I sold my company

Starter Story| 00:10:39|Feb 23, 2026

Chapters6

Pat lands in NYC, contemplates a life changing meeting and the possibility of selling Starter Story, framing the emotional stakes of the moment.

Pat Walls sells Starter Story to HubSpot, reflecting on freedom, identity, and building something bigger than himself for the team and community.

Summary

Pat Walls of Starter Story documents a pivotal, life-changing moment: a potential sale that could redefine his future. The video follows a personal pilgrimage—from his old NYC apartment and a Starbucks deep-work routine to the moment of accepting an offer from HubSpot. Walls candidly admits the emotional tension of selling a company he built from the ground up, balancing the dream of freedom with the responsibility he feels toward his team and audience. He recalls the early days—$12,000 in savings, relentless daily shipping, hiring his sister, and watching Stripe grow from zero to a trickle, then a breakthrough. Walls explains how the business grew to become his identity, and why he chose to let go so Starter Story could scale beyond him while preserving the core mission. The deal with HubSpot promises more resources, higher production quality, and continued alignment with the original vision, all while keeping the same team and mission intact. He closes with a heartfelt thank-you to viewers and an invitation to follow the deeper discussion about the deal, negotiation lessons, and how to build a sellable business. The video is a raw blend of emotions, strategy, and practical insights into entrepreneurship at scale.

Key Takeaways

Starter Story started with $12,000 and a routine of two hours of deep work every morning at a now-closed Starbucks, fueling the initial traction as revenue ticked up.
Pat Walls built a team gradually, first hiring his sister, then expanding, which helped transition Starter Story from a side project to a real company.
The founder’s identity became intertwined with the brand, creating a tension between personal fame and the company’s independent growth.
Selling to HubSpot is framed around alignment and growth potential, not just a big payout; the team, mission, and storytelling focus remain intact.
Walls promises a deeper follow-up on the deal, negotiations, and building a repeatable, sellable business model for audiences interested in exits.

Who Is This For?

Essential viewing for solo founders and small teams contemplating a large exit, especially those who want to understand how to preserve culture and mission during a sale while leveraging a larger partner’s resources.

Notable Quotes

"The deal is done. Starter Story was acquired by HubSpot, a public company."

—Reveals the acquisition outcome and sets up the post-sale discussion.

"If you follow me online, you might have seen some stuff that I posted about how I'd never ever sell. I meant it."

—Highlights the emotional complexity and shifting stance toward selling.

"The goal was never just money. It was to build something bigger than myself, something real, something that didn't depend entirely on me."

—Captures the core motivation behind the decision to sell.

"This decision is one of the hardest I've ever had to make in my life."

—Emphasizes the personal difficulty of choosing to exit.

"We're going to have the same team, same mission, and the same obsession with telling stories of founders who are actually out there building cool stuff to inspire you."

—Shows commitment to continuity and audience value post-acquisition.

Questions This Video Answers

How did Pat Walls decide the right time to sell Starter Story to HubSpot?
What makes a startup sellable without losing the founding culture or mission?
What negotiations lessons did Pat Walls share about his HubSpot deal?
How did Starter Story evolve from a side project into a company with real team dynamics?
What does HubSpot bring to a content-focused business like Starter Story?

Starter StoryHubSpot acquisitionPat Wallsfounder storiesbusiness exitentrepreneurshipbranding and identitysellable businessstartup growthcontent-driven businesses

Full Transcript

So, I am flying to New York City today to have a meeting that could change the rest of my life. Today, I might be selling my company, Starter Story, for a life-changing amount of money. It feels crazy right now, and I don't really know exactly how to feel about it. So, I figured let's document it. So almost 10 years ago, I moved to New York City for a job. I had no idea I was going to build a business, but I know I did want one thing, something more. So now I'm flying back to New York City to sell this thing that I built and potentially go back to a job. All right, let's get on this plane. Okay, so I just landed at JFK. My meeting is in a couple hours. Guess I got a little time. So, I want to take you guys a couple places. This right here, this is my old apartment. This is where it all started. I was working a developer job at a small startup. Six figures, stable, but I wasn't happy. Something was missing. Not because the job was bad, but because I wasn't building something that was mine. In this apartment right up here, I started thinking. I would come home every night after work and knew that I wanted to build something, but I wasn't able to actually execute on it. And this haunted me for months until I found a very special place. And I want to take you there right now. This right here used to be a Starbucks. It's closed now. And I guess that's kind of fitting. I'd sit right there every single morning and put in two hours of deep work before I started my job. I'd get my coffee. I'd get my laptop and I started building something. I was writing. I was coding. I was sending emails. I was interviewing founders. Nobody in there had any idea what I was doing. And honestly, I didn't either. It wasn't impressive at all, but it was consistent. I kept coming back every single day refreshing Stripe, watching it go from zero to a couple hundred bucks. I know it sounds small, but that was everything to me. And the only question I could ask myself was, what would happen if I went all in? This is the walk I would do every single morning on my way to work for a year. daydreaming, thinking about what it would be like to build my own thing until one day it felt like too much. And I had to make a decision that would change the rest of my life. This right here, this is my old job. And I'll never forget the day where I worked up the courage to walk in there, quit that job, and go all in on Starter Story. And what's crazy is that quitting and freedom, I thought that was the goal, but it was really just the beginning. So, my name is Pat Walls and I work on starterstory.com. When I quit my job, I had about $12,000 to my name. That was it. The only thing that I could do was go allin. And for a while, it was messy. I was trying all sorts of things. Most months, nothing moved. In some months, everything broke. But every single day they just kept shipping, posting content, interviewing, coding, refreshing Stripe over and over and over. It never exploded overnight. It just accumulated and slowly people started to notice. Revenue started ticking up. I hired my first person who was actually my sister and that was the first moment that things started to feel real. Then another hire, then another. It stopped feeling like a side project and it started feeling like a real company. And with that came more money, but also more responsibility. Man, going back to all those places, remembering the whole journey of how I got here was an absolute trip. You know what I started thinking about a little bit was why I started this business. It was for freedom. And in so many ways, I got that. I achieved it. No boss, freedom of my time to do anything I wanted at any time. But then over the years, something changed. As the business grew and it became successful, it all of a sudden became my identity. I wasn't just Pat anymore. I was the starter story guy. And while I love that and I don't regret any of it, I realized that it started to consume me. Every day and minute of my life was dedicated to building this business and making sure everything was growing and everything was perfect. If you follow me online, you might have seen some stuff that I posted about how I'd never ever sell. I meant it. I really did. But when the offer actually came in, I started to think a lot more about that. And I started to imagine what life would be like if I wasn't carrying this every single day. This decision is one of the hardest I've ever had to make in my life. Am I selling because it's the right thing to do on paper, or am I just doing this because I'm tired and ready to move on? I wish I had an answer right now, but I honestly don't know. But anyways, looks like it's that time. As I walked toward that office, I kept thinking about the cage. How something I built for freedom slowly took it away. 8 minutes left, guys. And I asked myself, am I still building or am I just holding on? Holding it so close because I was afraid of what it would mean to lose it. afraid of who I would be without it. And in that moment, I realized something. The goal was never just money. It was to build something bigger than myself, something real, something that didn't depend entirely on me. And somewhere along the way, that happened. Starter stories stopped being about me years ago. It became about the team, about the process, about the thousands of founders we interviewed and the millions of people who watch these stories and get inspired. And if that's actually true, then maybe I'm the one holding it back. If I really want this thing to grow beyond me, then I have to let it go. So in that moment, all of a sudden, it didn't feel like signing my life away. It felt like I was closing a chapter and letting Starter Story become what it was always meant to be. That's it, guys. The deal is done. I made the decision. I'm not sure if it's the right one, but it's all over now. It doesn't feel like winning or anything like that. It just feels like closing a chapter. Don't worry, I'm going to tell you all about the deal. But before I do that, I got to go to bed and I got to go home. I'll see you back in Florida. I'm back home now. The deal is done. Starter story was acquired by HubSpot, a public company. And that honestly feels surreal to say out loud. When I started the conversation with HubSpot, what mattered less was the numbers and more on alignment. They want to help us scale things and do more and not change what Starter Story was built on. We're going to have the same team, same mission, and the same obsession with telling stories of founders who are actually out there building cool stuff to inspire you. If anything, we're going to have more resources, bigger interviews, more shows, better production, more tools, and more experiments. So, if you're a fan of the channel, I'd love to hear your feedback on what we can do next. If you put a comment down there, I'll make sure to read all of them. This whole thing happened not because of me, but because of you. Every single person who watched our channel, supported us. You were a part of this story. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I'm not just saying it. So, seriously, thank you for following along. 8 years ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks at 6:00 in the morning doing my deep work. I just knew that I wanted to build something and I kept showing up. I hope this is proof that your life can change in just a few short years. Not because of one big lucky break, but because you believed in yourself over a long enough number of days, months, and years for that to compound. So, how much did we sell for? Unfortunately, I can't share everything in detail, but I will say this, it was life-changing. And I'm not trying to flex. I wanted to make this video to show the real process of what it's like to build something and go through the emotions of selling it and making that decision. the uncertainty, the emotion, the mechanics. If you found this interesting, I am going to go a little bit deeper into that. How the deal happened, how to build a sellable business, what I learned negotiating, everything. So, if you're interested, I put a link down there in the description or we're going to go over all that live and we'll be doing that in a few days. Time to get back to work. We got a lot more videos in the pipeline. Thank you guys for watching and I hope you enjoyed this video. Peace.