The news: HubSpot Media, the in-house media arm of CRM and marketing automation company HubSpot, has acquired creator-led entrepreneurship brand Starter Story, per MarTech.

Starter Story brings a YouTube-first brand with 800,000 subscribers, a 275,000-subscriber newsletter, and an audience of roughly 1.6 million across platforms. The acquisition positions HubSpot as an in-house media competitor that can drive B2B demand through video-led storytelling.

HubSpot Media’s YouTube network now comes to 2.9 million subscribers, surpassing major business publishers like Morning Brew, per Yahoo.

Trendspotting: B2B software vendors are evolving into media networks to own both the channels and the content products and reduce reliance on third-party distribution.

• Canva’s Design School operates as a native education publisher that manufactures demand within its own ecosystem, bypassing reliance on external search or social platforms.
• ProfitWell (Paddle) is a destination site for subscription operators that looks like a vertical media brand, offering news, benchmarks, and UGC.
• Semrush’s MarTech and Search Engine Land serve as industry news portals engaging more than a million digital marketers, a captive audience.

Why it’s worth watching: By controlling the content platforms where its customers learn, get informed, and interact, HubSpot bypasses rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) for paid search and social channels. 

With AI chatbots handling a large share of search queries, owned media assets like newsletters and YouTube channels provide stable, first-party access to buyers. In support of this shift, 45% of CMOs are planning to increase media investments in short-form content, per Dentsu.

The challenge is managing the transition from promotional content to journalistic-quality storytelling while ensuring corporate objectives don’t undermine trust. If content feels like advertising, its credibility fades.

Implications for brands: CMOs must recognize that B2B marketing is increasingly taking on a ‘media company’ mindset, where brands act as always‑on publishers and educators rather than just running campaigns. Creating quality content builds editorial authority and expertise that attracts engagement.

To remain competitive, brands should evaluate acquiring niche communities or partnering with content creators that have established audiences rather than building from scratch. 

Success could depend on owning the platforms where a brand’s target audience seeks trusted information, effectively turning high-quality content into a proprietary and cyclical demand channel.