Jack Coopersmith

Getting paid faster is a huge value prop that we really lean into. We of course are solving for the small and medium-sized businesses — we’re not solving for the Walmarts of the world by any means. And cashflow is king for those businesses. So we want to allow folks to be able to close that deal and recognize that revenue as soon as possible, instead of having to tap on the shoulder of your finance point of contact to see if they sent the invoice, see if the invoice was paid. Getting paid faster, making sure that we can speed up that cashflow, is absolutely huge.

Sam Donaghey

This podcast is brought to you by Fast Slow Motion, a team of expert consultants that have helped hundreds of growing businesses build scalable systems on the HubSpot and Salesforce platforms. To learn more, visit fastslowmotion.com. Welcome to the Fast Slow Motion podcast, where we teach you how to build a business you love while enjoying your life.

I’m your host, Sam Donaghey, and today I’m excited to introduce Fast Slow Motion’s Max Bevan and Jack Coopersmith of HubSpot. Max, Jack, it’s great to have you on the show today.

Max is a Senior Account Executive at Fast Slow Motion, where he collaborates closely with clients to design tailored HubSpot solutions that drive both growth and efficiency. And Jack heads up Go-to-Market Strategy for Commerce Hub at HubSpot, where he focuses on payments and commerce. He’s got over eight years at HubSpot, where he brings his expertise to customer success, sales, and product teams, helping businesses to innovate and scale effectively. In today’s episode, Max and Jack are going to be delving into the impact that HubSpot has on business operations and growth.

Jack Coopersmith

Thanks so much, Sam.

Max Bevan

Jack, how are you, brother?

Jack Coopersmith

Absolutely fantastic. Thanks for having me today. Really appreciate it.

Max Bevan

Excited to dive in, man. Well, hey Jack, you’ve been at HubSpot a long time. Tell us about your journey, how you got there, and what you’re doing now.

Jack Coopersmith

I’ve been at HubSpot for just over eight years now, actually. We have this term called the Hubiversary, and I just celebrated my eighth Hubiversary last week. It’s been a really cool ride. When I was hired, HubSpot had 700 employees more or less, and we’re now well north of 8,000. So it’s been incredible to see the company grow, to see the product grow, and to see our customers grow along with us — which is the most important thing.

I’ve had an interesting ride here over the years. I started on our customer support team — you really understand the product and your customers when you’re literally responsible for supporting it. That is probably the most difficult job I’ve had at HubSpot, to be completely honest, and it’s only gotten more difficult as it’s scaled. So shout out to our support team.

From there I joined our freemium team. At the time, HubSpot had a brand new free CRM and we didn’t really know how people were going to start using it, or how they’d eventually upgrade. I was part of that team figuring out how to make the free CRM work. That turned into a sales role, and then I came back into customer success, did some onboarding, and tried to scale that up and make it as efficient as possible.

Then I joined the commerce team in December of 2021 — so it’s been almost exactly three years. I was there for our first customers, and we have many, many more now. It’s been absolutely incredible to see the commerce team and the commerce platform grow. We also had an announcement last month where we acquired a company in the commerce space, so it’s a really interesting time in the Commerce Hub world right now at HubSpot. I’m really excited for 2025 and excited to chat with you about where we’ve been and maybe where we’re going.

Max Bevan

Absolutely. When we think of Commerce Hub and where it fits into the platform as a whole — we think of that fast, easy, unified customer platform of HubSpot. Where does Commerce Hub fit in? For people who aren’t familiar with HubSpot or are just getting into it, most people know the marketing and sales side — talk us through Commerce Hub and where it fits.

Jack Coopersmith

Big time. So HubSpot is all about managing your entire business — your entire go-to-market functions, your front office — on one platform. That provides a lot of efficiencies for teams. Who wants to straddle a hundred different systems with a hundred different data sets that may not really be connected? Our whole vision is to manage your entire business on the HubSpot platform.

Now, to be completely honest — while I think every business should be using HubSpot (I’m biased there) — regardless of what you’re using, unifying your teams and data in one place will unlock a lot of business efficiencies. So where does Commerce Hub fit in?

HubSpot over the years has done a fantastic job allowing businesses to attract more traffic to their website and grow their brand online, convert that traffic into actual leads, warm those leads up, and eventually pass them over to the sales team, who then closes deals and passes customers along to service teams to make sure they’re extremely happy — and ideally become evangelists of your business, powering that flywheel to get more leads in the door.

Now, you can run all of that on the HubSpot platform, including your website, your data management, and everything else. But there’s one little piece that historically HubSpot hasn’t solved for — and I would argue it’s probably the most important piece of the customer journey. That’s really the last mile of the sales process itself. Managing your deals within HubSpot, the status quo is that businesses often hop into a completely separate tool for their proposals or agreements, then go to a separate platform for billing, then maybe a separate platform for payments, and then of course wherever the final destination is — an accounting platform or an ERP.

Commerce Hub wants to bring all of that together within HubSpot so you don’t have to manage all of those systems, and so your sales reps, when they finally get the “yes, I want to buy,” don’t have to bend themselves into a pretzel to actually close that deal. We’re all about that last mile and making it as efficient as possible. That’s where we fit into the platform.

Max Bevan

Very, very cool. I mean, when you think of an overall sales process, it’s about creating less and less friction — time to value, time to revenue, getting paid more quickly. When you think of all those things Commerce Hub can bring together, what are some of your favorite tools? What do you like to most leverage throughout the product?

Jack Coopersmith

I promise I’ll answer that, Max, but do you know how many tools on average a business uses just for their agreements — like their CPQ process?

Max Bevan

Yeah, tell me.

Jack Coopersmith

It’s five. And that is way too many — we think it really should just be one. So the parts of the platform that I’m most excited about, and that I think unlock the most potential for businesses:

Getting paid faster is a huge value prop that we really lean into. We’re solving for the small and medium-sized businesses — not the Walmarts of the world — and cashflow is king for those businesses. We want to allow folks to close that deal and recognize that revenue as soon as possible, instead of having to tap on the shoulder of your finance contact to see if they sent the invoice or if it was paid. Getting paid faster, speeding up that cashflow — that’s absolutely huge.

The other one is saving time. I haven’t met a single person — Max, I don’t know if you have — who likes to follow up on an invoice or likes to call someone and say, hey, you owe us money. Because of how we’re building the product, you’re able to capitalize on what I call the pipes underneath the HubSpot platform — our workflow automation and our reporting engine — to do all of that manual work that nobody wants to do.

I’ll throw out another stat that I love. Intuit did a study a couple of years ago — in just the UK, there are more than 56 million hours wasted by businesses each year chasing down invoices. That is way too much time doing something nobody wants to do. So getting paid faster and saving time — those are the two pieces I think are the most valuable. And if you know how to do anything within HubSpot, you’re going to know how to build all of those automation sets and reporting very easily. That’s what gets me most fired up.

Max Bevan

So I guess a big question I had, Jack — when you think about the tools at the very end of that last mile, there are almost five different quote tools potentially that people are leveraging to go from deal closure to agreement signed to quote in hand. Where does Commerce Hub want to leave off? How far do you want to take it? And at what point in the customer journey are you saying, well, that’s a role for an accounting system or an ERP? Talk us through how far you really want to go with Commerce Hub across that full-funnel customer journey.

Jack Coopersmith

Great question. From a pure product perspective, as we continue to invest and grow, our water’s edge is going to continue to move further out, which is obviously very exciting. I’m pretty confident in saying, though, that there are two places where our water’s edge are not going to be moving — and I may eat these words years from now, fair warning on that.

First, I don’t see us playing in the back office at all. When we think about accounting integrations moving forward, we’re not going to be building an accounting platform for you to settle your books and manage your P&L on the HubSpot platform. We’re very comfortable with small and medium-sized businesses and sitting in that front office. My hope is that we can build out a bit more of a middle office as we move into the commerce space. But accounting and ERPs — that’s not an area where we’re going to play.

The other area I’m confident we’re not playing in is classic e-commerce. A lot of times when people hear “online commerce,” they think of Amazon, Shopify, buying the sweatshirt I have on or the coffee cup in front of me — that’s not really where HubSpot is playing more broadly. The Shopifys and Amazons of the world have figured that out, so that’s also an area where I foresee us integrating rather than competing. We’re instead focusing on the B2B business — and that’s an area that has been very underserved from a commerce process perspective for a long time. Our lives are dominated by consumer e-commerce platforms, and there’s been so much innovation there and very little innovation for B2B businesses. That’s where we’ll be focusing for the foreseeable future.

Max Bevan

Well, you hit on it a little bit — when am I, as a business in a specific industry, either too big or too specific? Let’s say I’m already leveraging Shopify, or a QuickBooks, a NetSuite, whatever it may be. When is Commerce Hub not the right fit? And is there a specific type of business or industry that’s really leveraging the features and functionality of Commerce Hub more than others?

Jack Coopersmith

If you’re looking for classic shopping cart functionality, that’s something I would encourage you to either look at an integration for or go directly with those platforms. When it comes to industries that really do work well with our tools — anything in professional services, any time there’s a considered sale, and that even extends to B2C with a high average sales price. Think things like manufacturing, for example. And then another huge area is subscriptions and recurring payments more broadly — we work with SaaS quite well right now and are going to be doing a lot of work over the next couple of quarters to really solve for that space.

Ultimately, our whole vision — and Commerce Hub is following HubSpot’s footsteps more broadly here — is: if you’re a brand new business, get started with us today, and you can do so for free. We don’t want you to have to graduate from HubSpot, and we don’t want you to have to graduate from Commerce Hub either. We genuinely want you to establish your business on our platform and really scale without ever having to leave. So we’re going to continue working towards solving for those bigger companies too.

Max Bevan

That single pane of glass — that one area on a contact record where we can see everything happening through the customer journey. HubSpot started as a marketing platform, extended to a CRM, now includes the full sales, service, and ticketing process. When you think of where Commerce Hub sits — what is that first thing people are adopting? What are they extending to when they’re already on the platform?

Jack Coopersmith

There’s a lot of synergy with the Sales Hub platform and the commerce tools. I liked your metaphor around that single pane of glass — that can often be the deal throughout the sales process. What we often see is that when we get to “agreement made” — or whatever language you want to use — reps are then jumping into a bunch of other platforms to actually close that deal. And that’s if the rep even has access to all of those platforms. They’re often tapping on their manager’s or finance team’s shoulder for all of these different approvals.

There’s a lot of synergy to be had for the sales rep — stay in your seat, close this deal, actually recognize that revenue. We’re going to be doing a lot on that front next year: simply click a few buttons, get that proposal out, and easily move into billing. So if you’re a rep managing your day to day, this would make your life a lot easier. And from a leadership perspective, consolidating your tech stack and really being able to consolidate your data and lean into the power of HubSpot is a huge unlock for a lot of businesses.

Max Bevan

Yeah, that’s obviously a big focus at FSM — we want to be a blessing to business leaders as they grow their business. The platform being at the center of that conversation for them to scale and grow is a huge priority. HubSpot has historically been a “grow better” platform where the platform is at the center of the business and you scale the features, functionalities, and your departments around it. So as you think of HubSpot as a whole, and Commerce Hub specifically — for managers and director-level leaders, how does the platform enable and empower a business to grow scalably?

Jack Coopersmith

I’m curious your take on that, Max, because I know you have a lot of experience in this space. I’d say data is king. If you’re going to be making data-driven decisions to move your business forward, it doesn’t really help if all of your data is completely disconnected.

One of the features I just love — it isn’t necessarily commerce, but — is the Sales Workspace we’re working on. It really does enable a given person, but also their manager and their manager’s manager, to come into one place and understand what the biggest opportunities are, where things are getting stuck, and where they should be focusing. We’re also going to be investing in deeper revenue forecasting — revenue projections, analytics around your recurring revenue. Those are areas that will help businesses make the right decisions and ideally identify within their teams who has figured out the secret sauce, what that secret sauce is, and how to scale it to the rest of the team. It all really starts with data. What’s your take?

Max Bevan

That’s what I get really excited about with HubSpot. When you think of a single code base — the CRM is the foundation, the layer where all the data resides, for any contact, any company, any deal, any ticket. Doesn’t matter the object, it’s in one spot. And once you have it within the CRM layer, you get to leverage the features and functionality across the different hubs. You mentioned the workflow tools — great, I have some sort of marketing engagement on the front end that I can now use to enroll a workflow for a customer success agent because they took a marketing action. It’s all on one single platform.

So it just puts you in a position where you can tell the full story of what your customer is doing, how they’re engaging. And then, like you said, you’re making objective decisions based on the data about how to engage. What does the next thing need to be? Is it a sales touchpoint? A marketing touchpoint? A service touchpoint? Well, it depends — where are they, right? It might even be a billing touchpoint. And if we have the data right, we know exactly what the next step needs to be and which team is responsible for it. Building out those methodical processes as we scale on the platform is driven by having the right data.

Jack Coopersmith

It’s everything from our journey analytics functionality, which gives so much more insight into your customer’s journey. It’s also being able to connect marketing assets to dollar signs — that is hugely compelling. There are so many marketers we’ve connected with over the years who say, we don’t get the credit we deserve. Well, you can look at how much revenue you truly impacted. You’ll get that credit. And that is very difficult to do in a world where everything isn’t together.

I’d also say, Max, you’re spot on when it comes to that unified data layer that is our CRM. I used the term “pipes underneath everything” earlier — what I’m really referring to is reporting, automation, and segmentation as the foundation underneath that CRM platform.

You mentioned earlier the concept of fast, easy, and unified — those are the three words HubSpot is using all day, every day now. On the unified piece, I’ll reflect a little bit. One of the things HubSpot has done really well over the years is establish these clear principles for how businesses should think about running their operations. Those principles also impose a bunch of internal discipline on HubSpot itself. So when it comes to unified data, that also means making sure everything within that data layer is structured the same way so you can take advantage of all of it. Right now, connecting marketing assets to revenue is all about the sum of Closed Won deals. As we continue to invest in commerce and we genuinely know how much money you recognized, all of that data is going to become a lot more powerful and give you even more insights.

Max Bevan

And not to mention — if we have that smart CRM layer, now we have the whole AI function, where we have the data right there. When we think of the future of Commerce Hub and the future of that unified data layer — like you said, with forecasting, projections, and sales — what’s going to be the AI impact? How much further are you going to be able to extrapolate that data in a way that’s useful for the end user?

Jack Coopersmith

AI is definitely a big buzzword across the board, but it’s also something that from the very top down at HubSpot, everyone is being pushed to think about — what is the role there, how can we plug it in?

I don’t want to get too far ahead of everything because we’re still in planning mode. But if I’m to get out my crystal ball and place some bets — we can timestamp this — we’re moving into a world where we’re thinking a lot more about agents. What more can the platform do with both the structured data we have as well as all of the unstructured data in our ecosystem?

Could I see a world next year where we have something like a quoting or proposal agent — where a sales rep is working within HubSpot, managing their deals, and then maybe based on the conversations they’ve had on a recorded phone call, they click a couple of buttons and have a clean proposal, maybe with a couple of options based on that call, and then let the buyer choose and pay, and move that data into the accounting system and call it a day? I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw that. We can timestamp this. I’ll bet five bucks on it right now.

Max Bevan

I mean, I can see that. How much can we reduce the friction that a salesperson feels — where they work for the CRM rather than the CRM working for them? If we can send an agent to do some business analyst work — reviewing the calls, getting a proposal together, getting a quote in place, sending it out to the customer, getting their feedback — and then all of a sudden I click on my dashboard and I have a Closed Won deal, with steps three, four, and five already done for me. What a world to end up in. How much more time does a salesperson get back? How many more deals can they progress when agents are supporting the pieces that can be automated?

Jack Coopersmith

I may have to steal that line — the CRM working for you, not you working for the CRM — because that’s spot on. Ultimately, technology is an inhibitor for so many reps. That last mile is a really important one. And instead of folks having to jump through hoops and figure out, wait, can I add this discount to this line item, or who do I need to approve this — focus on building relationships with customers. That’s ultimately what humans are built to do, and that’s where reps want to spend their time. Technology shouldn’t be the inhibitor. It should allow people to build relationships with their customers more.

Sam Donaghey

So Jack, what kind of a learning curve would there be for a business when they start using Commerce Hub?

Jack Coopersmith

Frankly, not that much, Sam, because one of HubSpot’s superpowers is its really unified user interface. If you’re comfortable in the companies index page or the contacts index page, you go to our subscriptions, invoices, and payments pages — and my bet is you’re going to know exactly what you’re looking at. The learning curve when it comes to just understanding how everything ties together — if you have experience with HubSpot, you’re not going to be very surprised by any means when it comes to the commerce tools.

Where I think the biggest learning curve comes in is really just being comfortable with change. I’ve talked to so many business leaders who over the years have said, my marketing function needs some work, my sales function can speed up, I know we can support our customers a little bit better — but they’re never really thinking about how they actually make money, what their buyer experience is. Being able to change that is something I recognize is scary. If you’re going to rock any boats, rocking your money boat is a pretty sensitive one. So I think it’s really just the change management piece and being willing to rethink how you do your commerce process — because so many businesses haven’t really changed it much since the nineties. That’s my take. Max, I’m curious yours — you’ve helped so many different businesses adopt these tools.

Max Bevan

I think the biggest thing, like you said, is the UI — it feels familiar. You naturally know where to go as you go through the quote tool, as you set up HubSpot payments. It’s all a very similar design. If you’ve been using HubSpot, it’s very intuitive because it’s designed by the same people on the same base — it’s a unified system.

And I’ve really enjoyed seeing how the commerce team has continued to extend the functionality into other areas of the platform. A simple example is meeting links — maybe everyone’s favorite tool, which has existed in HubSpot for years and years. Now with a simple click of a button, you can gate a meeting link, install a payment link, and take payment through a meeting link. What you did is take a native feature of the product and extend it with a little bit of commerce functionality on top. Those are the ways it just feels like you can start to leverage the commerce platform without really even having to learn new tools.

Jack, what is one of your favorite Commerce Hub customer stories? Share the logo or don’t, but tell us one of your favorite use cases — how they set up Commerce Hub and where they end up.

Jack Coopersmith

I love that question. I’ll call out two. I mentioned earlier the businesses and industries that tend to see a lot of success with our tools. I’ll call out one that’s kind of adjacent to the paid meeting link because I think it’s a great example of a vertical that is resistant to change — and one company that is embracing it and seeing quite a bit of success.

I’ve talked to so many businesses over the years who’ve said, Jack, I’ve sold through a sales rep for 50 years and I’m always going to sell through a sales rep. My products or services are way too complex. Well, we have a divorce lawyer who is using our commerce tools and selling consultations touchlessly on their website. If a divorce lawyer can rethink how they take their services to market, you can too. It’s been great to see them grow — though I’m not sure I’d hope they grow too much, because that means a lot of divorces.

And then the other one that stands out is a customer who sells really complex and beautiful sewing machines for quilters. That’s just one of those — you don’t necessarily think you’re building for those types of people when you’re at the whiteboards thinking about your ideal customer profile. But that’s an example of someone who’s already using HubSpot, has a considered sale, and said, why not just stay within one place and easily collect my money? And so boom — they’re selling a bunch of sewing machines on our platform. A divorce lawyer selling touchlessly online, and a quilting machine seller managing it all in HubSpot. Those are the two that stand out because they’re unique and kind of cool.

Max Bevan

Well, I’ve been very patient on this next question. Tell us about the future of Commerce Hub. There’s obviously been a very exciting acquisition. Paint us the picture of what’s going on at the HubSpot offices and what we can all look forward to.

Jack Coopersmith

We have the whole Cacheflow team here in Boston this week, which is really awesome. If anyone from the Cacheflow team happens to be listening — really fun getting to know you all, excited for the week ahead.

So folks, as some of you may know, HubSpot acquired a company on October 30th — the deal closed not too long ago. The company is called Cacheflow — C-A-C-H-E-F-L-O-W. I like the internet play there. This is a company that has gotten really deep in the CPQ space specifically and has also dabbled in billing.

Taking a step back — putting ourselves in a given rep’s shoes who’s using HubSpot day to day. Right now, we do have a quoting tool that can solve for quite a lot of use cases. However, in a world where someone has more complex approvals, more complex pricing models — like ramps, tiers, or usage-based pricing — which is frankly where a lot more businesses are moving — you get to a certain scale and you’ll hit our quote tool’s water’s edge.

The Cacheflow team is fantastic and has really deep expertise in this area. Per our comments earlier around a consistent UI, we’re going to be building what they built essentially on the HubSpot platform the way we always build. It’s great because they’re going to bring their expertise to allow people to manage not just their billing and payments, but their quoting, billing, and payments all within HubSpot.

We’re going to keep our foot on the gas pedal when it comes to deeper payments functionality and deeper billing functionality. And these folks are going to help us really accelerate in the CPQ and billing space and bring a lot of expertise too. So I’m really excited to see what they deliver. We’re going to be able to really walk the walk when it comes to managing everything on one platform and not having to jump between a number of different tools.

What’s your take on it, Max? I know you’ve spent some time in the CPQ space.

Max Bevan

Yeah. At FSM we have deep CPQ experience — it becomes an instrumental part of building a business on a platform. How are we quoting? How are we getting quotes signed off? How are we pushing that through from a service fulfillment and delivery perspective? Nothing gets us more excited than seeing HubSpot continue to extend the functionality — obviously with what we’ve seen with Breeze, with the Clearbit acquisition, and now translating that to what Cacheflow could become, how it gets integrated, and you guys being very methodical about the UI build and how it gets incorporated into the platform. We’re certainly excited and very bullish on CPQ. Looking forward to seeing how it rolls out.

Jack Coopersmith

We have a quoting tool. And frankly, if you ask ten people what CPQ means, they’ll probably all give you the correct acronym, but you’ll get ten different answers around what CPQ actually is. Max, I do want to put that on you — what is CPQ in your view? I’ll give mine first though.

It’s a lot more governance and rules underneath the hood of everything. These products can go together, these can’t, this discount can be applied here, this can’t — things like that. Making your reps’ lives easier while still giving leadership the controls they need, baking that in and making it easy to use — that’s going to hopefully unlock a lot of value for our customers. I’m excited to get a lot more power underneath the hood, maybe with a little more usability around a quoting or proposal agent. We have a CMS with a pretty slick drag-and-drop — could I see a world where we move something similar over? I wouldn’t be shocked. I’ve seen this movie enough to have a sense of how it could shake out. We hear our customers loud and clear, and we make decisions based on customer feedback. Full stop.

Max Bevan

I’d say CPQ — as you kind of described — is the toolkit that unlocks complex quoting and pricing infrastructure and process in a way that the sales rep doesn’t feel. It’s easy for them to create quotes, get them in front of the customer, and price things with dependencies and rules. But there’s all this back-end infrastructure built into the CPQ to ensure we have rules around inventory, products, bundling, and pricing that the reps don’t necessarily have to know about. By just using an intuitive CPQ, the reps have it in their hands and can’t really mess it up as they get pricing in front of a customer. But all that infrastructure — why we price the way we do, why we build bundles and quotes the way we do — is there from the business side.

Jack Coopersmith

Just like nobody wants to follow up on an overdue invoice and call someone to say you owe us money — I’ve never met a single sales rep who wants to become an expert on which bundles go where either. They just want to do their job and close the deal. Our goal is to make that as easy as humanly possible, while still giving leadership the controls they need to make sure the business is running in the right direction.

Sam Donaghey

Guys, this has been a great conversation. We always like to end our episode with a piece of wisdom or advice for our listeners, many of whom are business leaders or entrepreneurs. Is there a quote or a piece of advice you’d like to share with us today?

Jack Coopersmith

Enable your reps to do the job that they want to do — which is build relationships with their customers — and let tools like HubSpot and platforms more broadly do the hard work for you.

Sam Donaghey

Well, that wraps up today’s episode. A huge thank you to Max and Jack for joining us today. We hope our listeners found the conversation insightful and engaging. Take care. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform, or you can find all of our past episodes at fastslowmotion.com/podcast. And if you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, reach out at fastslowmotion.com/podcastfeedback.