Review: Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read Dan Lyon’s LinkedIn post about his book two years back, and have been curious to read his book – especially since some people in Hubspot actually tried to obtain a copy and indulged in coercion to stop the book. I also read co-founder Dharmesh Shah’s mature response (on behalf of him as well as Brian Halligan), also on LinkedIn, though he does not address all the issues in Dan’s book.

Somehow, got to reading it only now. This is an especially interesting read on Tech Startups and does offer lessons such companies would be better off considering. And yet, some of Dan’s criticism does also come across as whining and bitterness as a result of his personal experience.

At over 50 years of age, Dan decides to enter the world of Tech Startup by joining Hubspot – a Boston based company with a product for Inbound marketing. He has been in the media industry for long and realizes it will take some effort to fit in to a new industry. He has kids and his wife recently left her job, which adds to the pressure to get back to work as quickly as possible. His initial days and weeks are frustrating with no direction on what is expected of him, very little dialogue with seniors, and a frat house culture gone berserk. His work assignments are mostly around writing lame blogs. Most of the Hubspot employees are fresh out of college and have little or no real coaching. In order to keep them motivated, they are offered a fun place to work – bright colors, bean bags, beer on the job etc. At times such as Halloween and Freaky Fridays, employees can come in wearing costumes of their choice. Employees are told that they are actually making the world a better place. Employees who leave or are fired (which happens quite often) are announced as graduating with an informally worded mail doing the rounds. The culture code presentation with the “HEART” acronym comes across as full of fluff. Dan sticks out as an odd person – struggling to fit in and also makes detractors with his frankness. Here, Dan’s criticism is on solid ground and this is certainly a culture where older employees, as also many personality types, and those who value authenticity would struggle to fit in.

As part of his narrative Dan also suggests that Hubspot has a poor product, and has to spend a lot on marketing to sell it, as also to retain customers. While it is difficult to know if that is case, Hubspot has seen very strong growth and indicates that this cannot be entirely true. He also takes aim at startups in general and the trends they back. Eg: he takes aim at Software-as-a-Service companies, which is completely off the mark. Even going by his own account, there is an indication that Dan did not try very hard to fit in either, nor did he offer suggestions constructively. Brian Halligan was once quoted as saying that experience was largely overvalued, prompting a bitter Facebook post by Dan, which he acknowledges might not have been the best approach.

While he uses pseudo names for a few people in the book, he names Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe and Head of Content Joe Chernov (his supervisor for part of the duration) in the Epilogue who had to leave as a result of the FBI investigation (though no charges were pressed). After he gets another job, Dan resigns giving a 6 week notice but is asked to leave the very next day.

There are good lessons from the book on – the need for diversity, valuing experience, promoting time tested values of respect, openness, trust, transparency, authenticity, fairness rather than a cult-like behavior and make believe.

A book I certainly recommend reading.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.


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