Mapping the startup landscape can be an insightful exercise, one that throws up as many don’t’s as do’s. In hindsight, successful or failed startups would point to many defining factors and one that invariably stands out is the viability of a venture’s marketing strategy. We are living in times when stories are all that matter - narratives that are endorsed in a social media driven eco-system and which get translated into the right optics for your product or service. Controlling this narrative is a matter of investing in marketing resources efficiently.     In a conversation with Forbes magazine, Kipp Bodnar, CMO of  HubSpot, a business growth platform , has an interesting observation to make regarding startups and their marketing approach, “They have one marketer. They essentially have 30-50 hours of labo u r a week. The firm/marketer decides to do the following 1) W eekly email newsletter 2) Social media communicat ion 3) M arketing automation 4) Monthly ...

Yes indeed, these are exciting times. We are inching towards a fully digitalised world, all thanks to the rapid advancement in technology.  But this comes with its own set of challenges that confront every part of the society and business is no exception. Businesses have had to evolve strategies and embrace new technologies to keep pace with this rapid transformation be it the increasing use of AI  and automation for a variety of purposes,  the use of various software, 3 D printing, collaborative consumption etc. What is the issue ? But one issue that continues to remain steadfastly in the current fast moving digital era, is the issue of talent sharing across domains. Even as the employment landscape and norms are changing with the emergence of the gig economy and businesses themselves are resorting to the contractual method of work on an increasing scale it is pertinent to ask how fair is it to restrict the natural flow of talent possessed by profe...