First Ride

Rob Jones: Ladies, gentlemen, and nerds across America, welcome to the Road to Unbound. I am apparently the bus driver, although my license has been suspended for several years now. We won't get into that. I am joined alongside the bearded wonder himself, Chris Carolyn. Chris, how are you?

Chris Carolan: Howdy. Excited, man.

Rob Jones: We've got several stops to make now that Chris has taken up too much of our time with his intro. But we want to position a new idea to you. It's a show about, not Seinfeld, a show about nothing, but it's a show about what brought you and I and other three mystery guests together. I'm trying to avoid talking about the proper noun here, and I'm trying to also avoid... spoiling anything. So do you want to give some hints before we introduce the other three people riding co-shotgun with us on this journey?

Chris Carolan: I mean, we're on the, we're on the road to unbound, right? Not inbound, just to confirm where unbound 2026 in Boston. and I did something like this, similar to last year, where you just have a bunch of good humans on talking about their unbound experiences, giving tips and tricks for how you find a way to try and manage your time when you're at unbound. give speakers, help spotters, anybody who wants to show up a chance to share their story and what makes them tick.

Rob Jones: Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, you're jumping way ahead. What is unbound for those that don't know, that aren't in the know?

Chris Carolan: Unbound is a conference in Boston put on by HubSpot, formerly known as Inbound.

Rob Jones: HubSpot's formerly known as Inbound or the conference? Okay, that makes more sense. So the theme of this episode for me today is the host and the person that tries to get a laugh out of people who are off camera right now and you on camera is the Cringe Destroyer. So making a whole show themed around a conference and how it brought people together seems like the stuff that would be featured on LinkedIn lunatics, where I've been there once. But I wanna open it up with me telling my story about how a conference actually did change my life. There's an orange suit. I have a bobblehead of it right here from another conference that we did, Southbound. is me, Mayor. And four years ago, I... Started a company, I'll give the short version of this. Didn't really know what HubSpot was. It started at Rev Partners. We went to my first inbound, now unbound, doesn't count towards the dinger, in September. And I had no idea what I was doing. I wore an orange suit as a kind of icebreaker and to deflect from the fact that I knew probably the least about HubSpot of anyone there, of the 15, 20,000 people. And lo and behold, that exploded into the mayor of inbound self-appointed title, a feature, a very short but interesting feature in the Boston Globe, interview with Vice Media, that went on to kind of propel a personal brand on accident. And I have, in any measurable way, I can say that my life, my income, my family's life, our livelihood has changed for the better since then. Is that a coincidence? Maybe. I'd like to think not, but... very personally, very directly, I can speak to the fact that a stupid little conference, right, a tech conference made a monumental impact on my life that is still being measured. Top that, Chris. Can you tell your quick story?

Chris Carolan: So. I mean, I will, but I need to ask the question, like, are you just grandfathered in to being the mayor of Unbound?

Rob Jones: So that's a good question. I'll let the jury weigh in on that. have positioned myself. First of all, there are no term limits for made up fictional positions, is, so I was going to be the mayor of inbound forever. I don't know if the mayor of unbound flows off the tongue as easily. I don't know if it has that je ne sais quoi, I don't know if has the cachet. They might not. I mean, they are unbound. So.

Chris Carolan: Yeah, might not even have a mayor, right?

Rob Jones: Politically, I don't I don't know if they would even have office or if there'd be some sort of tribunal or counsel That's that's on episode 3 not to spoil anything. I'm going for the oink of unbound. I mean I am 36 I need to to like, you know, youthify myself a little bit. Onk seems to be fair. I am getting older. But yeah, the suit will make an appearance again. I don't know if the same company will sell. It seems like the branding has moved to almost this like purpley violet. So I'm gonna have to upgrade the color scheme, but. I want to do that for you. I want to do that for the rest of the people who will join us momentarily. I'm not going to give their names away. They can introduce themselves, but they are three of the most genuine, smartest humans. Humans. There's a hint for one of them that I have met. They are within the ecosystem in Texas HubSpot that I... gravitate in and they have some pretty cool stories about how there can be real impact from connecting, networking, taking little pieces from a conference of all things into your actual everyday life to use for the rest of the year and in one case I know for 13 or 14 years. So it's more than just a three day gathering. It can have real impact. Chris, I will turn it over to you now.

Chris Carolan: That does. I could say similar things about livelihood and income levels, thanks to the ecosystem. I met HubSpot in 2017, but really didn't meet the ecosystem until I started life as a HubSpot Solutions partner, really at inbound 2023. That's where my ecosystem life started and it's as cliche as it sounds. I was at inbound and like everything felt so right. You know, like the, was around people that, that I liked in just the whole vibe, right. Coming from industrial manufacturing, like going to shows, you're like, okay, like let's get ready for the dog and pony show. but it was, it's very much not that. Like it's just, hard to explain, I think. but when you get a chance to go and just be around, you know, my people, it's really hard to top that as like an experience. so I always recommended if you, if you have joined the HubSpot ecosystem and community, and have felt that digitally, just, be ready for a little bit of overwhelm. like when you, when you experience it physically, but, there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. since then it's given me the opportunity to, give myself permission to do content like this, hang out with, with awesome people like Rob Jones, who like when we first met, I think I walked by you like five times before I finally asked like, man, you want to do some content together?

Rob Jones: You didn't want to talk to me. That's fine.

Chris Carolan: It's like 30 seconds. You're like, yeah, sounds good. And then like a month later, you know, we were doing content together. so, yeah, excited for the road, man.

Rob Jones: Can I have a raw metaphor here? Do we want to introduce the first person on the bus?

Chris Carolan: Well, I think we do need to describe a little bit of what we're trying to accomplish with this show.

Rob Jones: We like to disagree about things, so I'll start that off right now. I want to move away. I know that one of our guests is kind of on my side with this a little bit, and he'll probably burst in here with a sermon, which we will all appreciate. Love that guy. Spoiler, another spoiler. It's like the third spoiler for this human. half of me, half of me, with the pre-exposure to this ecosystem would have thought all of this concept is insane. Like who plans their whole identity and their whole year around a conference, a tech conference for God's sakes. And then I realized how many parallels there are with Comic-Con, with other, don't think of it as a work conference. People go to this all the time. If you've been on the internet in the last three years when the rise of Pokemon has come back, people make a living by going to these things. And it's really a gathering of people in person with shared experiences, pains, problems, looking for similar solutions. That's what it is. Like forget HubSpot for just a second if you're in the tech space if you own a computer if you're between the ages of 3 and 105 if you've ever been outside your home or use the consumer product this kind of this will apply to you This is not paid for by HubSpot. It's not sponsored by unbound or HubSpot. I like to think of it more as a gathering virtually for 360 days and then in person for four or five of like-minded similarly aged role like personas that face similar changes in the world, very similar pain points, and are looking for solutions that make sense to them. Comradery is built through that, by the way, like the strongest relationships and bonds in the world are like sports teams, military, like those types of things. And camaraderie is built through like shared struggle. So if you go to this Unbound Conference and fill camaraderie with people immediately, it's because you've been plotting uphill and experiencing change and pain in a very similar way in different locations for the last however long you've been doing that. Some longer than others. That is the experience in person that you get when you arrive. You become immediate friends with people that you see on your LinkedIn feed or social platforms. So you recognize them, but as soon as you start talking to them, you realize, maybe I'm not alone. Maybe Breeze was crap and now it's amazing.

Rob Jones: Maybe I don't understand token usage or credits. Maybe I'm just pretending that AI has solved everything, but I need to do a deeper dive. Maybe I follow some of the other people and have questions for them as well. So that is my approach. You can disagree, but I do want to get people in here to introduce themselves and weigh in. You're the host, by the way. I'm just the tour guide or the bus driver? forget.

Chris Carolan: Yeah, that's, I mean, you're the tour guide. I'm driving the bus and it looks like we are, we have made it to North Carolina.

Rob Jones: my goodness, I thought it was West Carolina. Hailing from West, North, or East, one of the Carolinas is the man, the myth, the legend, the human, first and foremost. Our first guest on the bus, I guess geographically, this is a road to unbound, George B. Thomas.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. How we doing, gentlemen? Thanks for swinging in and picking me up. This is a pretty dope looking bus here. I didn't know we were going to have fuzzy dice on the mirror.

Rob Jones: We do, there's actually bunks up on the top row. This is a double decker bus in my imagination. So that's where I sleep in the back on the top. Chris is actually in the, you know, how you get off the bus and go under for the carry on luggage. That's where Chris sleeps.

George B. Thomas: Nice.

George B. Thomas: Nice. Wow.

Chris Carolan: Wow. Earned that spot.

Rob Jones: But George, as the tour guide, we have a detour right here. Both involve you. I'll set you up for one or both. First option to the left.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Jones: Not very good geography, so I don't know if this is getting into Maryland or whatever. To the left is a quick story about your experience with conference life in general, specifically, I guess, what is now being called Unbound. Or the second direction to the right is a rebuttal or any comments on all the stuff I said. We accidentally kept you off camera longer than we anticipated, but I mentioned a lot of that for you to respond. So you can do one or both of those things first.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, no, I actually like a lot of what you had to say and what Chris had to say. I do believe that. What drew me in in 2012 was this idea of community. It was this idea of being human. It was this idea of doing the things that we were going to do in a better way. And so, I think that it's interesting to have an event. I remember when it was inbound in 2012, there was 2,500 of us, 2,500. people. The numbers are not like that anymore. And what they've done an amazing job of is continuing to make it feel like community, even though it has become the most mega of mega churches slash conferences slash events, whatever you want to call it. There are these small groups, if you will, where it's different places that you can go and do and see. And so now I agree with everything that you share. I will tell you I know my mission here is to tell you about like special time time singular About the event, but that is very difficult for me because after going for 14 years not speaking that long, but speaking since 2016, there has been an amazing set of things that have happened. And so I was trying to think about one of the most like, my God moments of the event and not being like,

George B. Thomas: selfish with it, right? So for instance, I could tell you the story of when I was sitting in the Weston and it was Remington bag and a couple other friends and all of a sudden, we look over and Brian Halligan is sitting on the couch across from us and we literally just sat there and talked for a while. I could tell you about the time that I was getting ready to leave inbound with Zach Basner and Brian actually knocked on the window of my Uber and and put his head in the car and started to say a few kind words to me. But you know what, I won't tell you those things because those are kind of like maybe a little self-serving, although they were cool moments. I really want to share a moment that to me is the essence of what I think this ecosystem, what this event should be. And like you two earlier, you mentioned the income you make the life that you have. Listen, I'm a high school dropout that now owns an agency that helps, you know, million dollar organizations do marketing, sales, service, use HubSpot, which is like a radical climb through life. And I always had this thing where I said, you know what I just need? I just need a hand up. I don't need a hand out. I need a hand up. And for me, the hand up was HubSpot Academy in 2012 when we won tickets to inbound and we started to use HubSpot. got back to then was Massillon, Ohio, small town, small agency and dove into HubSpot Academy. And so, you know, humans like Kyle Jepson and Mark Killens and Sarah Bedrick and like all of these humans were like putting education out there. And so I went from being a designer developer to now all of a like trying to do marketing in a better way and email marketing and contextual marketing like smart content and and started getting these certifications and through that was able to be able to also start creating content. So we started with Marcus Sheridan. We started the hubcast and I

George B. Thomas: started doing HubSpot video tutorials. They sucked at first, but it is what it is. It got us where we are now. And so there came a time at the inbound event now known as unbound that I made it a point to go to the HubSpot Academy booth. And I wanted to thank the HubSpot Academy for their efforts and all of the work that they did. And I tell you honestly that there were tears shed. And I also know that that story rippled through the HubSpot Academy in future people who came to work on the Academy because I got told later that yeah, we heard the story of when you came in like, and it was not a thing of like, I need to go do this because it was just a heartfelt moment, a magic moment in the hallways. And I think everybody needs to realize, like, that's what that event is kind of made for, is the heartfelt moments, the ability to transition and pivot and just be in the moment. for learning, for entertaining, and for engaging with other humans. So that's my moment that I pull out that I always kind of go back to of like, man, that was a dope moment with the HubSpot Academy crew.

Rob Jones: It's gonna be hard to top that, George, I appreciate that. I think there's a lot of same themes emerging already, which is like in-person, the proximity of being able to share and listen to stories like that. It is a two or three day span where you're listening a lot to sessions and to people talk, but. The kind of, reconnaissance is the wrong word, but the social listening that you do in person to be able to identify things that you could change or do or upgrade in your life, I think is massively important. We are now taking, is it a left, right, northeast? Where the hell is Maryland?

George B. Thomas: I think up maybe. Maybe up compared to where I am in the world.

Chris Carolan: North. North.

Rob Jones: We're going up, and it's not a Tuesday, to introduce our next guest, our next passenger on this bus that is bound for Boston in September. Cue the production. There she is. Casey, grayhound of the former helpline Hawkins is the fourth passenger on the road to inbound bus. Casey, have you been moved to tears yet in this call?

George B. Thomas: There we go.

Casey Hawkins: Bye!

George B. Thomas: mmm

Chris Carolan: Road to where? Road to where, Rob?

Rob Jones: Boston, did I say the wrong word?

George B. Thomas: boy.

Chris Carolan: That's the official number one. That's the official.

Rob Jones: Okay, we had an idea. I didn't think I'd be the first one to do it since I had the idea for this, but we are gonna introduce some production that counts how many times we say the former name of the conference, and I was the first violator. So, road to Unbound is where we're going.

George B. Thomas: Yeah.

Chris Carolan: Thank you for setting the example. We always appreciate that.

Rob Jones: I'm good for something at least.

Casey Hawkins: I definitely thought I would be the first to, so I'm relieved it was Rob.

Rob Jones: Well, you can still be the first to tell your story intro to the ecosystem, to the conference, to the thing that we shall not call inbound ever again. That didn't count. was saying what we're not calling it. And then we can see how much of the three now four stories kind of line up with the intent behind this show.

Casey Hawkins: So my first HubSpot conference was last year. in September of 2025, which is, I don't know, kind of cool in retrospect that I can say I went to inbound. If I had missed that one, then I would be, I would have, I would have to say I've never been. But yeah, so last year was my first year. I had been working in HubSpot. for a really long time prior. And I remember specifically 2024 feeling a lot of FOMO not going to inbound in 2024, especially because at that point I had been involved pretty deeply in the ecosystem, but I was an independent consultant and inbound is kind of expensive. So it just didn't really make sense for me at that time. But luckily I was able to go through the correspondence program last year, which was a great resource for me. And the best part for me was getting to meet all the people here, especially because at that point I had pretty deep relationships throughout the ecosystem. So it was really cool to kind of actually exist in the real world. I kept saying like, all my internet friends are real, which is a really weird feeling, but it's true.

Rob Jones: Yeah, the internet friends, imaginary friends, there is a difference. One exists and the other one are people that are on LinkedIn. I want to ask you a really quick follow up before we stop making our fifth and final guest wait. He's probably written another screenplay or musical at this point in the green room. But what would you say to somebody that has felt the FOMO and still doesn't know if they want to go expose themselves to three days of blazer, slacks, professional dress, the top? What would you say to somebody that has this preconceived notion that Rob pre-2022 had of conferences being just a drag to be completely on? us.

Casey Hawkins: I think the cool thing about the HubSpot conference is that it can be whatever you want it to be. There are really great speakers and there's a lot of tracks about information that might be helpful to you. But there's also like, I basically spent most of my time on the show floor going and hanging out with people. So I think it's kind of whatever you it can be whatever you want it to be. Most of the talks I went to were like the hot ones and Amy Poehler, which were not like stuffy, stuffy, stuffy talks or anything like that. So I think the cool thing is there are many different sides and it's kind of a choose your own adventure. Yeah.

George B. Thomas: I didn't see this coming, but can you actually cheat at this game that we're playing? Yeah, yeah. The word you're looking for is unbound. I'm just gonna...

Rob Jones: Yes, I was going to mention that. I've taken notes. She keeps saying HubSpot conference. That is cheating.

Casey Hawkins: you

Chris Carolan: Yeah, and I can almost.

Casey Hawkins: Well, it's confusing because I'm kind of talking about the pre like last year, but I'm also talking about this year all at once. So it's very confusing.

Chris Carolan: That's why it's a hard game to play. Because I'm pretty sure the HubSpot team does not want us to start calling it the HubSpot Conference.

Rob Jones: And that's why, that's why...

George B. Thomas: No, I'm pretty sure that's not what they want.

Rob Jones: This is not a print situation, right? This is not the conference formally known as inbound. This is unbound. That's what we're gonna, that's what we're doing.

Casey Hawkins: But like, if I'm talking, like...

George B. Thomas: That. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Jones: Speaking of Prince, we've got one ready in the wings. He is one of the most famous people I've ever met and that will only increase moving forward. He has been around since the inception of the internet, but he's only 21 years old as far as my sources tell me. He's one of the most genuine, kind-hearted, available people. He lectured me in the best way ever about personal brand two years ago. I didn't listen. Still thinking about that conversation quite often.

George B. Thomas: that was good.

Rob Jones: He is one of the, you might know him as the guy in the orange hat, but we know him as Kyle.

Chris Carolan: And luckily he lives right, right, right at Boston. Luckily he lives right in Boston. So, wait, we made it and it's an easy stop for us to make. Welcome in, Kyle.

Kyle Jepson: I caught the bus.

Rob Jones: Yep, this is our last stop. is where Chris will still stay on the bus, but we are staying in Kyle's house for the Unbound Casey. It's called Unbound Conference. Yes.

Kyle Jepson: Here we are. We are.

Kyle Jepson: for the next four and a half months.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, I like staying at Kyle's house. Kyle's house is a party, which by the way, did you guys see the bathroom in this bus? Holy mackerel.

Casey Hawkins: Can't be real with it.

Rob Jones: Yep. The water slide was my idea, but we can talk about that later. Kyle, how are you? What have you thought about the stories so far and how was hanging out in the green room for 20 minutes?

Kyle Jepson: It's just a blast, know, so much fun here. Yeah, no, happy to be here. So my vote on the, as you were driving up to the bus stop, I heard the debate about what we call this thing. And I think if we can get intentional about it, I feel Casey's pain. And when we talk about last year, it was inbound last year, and all previous years, George has been to inbound a ton of times, right? And so if we're talking about things we've done previously, I think it's fine to say like, yeah, last year at inbound, whatever, whatever, whatever. But then as we're looking forward to the very first ever unbound, I think we call it unbound. think that's fine.

George B. Thomas: Nice.

Chris Carolan: Game on.

Rob Jones: The VAR Reviews Official Kyle Awards, no points to me for trying to pin that on Casey. If you're talking about it in historical context before 2026, it's fine. Let's just.

Casey Hawkins: I can appreciate that Kyle has my back, even though I would have told you that he would.

Kyle Jepson: Always.

Rob Jones: Yeah, not a yellow card or a red card, but an orange card was awarded to me for trying to pin blame on people that didn't deserve it. Kyle, can you give us a couple of minutes about your story, the synopsis? I mean, you've had a ton of experience with this. You've been a professor at HubSpot Academy forever and now are the chief evangelist. So you've transitioned from other people like George getting some like...

George B. Thomas: there you go.

Rob Jones: building a career off of, to his story's point, like finding the HubSpot Academy and being able to self-educate and help people, and then moved into a chief evangelist at HubSpot role, now you're not the only one in that role anymore. Like, can you describe for us a very... personal is the wrong word. You would have very interesting insight as to the development and change and like the timing of changing from inbound to unbound and what that means to all of us. What it should mean.

Kyle Jepson: Sure, yeah, well, I mean, in the theme that we've already been in, a meaningful inbound experience I've had in the past and how that colors how I look forward to unbound. I think never to be dethroned, my favorite inbound memory was inbound 2022 when I applied to speak giving a talk called Things Every HubSwap Admin Needs to Know. And at this time HubSlot was uncertain whether HubSlot admins were real, if that was a job people had. And so they gave me a room with like 250 seats and the lines were out the door and the people got kind of rowdy. Cause it turns out if you only have one admin event or one admin session at an event like this, it is woefully insufficient. And that is what launched everything for me that has come after with the... the Admin Hug, that is probably why I get to be in this group here. Building this community of admins has been great, and I suspect there are many, many other kinds of communities, other personas, other types of people, other roles that, like admins, are just waiting to be discovered and brought together and given that group identity. And I think Unbound is gonna be a really great place to do that. And so, I mean, as you all... think about coming to this event, what it would mean to come to this event. Figure out who you are and who you're hoping to connect with and you will find them there if you can raise the clarion call loudly enough that they can find you.

Rob Jones: Yeah, lots of new, I like that point a lot. My follow-up to that would be kind of based on, think Yamini had a post about this, I've seen this, but AI and the things that it can do have kind of introduced this era of the generalist, right? Because the bar to clear with ability skill set has been kind of lowered in a sense with tools that are available. And so an admin kind of used to be the catch-all term for people that were coaches. Therapists teachers builders architects all of these things that you would do within a portal and within like a business They were the I mean we did a campaign on this just last year the unsung heroes of Like go to market of rev ops of to me the hubspot ecosystem at large. Can you speak to that? I mean you just said specifically that there are other types of groups subgroups communities out there They're just waiting to like find something like this to connect with like-minded people. What types of people should be? looking for this type of event to connect.

Kyle Jepson: That's a great question. It's really broad and I feel like I feel like part of, answer your original question now about why we're changing from inbound to unbound, I think that the goal is to be ever more expansive. The HubSpot has always been positioned on the thought that the world is changing, right? Initially it was like, hey, the internet is a thing that is relevant to business, right? That was 20 years ago. Now the world is changing. in a way that's at least as dramatic, AI, it remains to be seen exactly what that will do and what society will look like on the other side of this change. But HubSpot is still trying to provide a path forward and Unbound is a place, it's a moment where people can come and connect and work through that together. And so I think, you know, Inbound was always, it was definitely for marketers. We've been trying really hard to make it relevant to salespeople and business owners and admins, operations folks, founders, know, and we've been doing that pretty well. With Unbound, I think all of those roles still will find a lot of value, but there are probably emerging roles that we haven't really thought of yet. people who are able to operate in a very specific way because of AI and who maybe feel very lonely in that transformation. They are now doing things that they've never done before and as far as they know nobody else is doing. if you get 15,000 people together in one place, you may find actually you are not all alone. There are other people tackling the same kind of problems and by coming together you can help each other figure out that way forward.

George B. Thomas: Yeah, I mean, listen, it's you know, it's all changing when, you know, humans like Darmesh start talking about using TypeScript instead of like Python. And like, there's probably a potential AI ops role that hasn't been in organizations before. And so I think Kyle's hitting the nail on the head of this idea of unbound being uncoupled from what was the potential limiting of the types of of humans that could come to historically, previously known as the I-word, but now known as Unbound. I'm excited to see what happens over the next year, two years, three years of this change.

Rob Jones: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the new roles, AI ops, go to market engineer, whatever, Clay, there's a lot of stuff like that. I think there's almost this approach of uncoupling with Unbound, like uncoupling the title or org. and responsibility to the level of expertise just because with the exponential rise of things people can do in a short amount of time, it doesn't take a George B. Thomas level of expertise to be able to produce something, to be able to execute something. Would still argue, and the caveat is that if you need marketing help or if you need help from a human in HubSpot, go to him. AI is probably not going to solve that for you with one prompt. But I want anybody to address that. The unbound as a concept, as an uncoupling of I'm a marketer, I should go to this conference or I'm a salesperson, I shouldn't go, this is not for me. Because I do think there are tons of ways in which this can be valuable to people outside of the very small box of CRM HubSpot, what was traditionally a marketing conference.

Chris Carolan: Yeah, I, I continue to be convinced that grow better might be the best like two liner positioning ever, right? Because like if you want to grow right now, you have to do it inside of uncertainty and uncomfortable circumstances. And you might not get to be the sales guy or the marketing girl or whatever you thought you needed to be on what. And maybe you built your whole career identity around that stuff, but you can still grow right now.

Kyle Jepson: Yeah.

Chris Carolan: And so maybe we need a counter for unwords too, as we continue to do that, but like unbound, know, as however you want to explain it, it's like you have to detach from what, what's supposed to be like, looks like, if you want to grow right now. And I love the fact that we're all put in a position to continue to help people do that no matter the circumstances that are in front of us.

George B. Thomas: Mmm.

George B. Thomas: I mean, so... I'll share this something that's been running through my brain, especially the last probably like two to three months, historically, because by the way, don't know if I think of myself as a marketer anymore. know marketing. I don't know. Historically, I was a sales guy at a furniture store. like, does that mean I am a salesperson? don't. Anyway, historically, we talked about T shaped marketers, right? This was a thing in our If you are not figuring out how to become a T-shaped human You are you are going to have some issues moving forward because there has to be something that you're just super dope at. Like you are the best of the best and anybody that would ever want help would go to you because of that thing. But then you need to figure out what that top bar is. That is the T of the Kyle kind of started to talk about or say like this generalist. And so you can know a little bit about a lot of things, but a lot about one thing. And if you start to do that, especially in this world of like being able to be human powered, but AI assisted in some of these areas, I mean, I kind of jokingly made the reference to TypeScript because I didn't know what TypeScript was until I actually started using Cloud Code to Vibecode a website, right? But but you can learn it. And Chris and Robin Crew, I go back to one thing that I've said for the last six months, maybe not maybe years.

George B. Thomas: Because like asking yourself if it's possible and learning how to make it possible are like It's just a way to move forward

Rob Jones: That's something we all share, right? Even since the orange suit was like, I wonder if it's possible to not get kicked out for wearing something I ordered on Amazon that is horrifyingly orange, because I don't know any better, right? And that was a way for me to grow better. I think that Chris may agree, may not, but George, I want to see George get fired up. I'm trying to earn some brownie points for George, because little plug here, I'm taking his course coming up, so shout out to George for that. But...

George B. Thomas: AI content systems. Yeah.

Rob Jones: Yeah, a little plug there. But there, you've said before, like learning how to learn is one of the most important things you can do. And to Chris's point about Grow Better being the best two line slogan of all time, possibly, I think there's a lot of truth in that where I've been, you know, for four or five years to what is now called Unbound. I do that right? And some of the best talks were the keynotes that are not like go to market rev ops founder names. Like Reese Witherspoon had one of the best talks ever and she's almost a billionaire from

George B. Thomas: close enough.

Rob Jones: business endeavors she's made, not somebody you would historically think about with CRM or HubSpot. But those types of talks are just as important and it was almost like a prelude to this generalist era where there is some insanely valuable insight and learnings that you can get from a shared group of people. Casey, I'll turn that over to you. I don't even think that was a question. I just want you to weigh in.

George B. Thomas: I don't think that's a question. However, before Casey goes, I want to double down, Rob, on what you're saying because sometimes the best thing you can hear is the thing that you didn't realize you needed. And I'll tell you what might be shocking to some humans out of all the breakout sessions that I could go to and all the keynotes that I could have gone to in the last 14 years.

Casey Hawkins: Yeah

George B. Thomas: I go back to sitting in a room and listening to Spike Lee and the things that Spike Lee had to say and the way that it was presented there was just a moment in time it was like 2012 Gary Vee Next Journey on the wow I didn't know I needed to hear that bus Spike Lee like so you just never know Based on all the, by the way, there's just, could keep going. Anyway, Casey, go ahead with the question, non-question that Rob gave you.

Casey Hawkins: You I still don't know what I'm supposed to be saying.

Chris Carolan: Yeah, I gotta work on the guide part of tour guide here, I think.

Casey Hawkins: And then George is like, back over to Casey.

Rob Jones: We're in a tailspin now, just doing 360s.

George B. Thomas: you

Rob Jones: Yeah, Kyle said he's trying to go back to the green room. It was more fun in there. Yeah, there wasn't a question just weighing in on the concept of that because George's point was like, I submitted an inbound talk two years ago on that was phrased like the $1 billion pitch, right? HubSpot.

Kyle Jepson: Yeah.

Rob Jones: formerly known as Inbound, I don't know how I'm gonna navigate that crap during this, but Unbound had a million dollar pitch contest, right? And I submitted my talk that was like the billion dollar pitch expanding TAM to $76 billion, something like that. And the only way for a totable addressable market to get bigger is for people that don't know or care or any, like they need to be aware of what HubSpot is. I live in Mississippi, HubSpot is a dirty spot on your, like the outside of your wheel well. So that people don't...

Casey Hawkins: Yeah, everybody was.

George B. Thomas: Wow. Wow.

Rob Jones: Yeah, I've been saving that one for a while, George, just for you. People don't know what it is and don't know the impact. So there is some need now to grow the addressable market and grow the people that can be influenced, can have their lives changed by what we have experienced. They need to give a crap about, number one, like the idea of learning and being exposed to new things. Number two, I think the people on this call and the stories we tell. So that's where the non-question was going. Kyle, since you haven't spoken in a minute or trying to dive back into the green room, open that back up to you. as the question would be your thoughts on exposing this to a group of new people that are not HubSpot admin. That is your audience, it's a lot of the audience of the people on this call.

Kyle Jepson: Yeah, so kind of two answers there. I have no personal ambitions to expand my audience beyond the HubSpot admin because I have just barely, barely begun to reach them, right? Like I have a sizable audience, right? There are thousands of members who are to my hug. There are tens of thousands of people who follow me on LinkedIn. But HubSpot has 250,000 customers. And each one of them must, by definition, have at least one admin, right? And a lot of them have a lot more than that. So my TAM is an order of magnitude larger than what I'm currently reaching. And so I feel like there's a lot I need to do to just double down and focus there. However, for the bigger question of unbounce TAM or raising awareness of HubSpot as a whole, It's really interesting because HubSpot, as I mentioned, began with this company that had this idea of, know, I bet small and mid-sized businesses can get found on the internet. B2B companies can be found on the internet the same way B2C companies are, right? And 20 years later, there are still companies who have not gone through that transition, right? You can still find plenty of businesses that if they have a website, it's not super functional, they're not doing any kind of content marketing, they definitely aren't on social media. They still need HubSpot and inbound V1, right? But a lot of those companies are resistant to this idea for whatever reason, and so they are, they're not, they were never gonna jump. Except now AI has happened and it's got everyone a little spooked. And so I think if you wanna talk about expanding this TAM, I think there are more business leaders and business owners and there are, new entrants into the world of business, a rising generation who just have a lot of questions, who are thinking about things pretty differently, who are having to make decisions no one ever had to make before. And so I hope that will pull a lot of people into the HubSpot circle of influence broadly and Unbounds circle within that. And I think that could be really great if this...

Kyle Jepson: AI revolution accomplishes nothing but getting people to stop and think and make plans for the future. That will be pretty productive by itself. And I think Unbound is a great event to come puzzle through that stuff together. Now, I hesitate, I feel like everything I've said on this call so far, this bus ride, has made Unbound sound like an AI conference and I don't think that's at all what we're going for. But that's the moment we find ourselves in, right? Like AI is changing things so fundamentally. You have to rethink the basics of what your business is, what it does, who it serves, how it positions itself in the market, what the market even is. And so I think that is who Unbound is for.

Rob Jones: Yamini said at some point in a post that I booked marked on LinkedIn and immediately lost that a rising tide lifts all boats. I think all buses can be lifted too. I like to approach it that way. And Kyle, I would argue that your audience expands whether you want it to or not, because you're directly tied to HubSpot. And there's probably a new four or five people that are assigned a role of admin every day that have their businesses switch over to HubSpot. They say, who's the best person that I can follow? I know nothing. And somebody says, there's this weird guy in an orange hat that used to work for HubSpot Academy. Here's a link to his profile. You should go follow him. To me, that's like the untold connectivity that I think we need to

Kyle Jepson: Hahaha

Kyle Jepson: Yeah.

Rob Jones: at least be mindful of as we ride this road to unbound. Chris, I will turn it over to you for a time check, because I have no idea.

Chris Carolan: I think we've arrived. I think we've arrived at and I'm going to say BC EC, but I think that has a new name now too. Is that correct?

Kyle Jepson: I've heard this rumor. I have not confirmed.

George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that rumor too. But we should the next show. We'll talk about two things. nope. I guess we're going to talk about it this show right here right now. So there went that teaser. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Jones: It is now called the Thomas Michael Menino Convention and Exhibition Center.

Kyle Jepson: that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Carolan: I mean, we're looking right at it. We're there. We're at the place where Unbound is in Boston. And I think that means we wrap it up for next time.

Rob Jones: Well, you gotta get better at wrapping it up. I will, I will...

George B. Thomas: Wow, was the end. Was that the end?

Rob Jones: I will pull a skidding to a halt right in front of the Thomas, the TMMCMEC, whatever the acronym is, I'll figure that out. It's been great. Thanks for coming on this road to us. We're going to journey straight back to the Unbound Conference next week. Adios.