Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by silo departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace, Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge. Never fear, hub heroes.
Intro:Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers.
George B. Thomas:Guys, I gotta be honest. I'm super excited because today, we don't have one one amazing guest, mister Jack Cooper Smith. We have two two amazing guests
Adam Wainwright:Real nice.
George B. Thomas:At Wainwright.
Chad Hohn:Real good.
George B. Thomas:So so first of all, Adam, this is your first time on the podcast. Why don't we just start actually by taking a few seconds? Explain people who you are, what you do, why the heck you're in the room. And then after Adam's done, Jack, I'm sure people know who you are, but let's go ahead and spin it to you. You give the lowdown, and then we'll get into the good
Adam Wainwright:stuff. That's, yeah, that's a great place to start. Yeah. So it's a pleasure to be on this morning. As you all know, my my name is Adam Wainwright.
Adam Wainwright:I've been effectively in I'll sort of start with my background. I've been selling into and working with product teams building revenue operations tooling for, like, the last twenty years, give or take. And that includes, you know, contract life cycle management, CLM, CPQ, of course, revenue operations tools, sales performance management tools, sales behavior tool tooling, learning management tooling. And so I've really run the gamut in terms of all of these different technologies that really are meant to effectively help sellers and businesses just unlock their revenue process. Easiest way to say it.
Adam Wainwright:And I so so why am I here? I I joined the cash flow team. My I joined my, my cofounders at cash flow about a year ago, and we really brought that business online in a major way. And then, of course Mhmm. In in in about, you know, whatever, three months or so ago, HubSpot decided to bring us on board under the hub under the, HubSpot brand.
Adam Wainwright:And so our objective now is gonna go and build a CPQ, a modern CPQ platform, and we're gonna try and distribute this thing across all of these lovely hundreds of thousands of hubs across, across this globe.
George B. Thomas:There are about 12 different ways that my brain goes, and I wanna talk about but it's not time yet. Jack, Jack, remind the people well, remind the people who you are. And then, Jack, how long has it been since you've been on the podcast? Like, sheesh. Six months?
George B. Thomas:A year?
Jack Coopersmith:Well, Lord,
Max Cohen:it's been a while.
Chad Hohn:It's been a while. Minute.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Like, I I know we initially we talked about commerce hub and its purpose. We even had you back on. We talked about, like, CPQ, which is interesting that that's kinda where Adam, like, kinda went into this and and some of the capabilities. Anyway anyway, third time, it's been a long time.
George B. Thomas:I I don't know. By the way, Jack, I don't know if
Max Cohen:we have another three peat. I'm a
George B. Thomas:just throw that out there. Anyway, let the audience know who you are, why you're in the room.
Jack Coopersmith:Well, I'm absolutely honored, of course, George. And I like I'll admit, I don't know how long exactly it's been a handful of months. Too long, though, is definitely the answer there. Honored to have the three peat under my belt here. Also, I think I may be one of the only guests that have my own superhero too, so I'll flex there a little bit as well.
Jack Coopersmith:So Yeah. I've been at HubSpot for over eight years now, and I've been on the Commerce Hub team for more than three years now. So really since the very beginning. So I've seen it it grow from, a tool that maybe launched a little early just based on where it was to where it stands today. And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure you're very familiar with HubSpot and how we think about, growing the platform more broadly.
Jack Coopersmith:The way that we don't think about it is by acquiring a bunch of companies and then just bolting on their software. We are very, very, very careful around, like, who we acquire and whether we wanna go into that space. And so I'm really excited to have Adam here as, we are now teammates, and we definitely do have our legs under us because it has been, like, what, Adam? Four months now?
Max Cohen:Three months.
Adam Wainwright:I think it's I think, actually, going into March, it's about four months.
Jack Coopersmith:I think it's been yeah. It's been four months or so. And so it's been really awesome to see these teams come together. And I can tell you, folks, we have a really, really interesting 2025 shaping up. So excited to chat with you about what we've been up to the past few months as well as maybe give just a little bit of a crystal ball as to, you know, how we're thinking about the future.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Definitely. I definitely wanna talk about the future. I I we we cannot maybe even dip into some of the things that have changed in, like, because of the acquisition and and where we might go. I know you can only share certain things, but, I mean, listen.
George B. Thomas:The idea is, like, let's let's highlight what's been changing in the first four months or three months of 2025 because Jack and Adam, Max and Chad, you know, we're trying to swim in Kebab, but but Max or Jack and Adam, like, there were over 35 product updates, to Commerce Hub in 2024. Thirty '5. By the way, that's just one little hub. The the whole thing of updates is just getting kinda crazy.
Chad Hohn:But Well, it's like a micro hub within the hubs. You know?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are things like, invoice payment links, subscriptions. Think about the updates in 2024 and maybe even dip into some that you've done so far in '24 2025. How have these updates improved us, HubSpot users, and the people that we serve?
George B. Thomas:So just in general, user experience in, like, business operations.
Jack Coopersmith:Adam, I'll take that if that's okay. And then
Adam Wainwright:I was gonna say when it comes to the when it comes to the hub, they absolutely. I think, Jackie, you can start with that.
Jack Coopersmith:Would love your take, though. Of course. And, Chad, Max, you all as well, and, George, I know you use these tools day in, day out too. So as I look back at 2024, the thing that I'm most excited about is we really rounded off our billing platform. So when I first started on the team, we were just a payments platform, and everyone was like, Jack, you have these payable quotes, but I need it to say the word invoice on it.
Jack Coopersmith:And what that essentially was is, like, I need to bill from HubSpot. And then we got went down that road. It was like, okay. I need some milestone billing. I need subscription management.
Jack Coopersmith:I need recurring invoices. And so the way that I think about 2024 is we really rounded off our billing platform to solve for the different ways that firms bill. And then as we ended last year and as we start to go into this year, the, acronym du jour is API. So, of course, as I'm sure many of you
Adam Wainwright:all know,
Jack Coopersmith:we are we're creating objects in the CRM. That's all we're really doing to represent this revenue data. And, of course, core piece of an object is gonna be an API. So that's the thing that we're thinking about a lot right now. We started to go down this road, Chad, as I'm sure you know very, very well, and we're gonna
Max Cohen:go
Jack Coopersmith:down this road. So that's the thing that I'm immediately most excited for, but it is pretty nice to be able to look back and say, you know what? All those questions that people were asking me about, when are you gonna have this feature? Most of them are out the door now, which I'm personally really excited about. Still a lot to do.
Jack Coopersmith:Don't get me wrong, but we've delivered a lot of value in the past year.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Well, guess what? I just got working for a client, the other day.
Jack Coopersmith:QuickBooks?
Chad Hohn:Uh-oh. No. Well, no. It was related to that. But I because of the invoice create and read API being available, I was able to basically create very simple invoice generation with all the correct information on the invoice and based on business logic rules or all of the different types of invoices that would be created for this particular client, saving just a ton of time for them because you guys opened up that API.
Chad Hohn:It still doesn't let me do everything I need to. Always scrape about that until we can actually, like, edit live things. But, yeah, it's, like, so much better than it was. So much better.
George B. Thomas:So, Adam, this is for your benefit. And, Jack, I don't know. Chad's new to the show since you've been on last, I think. We're all nerdy on this show, but Chad is, like, the nerd's nerd.
Chad Hohn:Like, he he he's the go way back these days.
George B. Thomas:Say, hey, buddy. Like, what think about this, like, scenario. And then it's, like, these, like, MC squared things start floating in front of my face and all sorts
Max Cohen:of shit.
Jack Coopersmith:So our legal team and, you know, marketers.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:So so here's where my brain goes because I hear you kinda talking about laying this, like, better foundation for everybody, Jack, since we kinda launched and got going. And I know, Adam, you immediately started to talk about, like, CPQ. And so I'm
Max Cohen:interested in where we
George B. Thomas:stand now with a good foundation and where we stand now with a good foundation and maybe some things that, excite you about, you know, of course, what you can talk about, but excite you of, like, where we're headed or or how the acquisition is, like, accelerating where we're headed or things like that.
Adam Wainwright:So it's it's a good question, and I'll I'll certainly what I'll share is, I think the word foundation is the right word. First of all, and I think nobody on this podcast is a stranger to the idea that, I mean, we're talking about revenue. We're talking about how you close business and we're talking about that across a portfolio of hundreds of thousands of companies. And so, first of all, there is no such thing as two businesses looking just exactly the same. And so in that inference, now you start to understand that 35 releases over the course of 24 from where I'm sitting that frankly that's light.
Adam Wainwright:Oh. And it's simply a reflection of the fact that you've really got to account for a myriad of different potential use cases that come up depending on who you're talking to. And, of course Mhmm. At the end of the day, this is why a lot of we have a lot of very happy and successful deep partner networks because there's just no shortage of, compounding problems when it comes to optimizing how our businesses manage and, you know, run revenue. So to that end, that being sort of like the lead in, we are in we are hot on the trail of, continuing to pour the concrete.
Adam Wainwright:And the concrete, I think I think Jack actually nailed it. I think the concrete is a reflection of of objects. And so, really, for us, it's gonna be a function of building a bunch of framework that will allow customers to regardless of what you're doing, to then go out and build this I like to think of this sort of beautiful scaffolding, to build the tower of how you choose to build your process, but in a way that is not complicated, in a way that actually services and favors not only your internal teams, but your sales team in terms of how they close, more importantly, your downstream team in terms of how they actually manage what's been closed. I think a lot of the reason why we're here is because all too often, the folks that have to kind of manage what closers are doing to squeeze those deals in at the end of the quarter ends up kinda creating a bunch of work for AR teams and finance teams. And so these are there's an opportunity for us to come in here and optimize and streamline, at least lay that foundation so that you can go and continue to build on top of that.
Adam Wainwright:And then and so so I guess sort of the long story short here is objects and customer experience, and then I guess finally I'll say we are also acutely aware that the better the experience for our buyers, the better the experience for our customers, the more memorable we can create that experience, which means they'll likely come back and choose to do business with us again, and that's really what we wanna make sure we get right. So we're really focusing on those kinda core areas of this work that we're doing now and are really looking forward to having something for you all to play with here very soon.
George B. Thomas:Oh, I I can't. We like to play with things here. Yeah.
Adam Wainwright:You know who to call. Out. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Just give it here. Give it up to me the beta. I don't care if it's ugly. Like, I'll just mess around with it. Let's see what's happening.
Max Cohen:Love
George B. Thomas:that. And what's fun is my brain really leans into, the word memorable. The fact that you're going at this, that we wanna create something that creates memorable experiences during the time that some people love, some people hate, but you're giving you're giving your hard earned cash. Right? You're like Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:You're you're hoping it solves a problem. You're you're standing on the ledge and, like, I've got my credit card in a dream. If I buy this thing, this is like and so I like that it's it's gonna be memorable. Max and Chad, where are your brain
Max Cohen:at so far? I want that. I want them APIs, dog. I want them APIs, dog. That's like I I mean, the the the thing with Commerce Hub for me is, you know, I think that that was the that that's one of the biggest things kind of, like, holding it back, especially especially, like, thinking about, like, how a SaaS company might build, like, literally their entire business and framework on HubSpot.
Max Cohen:Right? Yeah. Because, sure, it's really easy to do the customer service stuff. I mean, now since we have all those, like, really awesome new conversations APIs, and you could build your, like, apps Your
Chad Hohn:own custom channels. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Into into help desk and stuff like that. Like, that's amazing. Like, sure. We've got APIs for everything else. So if you wanna build, I don't know, you know, like, a a a license, app license object that stays up to date that you can even, like, update and change, like, from HubSpot to, like, update the experience they have.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. So your reps should see what they have, what subscription, update user access, blah blah blah.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I mean, we do that. Like, we're able to be like, oh, like, look. This HubSpotter installed, quote, happily. Well, I just have a workflow that changes a property to demo mode, and then all of a sudden, they've got everything unlocked.
Max Cohen:Right?
Chad Hohn:Yep. Yep.
Max Cohen:But then it's like, you know, where I remember always getting caught when I was a, you know, solutions engineer talking about Commerce Hub. You know, it would always kinda come down to, alright. Do we have an API to manage the subscriptions? And that's where it'd be like Absolutely. Still gotta use Stripe.
Max Cohen:Right? Right. And, you know, so I'm I'm really excited for that because I feel like that's the biggest missing puzzle piece. Right? Mhmm.
Max Cohen:Is, like, really, when it comes to SaaS companies, I feel like that's the I don't wanna say that's the final thing, but it's really close to, like, the final huge thing. Right? So I'm super stoked on that. Three.
George B. Thomas:It's, like, in the top three of huge things.
Max Cohen:It's a it's a it's a it's a Jordan, a LeBron, or a Kobe of missing SaaS features for HubSpot. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Steve, the fact that you didn't mention Larry Bird when Jack just said he was at the Celtic game
Max Cohen:in the beginning of our call. Listen. I'm I'm I'm the biggest Larry Bird fan you could find. But Bring bring
George B. Thomas:a room on any so so here's the thing. I want Chad, do you have
Max Cohen:so, like, do you have a place where your brain's at?
George B. Thomas:Because I have a place where my brain's at.
Max Cohen:Where where
George B. Thomas:you at?
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Go for it. Go for it. I mean, I've, you know, I've talked extensively actually both to to Jack and Adam on, like, our use case. So they're aware of the things, you know, I'll share if there's time, for our listeners.
George B. Thomas:Might wanna know about Yes. Use cases as well.
Chad Hohn:But so Absolutely.
Max Cohen:Here's the
George B. Thomas:thing. I I live in this world where and I love that Max was like, give me those APIs, dog. Because, like Dude, seriously.
Jack Coopersmith:For nerdy.
Max Cohen:We're giving them points, right?
George B. Thomas:I've I've realized that we have they're like, what do you mean my post it note doesn't integrate with HubSpot? Like, what
Max Cohen:do you what
George B. Thomas:do you mean I gotta get rid of my Excel spreadsheet? And so I wanna maybe even take a step back. I wanna ask the question around this because if we're gonna talk about CPQ and we're gonna talk about commerce hub, like, what are the key mindsets a business needs to adopt when they're thinking about building a CPQ process inside of Hub Spot.
Jack Coopersmith:I'll take that one, but, Adam, I would love your your take here.
Adam Wainwright:Yeah. There's there's a that's a ticked one. That's a good one. Yeah.
Jack Coopersmith:That is a beef one. And I think a lot of it boils down to, Max, I think something that you were putting your finger on. And maybe this is a little cliche, but it's having HubSpot really be the hub for your business, really managing everything within one place. Now that doesn't necessarily mean, like, building your app on HubSpot by any means, but it does mean having your marketing, your sales, your revenue activities, your customer service, your webhooks, and everything else coming out of that HubSpot platform. So when it comes to the mindset, really staying within HubSpot is ultimately how we're thinking about things.
Jack Coopersmith:I'll tie back to yield flywheel, which which I know we all love. If you're gonna manage all of your leads and grow them into opportunities and then close them into happy customers, but you have to jump out of HubSpot between that opportunity to customer stage, which I would argue is one of the most important parts of the entire customer journey, then are you really giving that memorable buyer experience? Probably not, or at least you have opportunity to do so. So managing all of your revenue in one place is really that mindset that we're pushing all of our users towards in a big way. And I'm curious if you agree Yeah.
Jack Coopersmith:What you would add there.
Adam Wainwright:No. I I I'll I'll sort of start I'll actually start on the heels of of what your your comment, and then I'll even back up maybe with some some history that I've learned over these fifteen or sixteen years actually being specifically in revenue operations. In in 2020, everybody was kinda clipping along and and the market changed. And, the the there were some pretty heavy duty considerations at a lot of businesses. And I'm I mean, I'm depends on kinda where you were and what you were selling at the time or what how you made your money, I should say.
Adam Wainwright:But the the market effectively made a a pretty significant shift in terms of how the financial fiduciaries of the business were trying to figure out where they could effectively optimize their sort of spend across their investments. And technology was probably the single largest source of of savings that a lot of CFOs try to figure out how to control for. And and so which really kinda comes back to what Jack's saying. Like, one thing that I observed over my years is, especially in that particular time frame, is, it's like, we just gotta figure out how to do more with less. And what that really meant was how do I consolidate back into my system?
Adam Wainwright:Can my CRM do all these things? And then, of course, Max enter APIs. Well, does it possess the capability, the flexibility, and the extensibility where we can just build out things on top of it? I got an army of engineers in some cases. Maybe I don't.
Adam Wainwright:Maybe I can bring in somebody who can help me. But is there an opportunity for me to figure out ways to basically ratchet back my spend? And so that sentiment has carried over. And so that's sort of, like, big piece of the puzzle number one. So a lot of companies are really still just trying to figure out, like, can my investments do way more than I think I had initially thought that they were supposed to.
Adam Wainwright:And so, of course, HubSpot is uniquely positioned to say, yes. I think we're in a position where we can continue to grow our platform and actually help cover all of these different tooling. You know, enter a Commerce Hub. Now Commerce Hub solves a compound problem. You know, Commerce Hub is not one thing.
Adam Wainwright:Commerce Hub really is three or four things that's doing a bunch of different things, and you may not necessarily need the whole suite, But depending on what you're trying to accomplish, maybe you do. Mhmm. You know, billing, payments, again, closing deals. And so you've now got kinda these compounding problems where you have to solve a bunch of different work streams, and you have to do it under one roof. And so we came in because we effectively represent, at least in our minds, and I think the collective decision makers here at HubSpot, felt like we were maybe missing a piece of this puzzle, which for us is not the first domino to fall.
Adam Wainwright:How do you close a deal? Now HubSpot obviously has quotes, but I think there's a lot of opportunity, to have a better experience in how you are actually closing deals or using that tooling sort of enter, you know, enter a cash flow. And so in that context, what we wanna make sure we're doing is is we're actually building, a tool that is really, really easy to use, but effectively can do any number of things depending on what your business is actually how your business is built. And so getting that right is gonna take some time, but what we wanna as long as we're focused and anchored on the mission of making it again in in, you know, fast and easy, which which is, you know, a cash flow. Well, before I joined HubSpot, that's a it's a fun little checklist of things to say fast, easy, and unified.
Adam Wainwright:But the reality is is that the CFOs come to expect that. The reality is is that VPs of sales have come to expect this, and I've run and stood up sales teams over over my years. And the number one place where typically the deal starts to break down is when I have to figure out a way to get my customer a thing to sign. Right? Mhmm.
Adam Wainwright:So I was very eager to come and sort of solve this problem. But the and so when I was at Cashflow, we even coined the phrase that one thing I would love to tell my customers is that at the end of the day, the business just simply wants to close fast and get paid. Well, that's ultimately what we wanna accomplish for our customers in this hub and at least the iteration of the hub that sort of will we can come to expect coming out of this year. And so so I guess that's a long winded way of saying, we are uniquely positioned to help our customers do that, and and I really like the way that you frame that up, Max. I think, conceptually, if we can build this thing on the back of, of all of the APIs necessary so that you don't necessarily have to do it, in our guided steps, we think there's just a triple win across the board.
Adam Wainwright:Right? Customers are gonna win. The, the buyers are gonna win, and your users are gonna win. And so I we're we're very, very confident that what we're ultimately building is gonna be something that's actually gonna accomplish that mission of helping you consolidate, save money, and do it really, really efficiently. But this is not gonna be a, you know, stamp it, close it, ship it, and then and then move on to something new.
Adam Wainwright:This is gonna be something that we're gonna continue to invest in over these years to come because as we all know, every business loves they they they all have their own DNA, and it's gotta be flexible. It's gotta be usable. But we really wanna make sure we get that initial user experience right, and we really wanna make sure that we're helping customers leave a really good impression with their customers.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I love that. And, Adam, before we move forward, I want you to know that you've actually unlocked a hidden hub heroes challenge. And so let's let's give a round a
Max Cohen:round of applause. Adam, round of applause.
George B. Thomas:You're officially you get the award for the first person to use the word fiduciary on the hub here on the podcast. This is what you you now have that award. We'll be sending it out in the mail. I love it.
Adam Wainwright:I was a banker. Before I got into SaaS, I was a banker, and all my friends I I lived abroad for a few years,
Max Cohen:and I
Adam Wainwright:came back and I wanted to learn how to sell. And so I went and I became a banker. And and the banking world, you have two options. You can either close customers, think checking accounts or, you know, financial instruments, or you can be a fiduciary. And so I opt which was more of a customer relationship, protect the interest of the customer.
Adam Wainwright:Yep. Yep. Anyways, so
George B. Thomas:that's got up to me.
Max Cohen:Oh my god. I have a question. So every time HubSpot, you know, goes and, like, makes a strategic, acquisition merger, brings another company into the into the into the family, if you will. Right? I think I'm on into
Chad Hohn:the family.
Max Cohen:You know what I'm on,
George B. Thomas:man? Ass, man.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Right?
Max Cohen:There's always, like if you're
George B. Thomas:gonna do that in your cheeks, I think.
Max Cohen:But go
George B. Thomas:ahead, man.
Max Cohen:What do you there's always, you know, the the the magical thing about that product that gets sort of, like, built and reimagined into HubSpot. Right? What was it like, what I guess, like, what's happening behind the scenes right now? What's that, like, magic that real unique magic juice from cash flow that's getting What's the reimagined into Yeah. That's a good question.
Max Cohen:A HubSpot manifestation Yeah. Of that juice. Right? Like, from your your perspective. That's what I'm Yeah.
Adam Wainwright:It's it's a it's actually a really good question. So,
Max Cohen:It's a weird question. I've said it weirdly, but
Adam Wainwright:No. I I actually totally get what frankly, well, again, Max, I, you know, coming on board of the company, my whole my I I was set up. I had my sights set on solving a problem that for decades, CPQ, traditionally, is something that generally sucks. It's something that is not easy
Chad Hohn:to do.
Adam Wainwright:Okay? And so I had sellers selling internationally, and they had they had SLAs. They had to ship quotes in certain time frames. We had to have deal desk online. I had to wake up people that were in Florida to help my cuss my rep that was in, you know, Cincinnati close a deal because and the deal was international.
Adam Wainwright:You know? We were and we didn't close our books. We would we were we would be staying up until midnight. And so and he was he got all these swirling interests just trying to figure out how to get quotes out the door. Well, that's all solved with CPQ.
Adam Wainwright:So, to answer your question, the the easy answer here is the, first of all, the the seller experience, the place where you're actually producing the quote. You know, I remember before Salesforce bought steel brick, I remember big machines being at the Salesforce event floor before Oracle swooped them up. And so there's a there's there the the market had sort of established that you're supposed to walk through, like, a guided set of processes in order to actually just get the initial quote built. I I in my mind, that had to be something that could be effectively easier to do. Cash flow got that right.
Adam Wainwright:Getting a a seller in an environment that just effectively helped them, edit the quote in a way where it felt like you were building more of, like, a a piece of content, we thought was one way we could reimagine the process of building a quote. That was one. But number two, as soon as the customer is actually in the process of buying, wouldn't it be sweet if the customer could not only sign the deal, but could also vendor accept, like, do all of the things that the second step of the actual closing process beyond the booking, which was typically something that was done offline. Right? The seller would close a deal.
Adam Wainwright:The CFO, maybe the buyer would close the deal. And then, of course, I'd have to have somebody on my finance team reach out to actually facilitate the actual transaction. Right? And then there's this exchange of paperwork, maybe, you know, there's there's documents going back and forth. There's banking.
Adam Wainwright:There's routing information. Cash flow, we built that checkout process inside of the actual workflow. And as a result, we actually ended up coming up with something that kind of felt b to c ish. It felt like buying a Tesla is the is the analogy we like to use internally. But for a sophisticated software solution that took six months to nine months of strategic value engineering and negotiating to close.
Adam Wainwright:And so in those two so those two cuts for cash flow, we really want for our customers. And then the third one is, how do I then take that information and automatically stand up a billing event? How do I automatically stand up all of the the payment schedule associated with how my customer has opted to actually pay me over the duration of our of our relationship? If we could do that, then what we could now do is we could help your install sales team where your customer
Max Cohen:success team actually manage the relationship. And so in
Adam Wainwright:that way, what cash flow transaction in a way where we now became more of like a relationship tool. We're actually helping the business manage the relationship of the customer because actually helping the business manage the relationship of the customer because the people who are actually doing the relationship management could see precisely what the customer had actually commercialed, right, what they had actually
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Adam Wainwright:Built and how they're gonna be invoiced.
Max Cohen:And and
Adam Wainwright:then we then you can start to tune via API as well. Is it usage based? Are they buying? Are they consuming more? I know exactly what they purchased.
Adam Wainwright:I don't have to go tap on CS ops or revenue operations to figure out what the heck they purchased so that I can expose my commercial white space and then upsell them. It's all there. And so between these kind of three phases all happening in a really, really delightful system, really what now happened was the c like, the finance leader can actually create, like, a net dollar retention strategy that otherwise just was something you never focused on. Sales teams always got the cool two toys, but the people who actually had to do all of the renewals and upsells were left having to unpack what what the seller sold. Yeah.
Adam Wainwright:And so now we could actually completely change how the business monetized any stage of that customer relationship life cycle in a way that was actually meaningful to both the business and the customer. So that's that's long, but, I mean, is that does that No.
Max Cohen:I like it. Where what's the, where are we sort of at? Like, if you could explain, like, I'm a like, I'm a five year old. What's the, where are we at in the story of Yeah. Of the transition of Commerce Hub in the background getting all of the the special goodies, if you will, from Yeah.
Max Cohen:You know, casting
Chad Hohn:asking for a friend.
Adam Wainwright:Yeah. No. No. It's a big it's a big question.
Max Cohen:I like to know what's going on
Adam Wainwright:behind you.
Max Cohen:Lot of you too. What I
Adam Wainwright:can tell you is, we've never been as resource as we this obviously, we're we're resourced, very, very well, and so there's a lot happening,
Max Cohen:to
Adam Wainwright:I don't wanna go down a rabbit hole, but there's just there is there's a lot of different teams that are working on a lot of different things because we wanna build this needed of the hub. And so we've not and and we're advantaged because we have the world's brightest minds working on the problem. What I will tell you is is that, it it's we're moving a lot faster than I had initially anticipated we could. So we're very, very
Chad Hohn:HubSpot's HubSpot's fast for the size they are. Yeah. Like, the amount of speed that the HubSpot team can do stuff for the size of org they are. I mean, I know there's some beanbag chairs sometimes. Right, Jack?
Chad Hohn:But There's
Adam Wainwright:a lot of decisions to be made. There's a lot of there's a lot of ways that you could skin this cat as it were. And so you can you can start to see how you know, what you really need are cool heads to prevail, but the the net net is is that we've got a vision, and the and the folks that are meant to go and help us accomplish and realize that vision are doing a very good job.
Chad Hohn:I love I've got a
Max Cohen:I'll throw
Jack Coopersmith:out a couple of things too if that's okay. Yeah. And and, Chad, sorry to just take the mic for me.
Chad Hohn:No. It's all good. You're good.
Jack Coopersmith:It's been really interesting for me to to be on this side of things. Obviously, Adam and I are very much on the same side, but, and nor do I think of you as a former cash flow person at this boat at this point at all, Adam. Mhmm. But it has been interesting from my end because, we obviously have a framework and a design language, and we want everything to look super consistent. And so the way that we've integrated our teams is actually really interesting.
Jack Coopersmith:So the leaders of cash flow are now the leaders of our hub. And while they'd obviously the cash flow folks who are now obviously HubSpotters have a lot of expertise in the billing and the CPQ space, It's been awesome
Max Cohen:to see
Jack Coopersmith:them just, like, go nuts and really and really build everything that they know how to build while also still integrating the HubSpot DNA into the team. So, like, without dropping names, like, we've moved some engineers who have been on the team for, like, fifteen years, like, really early HubSpot days, moved them over to work on those tools with our new colleagues. And so it's been really interesting to see everything come together. And to me, it feels like the DNA is really fused nicely, and I've personally made a lot of new friends too. So it's been awesome getting to know you folks, and it's been really cool to see these teams come together.
Jack Coopersmith:We've melded them in a really, really thoughtful way in my opinion.
George B. Thomas:So can Chad, do you still have your question?
Chad Hohn:I do.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Throw that out there. And then I wanna I wanna go nerdy, and I wanna talk about something that all humans love. So but but you're right first, then I'll dive in.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. So curious, and I'm hoping to get an answer. Is are quotes going to stick around or be replaced or will there be an addition to Hubspot quotes because right now the like and I was just joking about this in chat, but, like, the experience of signing a HubSpot quote, we have help articles that we send with our emails to people to tell them what to expect
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Chad Hohn:And how to sign a bloody HubSpot quote. It's like, oh, you're gonna get a second email or you have to click that email. It'll take you to a link, and then you gotta click here and you gotta do the faves.
George B. Thomas:I like the You
Max Cohen:have to bring the magic beads to the wizard on the hill and he'll approve your quote.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Seriously. That's, like, what it's like. It's the worst and, like, I love you guys, but, like and I know you know that that sucks. Right?
Chad Hohn:Like, it was good for, like, the time that it belonged in and it was for security reasons or whatever because reasons. But, like, if it's not as good as, like, basically, it's it's like, to me, where my brain goes, what you guys are trying to build is, like, the more complex billing solution version of Shopify. Something that's so simple like Shopify where, like, people can just, like, almost have, like, this universal access key as a business, but then boom, they're in, it's got all their stuff, it already knows who they are because it's like this integrated platform that they're a part of, of, and then they can do whatever their historical stuff was on top of it, much like that. I mean, it may not be quite to that level of integration because it's supposed to be business to, like, company to company. That's right.
Chad Hohn:Right? And white label. But, anyway, all that to come back to, like, with quotes. Right?
George B. Thomas:There there's the question. Okay. What's the
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Adam Wainwright:Yeah. That's a good question. So, here here's what I here's what I can tell you. We are we're aware we're aware of what you've just described. We are deeply, intimately aware of the fact that there's absolutely opportunity to go and just make that whole process better.
Adam Wainwright:To the extent that that, I don't wanna I don't wanna over overshare in terms of how we're kind of thinking about these things. There's
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Adam Wainwright:There's a lot of two way doors around that conversation. What I will tell you is that in the cash flow world, and, you know, if you can read into this however you want, the idea was now a customer is getting the actual quote object, and there and it's and it is somewhat editable. Right? It's actually there are there's there are ways that the buyer is now interacting with it, maybe where they're actually updating the bill to or ship to address. Maybe they're updating the actual vendor acceptance details
Jack Coopersmith:in
Adam Wainwright:the actual quote itself. Now And we don't wanna necessarily do is have a, like, a seller, and this happens sometimes in b two b, kinda get those details wrong. And then what has to happen, right, they send that over the fence, and then then they have to cancel the the order and then go and do it again. That's why we built our system to to facilitate that. So to the extent that we're in a position to take advantage of existing technology, we're gonna do so.
Adam Wainwright:But to the extent that maybe there's an opportunity for us to try and do something different or maybe produce a a version two or a separate system, these things are all on the table. That's what I'll tell you. But the good news is is that that is we are I'll just say that we are acutely aware that that is something that absolute in order for our vision to come true,
Jack Coopersmith:we
Max Cohen:we
Adam Wainwright:have to get out from around
Chad Hohn:that little email verification shenanigans. Yeah.
Adam Wainwright:That's exactly right. In in in in the land that I come from, one button is pressed and then a second model comes up and says, hey. Now you gotta pay for it. And then in the same action, maybe I'm mailing it to my accounts payable person, and the the deal is now effectively closed. If we can facilitate a process where you don't just book it, but you now can even recognize
Max Cohen:what you
Adam Wainwright:or even collect Yeah. That's nirvana state, and we're gonna do our best to build towards
Chad Hohn:that. That's feeling real nice.
Adam Wainwright:Yeah. Yeah. Chad might need a mark. Nice.
Max Cohen:Jack, I gotta press you on some. I appreciate
George B. Thomas:out. Here we go.
Max Cohen:Jack, I need a how are we doing on the Oh, wait. Now I'm trying to remember if this. I don't know if this was public or not. Is there is there is there.
Adam Wainwright:Oh. I love it.
Max Cohen:No, no, no. I'm not going to.
Chad Hohn:I don't.
Max Cohen:Are there any APIs coming to help us with the creation of payment links? Is that a thing? You could say no.
Chad Hohn:That'd be sick and dope.
Max Cohen:Am I imagining something?
Jack Coopersmith:No. You're not imagining.
Chad Hohn:Links with query params, that'd be nice. Pass data into them.
Max Cohen:Well, actually, no. You They talked about that before. Here's here's the thing. What I what I think I really want is I really just want the forms to be better on payment links. Like Yeah.
Max Cohen:The fact that, like, the forms don't have the same functionality is, like, at least the legacy form builder eats me up. Like, that I could just add to them. You know, I can just add two other, like, fields or something. Can't really do much else with them like that. Like, I think that would be such a big win if, like, the form could be built with the forms editor, you know, for payment links at least.
Max Cohen:That would just be unbelievable.
George B. Thomas:And I'm over here thinking about the massive amount of line of lines of code that you just said. Oh,
Max Cohen:of course. I'd love this. Of course. Of course.
Jack Coopersmith:I totally you can get a lot fancier today than I think a lot of people expect using some custom logic, maybe a little React here and there too. So you can I've seen people get really fancy when it comes to progressive forms and logic that then surfaces the requisite payment.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Yeah.
Jack Coopersmith:And so APIs more broadly, yes. We wanna go down that road. Do I see us focusing on those core object APIs likely first? Well, a lot of it's already, you know, in public beta. So, yes, I definitely do.
Max Cohen:That's fair. Yeah.
Jack Coopersmith:Now do I see us trying to build a proper shopping cart? No. I don't see us moving in that space. Never wanna say never, but I'd be surprised if we moved in that area. So, Max, I see us being more flexible.
Jack Coopersmith:I think people can do a lot more today than what a lot of folks actually do realize. I don't see us trying to be that, like, Shopify competitor,
Max Cohen:though. Yeah. No.
Jack Coopersmith:Shopify, however. Like, Chad, you kinda put me on that one. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I don't even think it's like Shopify could better. I think it's just the ability to have more information on the form, like, for a payment link.
Adam Wainwright:Yeah.
Max Cohen:You know, that's the big thing because, like, you know, I, you know, for example, I would love to be able to make it easy for, you know, HubSpot payment links to, you know, register someone for an event. Right? But what I have to do is create an insane amount of, like, workflows and, you know, stuff in the background versus just being able to, like, hey. It's a HubSpot form. I can have a hidden field in there.
Max Cohen:There's my event ID and boom, it registers. I'm like, that Yeah. Like, that that's the kind of stuff, you know, where it's just, like, if there's if HubSpot's building a product that has a form on it, man, it would be great if it had parity to the, you know, the forms tool that it already has. Or like
Chad Hohn:a number of units. Right? Set a number of units with, like, a query parameter so you could just send somebody a link onto something that has variable units and just say, you need to buy 80 units rather than sending them a screenshot of how where the drop down is because it's kinda hidden. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Or or maybe have it just be like instead of, you know, adding, you know, specific properties, you can just embed an existing HubSpot form and have that form be on there. Mhmm. Yeah. That might be neat.
George B. Thomas:So so let's get I think this is, like, the API show, by the way, because we're we're talking. But I
Max Cohen:do wanna hear something
George B. Thomas:dog. Because it's another API, and it's something that we all love to talk about. We all love every people complain about, but we know we really love it. That's taxes. Anyway Mhmm.
Adam Wainwright:Can
George B. Thomas:you guys elaborate on the the tax rates API? Yeah. I it was introduced in February 2025. Like, why is that important? What should businesses be thinking about?
George B. Thomas:Like, how does it help manage tax rates? Like, talk me through that little nerdy piece.
Jack Coopersmith:Yep. I never thought I'd be as enthusiastic about taxes Oh. And I'm I'm even starting to get into, like, EU tax law. I know more about German tax law today than I ever thought I would a couple of years ago. It is kinda crazy.
Jack Coopersmith:Now, George, that is an API that is very much in tandem with the invoice create API as well as the quote create API as well. So, Chad, I'm I'm happy to hear that you had played around with that.
Max Cohen:Mhmm.
Jack Coopersmith:You can add a tax rate in the UI today. This allows for you to essentially programmatically pull that and then create that artifact in one fell swoop. Also, quotes can be created via API as well. I've seen people get really fancy with that. So if that's on your mind, I'd recommend playing around with it because you can do quite a bit.
Jack Coopersmith:So that's really what it's all about, George, is allowing for people to programmatically create those artifacts with the create with the right tax. Now I'm sure you all have seen a lot of stuff from us recently on the tax side of things. Obviously, West, we have complex tax models, Canada, UK. Again, I know way more about this than I ever thought I would. And so we're gonna keep enabling, on that front.
Jack Coopersmith:So we wanna allow for people to do it in the UI easily, but we also wanna solve for the developers, as well. And so that's what this new feature is really all about.
Chad Hohn:How'd that go the first time somebody hooked up their QBO with taxes and they were a Canadian customer? Mhmm. Like a Canadian QBO. Because you're required like, this is something that I found out at my last job. We built our own custom QBO sync, and you have to have a tax rate on every individual line item in Canadian QBO instances.
Chad Hohn:And if you don't, it's just like, sorry. Don't pass go. Don't collect $200. You're toast, brother.
Jack Coopersmith:Yep. Same thing with zero for the record as well. And so more to come on that. I can promise that one there. But, yeah, when it comes to The US, QBO has huge market share and, obviously, you know, getting their feet in Canada and The UK a little bit.
Jack Coopersmith:Zero's the giant internationally, though, and they also have that requirement. So that's something that's front of mind for the team too.
George B. Thomas:You, you you nerds, by the way. For any of you listening,
Chad Hohn:what
George B. Thomas:QBO is, it's QuickBooks online.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. Sorry.
George B. Thomas:All of you mere mortal human beings. And and because you brought that up, we can't have an episode of the Commerce Hub where we don't just give you a moment, Adam or Jack, to talk about, like, where is the QuickBooks online, like, you know, Commerce Hub integration? Like, because I know we started using it when it was, like, a a baby in diapers. Like, talk us through kinda what
Max Cohen:people Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Wreath. If if they're, like, they tried it and they're like, not for me, not yet. Like, how should they be rethinking about it, or what should they know about it right now?
Adam Wainwright:Jack, I'll let you I can let you take that one. You have some more history on it.
Jack Coopersmith:Yeah. I'm I'm I'm deep. Maybe not as deep as Chad, frankly, even though, it was fun.
Max Cohen:I mean, I have done the
Chad Hohn:work my way wow. Wow.
Max Cohen:That is good. Chad is
Chad Hohn:busy. Anyway sorry.
Max Cohen:Works is
Jack Coopersmith:It's like so philosophically, I've mentioned this a couple of times, but we're really all about allowing for you to manage your entire, you know, customer journey and your entire revenue operations process from within HubSpot. Now that does not necessarily mean we're gonna be coming we're gonna be a back office platform or an accounting platform or an ERP. I just don't really see us playing in that space anytime soon. Integration is the route that we're gonna go there. And so it was our number one feature request for quite some time to be able to take HubSpot invoices and sync them out to QBO.
Jack Coopersmith:We checked that box last year. That was a big deal. But as always, once we release something, we have folks like you all who are like, alright. We need this, this, this, and this. And so we very, very, very much hear you on that.
Jack Coopersmith:And I think we're making incremental progress. So one of the most common errors that we saw once we launched this was the billing contact. So, essentially, the data model within HubSpot isn't the exact same as the data model within QuickBooks is the headline, which caused a lot
Max Cohen:of the
Jack Coopersmith:errors to think over. And so what we did is we're like, okay. Seems like everyone is running into this. Let's make it easier to select the correct billing contact within HubSpot. And so we have a little model to pop up that says, like, are you sure you don't want it to be associated with this person?
Jack Coopersmith:Because then that sync will, be successful. Taxes is another big thing that we've been working on. I think everyone knows that at this point, and there's definitely a QBO and Xero work stream there too. And so, really, George, the way that I see it is we're making just progress on fewer errors and making it more, making you have to think less, frankly, because in a world where you have to be an expert in the QuickBooks online data model and the expert in the HubSpot data model, we're maybe making you think a little too much. So we wanna make it easier, frankly, to adopt and leverage.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. My brain thanks you. My brain thanks you. As as we kinda get ready to close this bad boy out, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask this in kind of a two part question because I feel like we're we're kinda talking about Commerce Hub, and we're kinda talking about CPQ, and they're they're kinda the same thing, but maybe sorta not. And so, if you guys could and so, Jack, you'll probably answer one.
George B. Thomas:Adam, you'll probably answer the other. Like, if you guys could wave a magic wand and you could add one feature to commerce hub or or one feature to CPQ tomorrow, what the heck would it be and why?
Adam Wainwright:I mean, I can so, you know, we started the conversation. There's one thing that we you know, I I have been, hesitant to go down the imagining what AI can do, you know, in a in a in a dry land of, you know, ledgers and finance and but but the right. The reality is there's a massive opportunity for us to also bring in another brain into your ecosystem that actually helps you manage a ton of processes that today are just buttons and click. They're just they're just things that you kinda have to do. Dunning's a good example.
Adam Wainwright:There's there's so many things that some of these systems have to do in order for these things to be cohesive. And if if the if the objective, I think I think Jack nailed it. Right? We're not we're not planning on being an ERP. But if there's an opportunity for us to maybe retire a lot of the capabilities that QuickBooks is sort of having to do because your finance leaders are like, don't touch my billing process, and then we can just effectively make it be the ledger, that would be a really nice place for a lot of our customers, especially the ones that are kind of going through their digital transformation journey.
Adam Wainwright:They're kinda early enough where they don't have to go out and get deep and knowledgeable on these super back heavy back end tools. And so I think if I had to make wave a magic wand and and, you know, I I'd I'd like to think that we're in the process of waving it, it would be to introduce a whole ton of reimagining around how the machine can effectively offload a lot of these processes. And so we're really excited about and, frankly, there may be an opportunity for a v two of this conversation, to bring in a brain that helps you helps the sellers understand, maybe even coach them through optimizing their quotes or their deals for margins in SaaS or for inventory review, for your accounts receivable team, maybe identifying and understanding where my my my risk is. Maybe I'm building profiles for my customers based on buying behaviors or, attributes across industries. There's a whole bunch of opportunity, to look at an agentic component of this.
Adam Wainwright:And and, you know, I the the irony in me saying all of that is is that it's it feels like it's a little bit magic wandy, but the reality is is that we're actually pretty close to coming online with something that's gonna facilitate a lot automation. And so I'm looking forward to having a opportunity to say, at one point, it may have been it may have been a bit magical, but it turns out actually it's actually closer to reality than we think. I love it.
Chad Hohn:Yeah. It's awesome.
Jack Coopersmith:I'll add on Tyler that because, when specific features are obviously something I'll always get excited about and talk about till my face is blue. But I'll add on top of what Adam mentioned because I think that that's gonna be the real transformation for a given business. The what I would add on top, though, is around the extensibility of everything in a world where we really can be the center of gravity for your entire business, but also speak to all of the other aspects of your business that we need to, and allow for you to do everything in one place with just a couple of clicks, not a lot of tabs, not a lot of thinking, that's when I think businesses are gonna say, wow. This this platform is really transforming how we operate and allowing for us to really grow better, ideally. So I think it's the combo of AI, the framework that we have, and the ability for us to take in any information that you would want us to take in.
George B. Thomas:Gentlemen, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come and hang out with Chad and Max and myself and, just drop the knowledge bombs that you have. My my one takeaway, and then actually well, Max and Chad, do you guys have a takeaway from today?
Chad Hohn:I have a takeaway. I mean, I think what you guys are talking about with being able to have something to assist people, I think, will bring a lot of standardization. And, like, that's one of the things that we run into a lot of issues with our clients is they find somebody in the construction space. Like, they'll hire someone who's good at data admin work who is probably not an accountant at all. They don't know the word fiduciary.
Chad Hohn:Right? Mhmm. They know the word, like, Excel formula. And, like, having something help keep them on the rails, like, doing things the way it ought to be done so that it will get where it needs to go and so that a business can grow is, like, that's a huge exciting thing for me. And that's, like, a, you know, big takeaway is I think, you know, I'm I know Commerce Hub is headed in the right direction.
Chad Hohn:I've known it for a long time. I've had to, like, bite tooth and nail to keep, like, our industry invested in staying on it because some things have been difficult for, like, again, exactly what Jack said, the customer structure. Right? We have humans and projects underneath the humans and, like, the contact sync for Commerce Hub just doesn't do that. So I had to get really crazy with some fancy footwork of being able to laser in contacts underneath it and move invoices around after they get synced over and stuff like that.
Chad Hohn:So they stay linked up. But like all that to say, like, I know you guys are really headed in the right direction to make all that work. And like, if you had a bad experience with QBO sync before, try it again. If you had a bad experience with Commerce Hub before, I mean, now is still just it's, right now, it's the worst it's ever gonna be, always, because it's always improving. Right?
Chad Hohn:It it's not the worst it ever has been, but it's the worst it's ever gonna be moving forward, theoretically. And, with what Adam's been talking about about cash flow and that great human user experience on both sides, the sales side and on the, buyer side, man, I can't be more excited about that.
George B. Thomas:Max, final thoughts.
Max Cohen:Oh, you you know me, I'm the eco system app guy. Right? So a lot of the times when I get super excited, I start to think about what this means for the broader, you know, ecosystem of the potential opportunity out there. Right? And if I'm hearing that, you know, we're building this new solid foundation for commerce on HubSpot and giving you the ability to create all these things, whether it's payments or subscriptions or this, that, and the other thing, the slew of possibilities around apps centered around commerce and payment getting built on HubSpot is what really excites me.
Max Cohen:Right?
Jack Coopersmith:I mean Mhmm.
Max Cohen:You know, if we think about, hey. Like, what do we need? We need an API for payments or transactions or subscriptions or whatever you wanna call them. And then, you know, the next person could come around and build, like, the literal, you know, Shopify built purpose built for HubSpot from the ground up off the tail end of those, you know, those APIs. Right?
Max Cohen:Like, someone in the ecosystem could come do that. Right? And, like, that to me is really, really exciting because, like, while we look at this as, you know, updates to, like, core features of HubSpot, there's also, like, a big other picture of what this opens up, you know, downstream of that and and outside of that. Right? You know, we we built a CPQ platform on HubSpot, quote happily.
Max Cohen:Right? I had to get it in at the end, but, like, all the stuff that you guys are talking about is gonna be that many more toys for us to be able to, like, play with and make our platform better. You know what I mean? Like so it's it's this is the stuff that really, really kind of excites me in that, you know, what feels like features getting out of the HubSpot is always a much bigger picture than just that. Right?
Max Cohen:Yep. Yep. Yep. Ecosystem should be stoked right now.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. My takeaway is if you have looked at Commerce Hub but haven't tried it, maybe it's time to dip your toe in. If you've used it historically and you walked away, you might wanna tease it again because in good HubSpot fashion, everything changes every single day, and we're in a new wonderland where magic wands are being waved and things are being created. And, hey, maybe it's your time. We'll see you next time
Max Cohen:on the
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