“I usually start off my day quietly by reading a book or watching a series in the early morning. At 8:00 AM I get up, have breakfast and prepare for the day!
At 09:00 AM, I crawl behind my laptop for the Marketing meeting with the Mercator Launch marketing team. We go through our weekly planning: which events are coming up? What articles and blogs do we have to write and share? And, not unimportantly: which entrepreneurs are we going to put in the spotlight this month? It is nice to meet each other every week to discuss our marketing & communication plan and check how everyone’s doing.
After the meeting, I attend my online lecture ‘Introduction to Language and Speech Technology’. Next to my job at Mercator Launch, I am in my first year of the Master Artificial Intelligence at the Faculty of Social Sciences. On average, I spend 4.5 days a week studying for my Masters. However, since my study program is very flexible, I thought it would be valuable to work alongside it and gain experience in content creation. Before I joined the Mercator Launch team, I was the website manager of the Radboud Research Facilities (RRF). The RRF manager, Ed Koster, pointed out that Mercator Launch was looking for additional support on Marketing & Communication. That’s how I ended up as their Content Officer which involves writing posts, blogs, articles and analyzing our content. It is nice to combine my studies and work as they each focus on very different topics.
After my lecture, I quickly grab some lunch and go to the Zoom meeting for growth hacking. Growth hacking is a creative, low-cost and experiment-driven strategy to help organizations acquire and retain customers. With the Mercator Launch marketing team, we work in 2-week-sprints in which we improve aspects like webpage visits and social media engagement. By implementing small but creative changes followed by data collection and analysis, we can make smart and substantiated decisions for our next marketing activities. We really have to think outside the box and the great thing about growth hacking is that every two-week-sprint, a different ML business coach joins our growth hacking team. As a result, I work with all my colleagues on a regular basis, even though I only work for Mercator Launch one day a week.
After a brainstorm that went in all possible directions, a creative idea suddenly emerged on how we can promote our Hero Entrepreneurs event even better. More about this soon… 😉
After the growth hacking meeting, I start with my to do list that rose from our marketing meeting. I prepare a number of social media posts and ensure that the articles are published on our website. I check with my team if I can help with anything else and then I grab my tennis racket to go hit some balls on the university tennis court with my buddy.
All in all, it was a fun and productive day that ends with a dinner together with my roommates.”