Inefficient processes and platforms
Functionly are a fully remote team with no physical office, so reliance on their digital tools is paramount. The team initially struggled with a scattered tech stack which saw them utilising tools such as Pipedrive, Autopilot, sheets, WordPress, and a CRM custom-built into their product.
As Functionly expanded its reach across 46 countries and 89 diverse industries, the complexity of targeting and reporting became overwhelming. This challenge only intensified with additional tools brought in, creating a web of inefficiency. "It got to the point where it was so difficult to get answers, and it was impacting our operational efficiency because we just couldn’t get the insights we needed," says Tim Brewer, Functionly’s co-founder and CEO. Armed with experience in multiple CRM rollouts, Tim recognised the need for a consolidated solution to streamline their operations and gain better insights. This led them to HubSpot and joining the HubSpot for Startups Program, where they brought their entire team onto one consolidated platform. Reflecting on the change, Tim says "it makes life really easy to get in and help our customers out without having to jump between different tools to connect the dots".
Organic growth & a $200k cost saving
Since bringing HubSpot into the business in 2020, Functionly have seen their website performance grow in leaps and bounds. A huge part of this is due to the ability to clearly evaluate what is working, and what isn’t - moving beyond the vanity metrics and looking at the longer-term impact. One powerful outcome here was being able to see beyond the volume of traffic and trial sign ups that were being generated by an intensive paid strategy, and identify that the large majority of these were low value leads. Consequently, they hit the stop button on their paid strategy, saving the business $15,000 each month.
Since then the focus has been on implementing an effective all-bound strategy (a combination of both inbound and outbound), where activity is centred around building a strong base for SEO, and regular content programming through blogging and podcasts. This has seen the monthly volume of site traffic increase to more than 20x what it was two years previously with the YoY growth currently at 400%. Talking to Functionly’s Chief of Staff, Amy Springer, she said, "if organic keeps growing at the rate it is growing, I would question our need to go back to paid strategy."
Scaling 100x through centralised infrastructure
Leveraging the HubSpot platform goes well beyond scaling Functionly’s organic reach. With the team working across Marketing, Sales and Service Hub, the full customer journey is managed in the HubSpot platform and they’re committed to making HubSpot their centralised understanding of customers. This has been instrumental in improving their operational efficiency because as Tim says, ‘everyone is able to really clearly see what’s happening and identify what needs to be done so there’s never any "what’s next’ scramble, and everyone is able to rely on their processes and stay relaxed as they do their best work".
This gives Functionly confidence when they look to the future of the business - the Functionly team believe they could increase their customer sign-up rate 100x, and are confident that they’d be able to handle that volume due to the centralised infrastructure they’ve created in HubSpot. This infrastructure runs through the teams in several ways:
- Conversations is the home for all their shared inboxes across founders, podcast, sales and support
- Custom surveys share insight on support satisfaction and NPS
- Workflows and automation provide the team with a rating from high-low value for contacts coming in so they can effectively prioritise where to spend their time
- They’ve built a custom integration from their software into HubSpot, to bring product usage and billing data into HubSpot for even more nuanced segmentation and communications targeting
Going all in & seeing ROI
When asked about advice for those thinking about HubSpot, Tim said "just go all in! And don’t be afraid to reach out to other customers to see how they’re doing things". When reviewing the cost of the platform against the impact they’ve been able to drive, the team are clear about the value they’re receiving. With all the automation they’ve been able to build, Tim estimates that it is a full-time employee’s worth of work that is saved each week.
Beyond that, the rest of the team are able to see exactly where they should be focused, and are spending their time working on the business, rather than in the day-to-day minutiae. As Tim says, "when you get it right, HubSpot is worth every dollar because the alternative of disparate data and systems will prevent you making the right decisions efficiently".
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