I went from HubSpot stan to existential crisis in the last 2 months. Not because HubSpot changed, but because I changed. Becoming a builder has completely shifted my stance on all-in-one marketing and sales platforms.
Many marketers have built their careers on being HubSpot specialists. I think it's time to move away from that kind of title and lean into being a builder.
Marketing automation tools are fun
I started tinkering with marketing automation tools in 2018. I'd just joined a startup where my boss was bullish on automation. He taught me Pardot and it was fun. I started seeing in if/thens. IF someone fills out the application form on our site, THEN I can send them an email that says "we got your application." IF we accepted their application, THEN we can send an email that says "congrats, you made it in!"
Very easy to see how those kinds of automations would save our admissions department time. Which meant they had more time for reviewing more applications, needed less headcount, yada yada. Neat.
Then my boss caught wind of a new marketing automation platform called ConvertKit (now called Kit). He let me have full access to it and I started building more complex funnels. IF accepted, THEN send series of emails and resources to prep them for day 1 of the coding bootcamp.
These funnels actually meant our customers came more prepared for the bootcamp, therefore having a better/more successful experience in their 3-month program. Super neat.
Then I started doing A/B testing, seeing what subject lines got more opens, what copy got more clicks, which clicks got the results we wanted.
It's ~science~.
I loved marketing automation so much the next job I got was 100% that. But even more complex flows. So complex we had to get a very technical (for a marketer lol) platform called Marketing Cloud. You could do if/then emails, SMS, push notifications, whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. I felt powerful and important. I was building something that helped many departments work more efficiently and created a better customer experience.
I actually really disliked Marketing Cloud. It didn't really make sense to me, and it was way too easy to accidentally email the wrong thing to 500,000 people (not that that happened to me...or did it 😬). It was the core reason I decided to leave that job.
My next gig was all HubSpot. We were using their free CRM so it just made sense to start building marketing and sales on top of that. I built sales pipelines, marketing flows, and even built some custom customer success objects and tools. I felt all powerful. Super admin access and I could drag and drop anything. And I did.
Every new person I'd hire I'd say, "the most valuable skill you can learn as a marketer is HubSpot." Because, you could just build automations. And, it's so fun.
It's fun until you weren't the one who built it
Literally anyone can learn how to use HubSpot. It really is just a drag and drop situation. But just like math, there's usually more than one way to get to the same answer. And that's where things get complicated.
So if you didn't build the automations and triggers yourself, and there isn't proper documentation explaining the reasoning and logic behind them, HubSpot can be extremely costly and unfun.
Not to say that a very complex HubSpot workflow isn't a stroke of genius. But parsing through 100+ logic steps is extremely difficult for the person who didn't think through and build it themselves.
I didn't really understand that until I inherited a very built-out HubSpot instance that I didn't build. I was missing all the context.
I was asked to update our lead routing. When someone filled out the contact sales form, instead of doing a round robin between the three reps we had, we wanted to set up territories. Aka, IF someone is from Europe, THEN X rep was assigned the lead.
That's super simple logic.
Except I couldn't actually implement that simple logic. There were too many upstream workflows that I didn't understand (couldn't even find them) that complicated the build.
After weeks of trying to parse through all the workflows, trying to piece together someone else's logic and reasoning, I decided to build it all again from scratch. That's so not fun.
That experience made me realize how much of my time was being spent working within someone else's logic instead of building the system around the way our business actually worked.
It's bad when you start tinkering with agentic coding
The first app I ever built using agentic coding was extremely simple. An app to share photos from a big event we did.
And even tho it was simple, it opened my eyes to what is possible. I can build anything. Without being confined to someone else's UI, logic, and price point.
When I had that realization, it made it clear that HubSpot's all-in-one approach is actually...limiting.
As I was trying to dive into these workflows to figure out why they were built the way they were, and what upstream and downstream workflows were triggered based on the completion of other workflows, HubSpot would just bug out. I could never really figure out anything in one session.
If I can build and maintain my own platform, I can find and fix my own bugs on my own time.
HubSpot can also get very pricey as your database and needs grow.
If I can build some of these things myself, I can potentially save my company a lot of money.
HubSpot was built to work for a lot of different businesses.
If I can build something custom to our business, we can get better, cleaner results.
When you build something yourself, the system can actually reflect how your business works. You're not trying to force your business into the way a platform decided a business should work. You're building the system around the business.
All-in-one platforms still make sense for some businesses. But I think these are some pretty good reasons to go more modular and custom.
HubSpot specialists have an advantage
Building in marketing automation tools for most of my career has actually helped me lean into building with agents.
Because even though the agent is building, I'm still the boss when it comes to reasoning and logic. I have to know what I want to build, why I'm building it, and how the pieces should work together.
And that's something you get better at the more you build using marketing automation tools.
I always thought HubSpot was fun because I could build what I wanted. Then I started building with agents and realized how much more specific, useful, and profitable my systems could be.
If you haven't already, I think it's time to lean into building. Use agents. Build your own stuff.
The skill isn't knowing HubSpot. The skill is knowing how to build systems.
Now is not too late.