of business professionals each month, and future monetization for Starter Story will lean more heavily into demand generation and community-driven products tied to HubSpot’s broader network.
The acquisition also comes as lower barriers to entry, driven in part by AI tools, are enabling more people to launch businesses, expanding the pool of potential customers.
“We’re seeing more founders being able to build than ever before,” Walls said.