CASE STUDY · HUBSPOT · INBOUND 2019
A New Species of Disruptor
Turning a CEO's market thesis into a flagship-stage story.
ROLE
Design manager: oversight, approvals, and storytelling support
SCOPE
Design oversight and management, slide approvals, storytelling support
STAGE
INBOUND 2019 opening keynote, Boston
AUDIENCE
26,000+ attendees, plus a global online audience
01 · THE BRIEF
One big idea. HubSpot's biggest stage.
Every year, the CEO keynote at INBOUND sets HubSpot's story for the year ahead. In 2019, Brian Halligan had a thesis: a new kind of company was winning, not through what it sold, but through how it sold.
The job was to turn that complex shift in market behavior into a story a global audience of customers, partners, prospects and employees would remember and repeat. And it had to reinforce the company's bigger bets on the flywheel and customer experience.
There's no second take on a keynote. Every slide has to land the first time, in a room of thousands.
02 · THE STORY
How they sell is why they win.
The story drew a line between two kinds of disruptors. Tech disruptors won with a better product. Experience disruptors, like Carvana, Chewy and Casper, won with a better way to buy: removing friction, turning customers into advocates and making the experience itself the competitive advantage.
Framing them as a new species gave the talk its spine. Each trait became a "genetic adaptation," and every section closed on the same refrain until the audience was finishing the line for him: how they sell is why they win.
THE FIVE ADAPTATIONS
01
Get experience-market fit
02
Remove friction
03
Personalize
04
Sell through your customers
05
Rethink the business model
03 · MY ROLE
What I owned
As design manager, I led the keynote's design through the designer on my team who built it: shaping how the story showed up on screen, holding the quality bar and approving the work before it hit the stage.
Design Oversight
Guided the visual direction so every slide stayed true to the INBOUND19 identity and read clearly on a massive stage screen.
Approvals
Reviewed and approved the deck through every round of executive feedback, up to the final version on stage.
Storytelling Support
Helped translate Brian's thesis into visuals, turning abstract ideas like "experience disruptors" into slides a room of thousands could read at a glance.
Design Management
Coached and supported the designer who built the deck, balancing executive feedback, craft, and a fixed showtime.
04 · THE KEYNOTE
Built for the back row.
A keynote this size has a few places where a good idea can fall flat on screen. These are the three where design moved the story forward.
Making the metaphor visual
"A new species" was strong on paper and abstract on a screen. We turned it into a payoff: a DNA sample under a microscope that turned out to be shaped like HubSpot's flywheel, connecting Brian's thesis to the company's strategy in one laugh.
Turning a list into a story
The opening could have been a wall of logos. We built it as a story, with photos of Brian's day and a running gag that paid off twice, so the audience was laughing before the thesis even started.
Keeping five ideas clear
Five adaptations and dozens of examples risked losing the room. Every section got the same structure and closed on the same refrain, so by the end the audience was finishing the line for him.
05 · IMPACT
26,000+
Attendees at INBOUND 2019
67,000+
Views of keynote on YouTube
"Experience disruptors"
The phrase trade press used to sum up the entire keynote
AS COVERED IN
CMSWire
DMNews
Partners and attendees published recaps within days, most walking through the five adaptations one by one.
A keynote isn't a deck. It's one idea, made so clear the room can say it back to you.
WHAT I’D DO AGAIN