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Image source: Forbes.com Online advertising spends, including spends on Adwords have been coming under a lot of scrutiny and discussion. In a world of numerous options, the marketers are looking for the greatest ROMI (return on marketing investments) Traditionally, search marketing has been the most effective way to reach the target audience. Target audience defined here are the people who are in-market for a solution that pertains to the product or service offerings. However, with proliferation of different platforms, the way people discover and consume content too has changed. The beauty of Google was that it’s search results were the closest to what people actually wanted. ( While I have a different take on this, I’ll save it for a different post of a different date ). When the paid search was added to the search results, a clear demarkation with the paid content on the right and organic results on the left still kept the ‘territorial integrity’ in tact. Even when the

I first joined Twitter in 2007, thanks to a client campaign activity, and was managing and maintaining their Twitter handle for few months. A year later, I personally got active on Twitter.  My Twitter experience has been 3 stages.. Stage 1: Era of egghead DP & many personal tweets. Yes, it was that time in India, when you could send your tweet through SMS, using a basic feature phone. Stage 2: An era of relevancy… when most fake profiles disappeared from the follower list, the tweets were relevant to the news/topics/people that were of interest to me,  Stage 3: Era of confusion.. Today, I’m not sure why my Twitter timeline means to me. It is a hotchpotch of GIFs, Videos, crazy #tags, irrelevant tweets Of late, Twitter has been in the news for all the wrong reasons… Their earnings are down User base is mostly stagnant and in some geos contracting A lot of senior management people are leaving These are signs of an organisation that is ill, very ill.

My previous post was about how and where we get ideas for innovation. This post seems like a natural progression to it. Having run a startup from coffeehouse ( Cafe Coffee Day and Costa Coffee ), here are few tips, I’ve learnt along the way.. Find a coffeehouse that is spacious The coffeehouse should be close to place of prospective client(s) / home Choose a corner place.. It will provide for some privacy  Always place your order (Coffee or Food) early Tip the waiter/barista  Check the place you sit for phone signals and wireless (internet) strength See that the place you choose is in line of sight from the counter Be pleasant with the staff and also with people who occupy tables close to where you sit Check out if the cafe has a loyalty program and get a loyalty card Carry good quality headphones with mic (the ones that cancel the background noise) Know of any other hacks that a startup should consider when working from coffeehouse, do let me know Cheers!

Having been an entrepreneur for over past 2 years and consulting for various startups on their business and marketing strategies, I had gained a lot of real experiences about the startup ecosystem.. from ideation to fruition  We all know that startups thrive in places where there is: economic growth access to capital young and educated work-force favourable government policies But, where do people get ideas for startups? Ask any startup founder and they would say - personal experience, market trends, existing problem or questioning the status quo, etc to be the top reasons which ignites the idea spark in them. A careful analysis of the top categories of startups (mostly technology startups) shows us that startup ideas thrive in the ‘border areas’.  Business is nothing but a form of structure that delivers value to stakeholders. The structures are formed basis specific activities. Every sphere of activity has a boundary and with each different boundaries comes in