Founder Profile
Brian Halligan
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Brian Halligan?
Brian Halligan is a founder of HubSpot, Inc., which was founded in 2006 with Dharmesh Shah.
- Company founded
- HubSpot, Inc.
- Founded
- 2006
- Co-founders
- Dharmesh Shah
Background
Halligan was studying at MIT Sloan School of Management when he met Dharmesh Shah in 2004. Before MIT he worked in sales leadership roles at software companies and as a venture partner. A longtime Grateful Dead fan, he later co-wrote 'Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead', arguing that the band's free tape-sharing built a community of evangelists. He was HubSpot's CEO from 2006 to 2021 and then moved to executive chairman.
Founding Story
Brian Halligan co-founded HubSpot in 2006 with Dharmesh Shah after the two met at MIT Sloan. Drawing on years in software sales, he argued that interruption marketing - cold calls, trade shows, and paid ads - was losing effectiveness as buyers researched online. He and Shah coined 'inbound marketing', and Halligan co-wrote 'Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs' (2009) to evangelize the idea. As CEO he took HubSpot public on the NYSE in 2014 and led it until Yamini Rangan succeeded him in September 2021.