Bhaskar Thakur is an Entrepreneur and a Growth Hacker. He has founded/co-founded 3 ventures in Internet and Mobile space. He has played various roles in the three start-ups including General Management, Marketing and Sales, Product Management, Building and Growing Teams. He really enjoyed wearing multiple hats and performing these functions however, Strategy and Growth (Product and Customer) is his forte and his key contribution to all ventures.
His 15 years experience spans Marketing, Sales, Digital Marketing, Consumer internet, Product Management, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Evangelism and Distribution Channel Development.
Bhaskar helps product teams and start-ups in customer acquisition and scaling with quick marketing experiments, action focused analytics and product iterations.
He advises start-ups on Strategy and Growth and is a mentor & coach with a number of organisations like Digital Vidya, CIIE- IIM Ahmedabad, The Power of Ideas etc. and blog at www.BhaskarThakur.com
Digital Vidya: How did you get into Digital Marketing?
Bhaskar: I got into digital marketing to explore opportunities of selling Professional test certification trainings for my first startup Whizlabs. It was early days for Internet and Digital in India. Opportunities and channels were few and competition was low.
Digital Vidya: Why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital Marketing today?
Bhaskar: Digital is an invariable part of every marketing plan. India perhaps missed the Internet on PC revolution. However, with 3G /4G and Mobile Internet Indians are leading Digital adoption. As a marketer you can’t ignore your largest segment/ channel.
Digital Vidya: According to you, what are the top mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital Marketing?
Bhaskar: In my opinion, listed below are the top mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital Marketing-
- Directly applying fundamentals of traditional marketing to Digital.
- Top management is clueless how digital works and delegates digital vision down the chain.
- They do not run the experiments fast and measure the results.
Digital Vidya: You led ‘Growth Hacking 101′ Webinar for Digital Vidya’s community. How was your experience in leading the Webinar?
Bhaskar: Good. The audience was interactive and that was enriching experience.
Digital Vidya: Please share top 5-7 takeaways from the Webinar you would like to share with our community.
Bhaskar: Here are a few takeaways from the webinar that I wish to share-
- Growth should be the primary objective of a growth Hacker. It involves Product growth and Customer Growth.
- Follow the A2R2 Growth Framework- Attract, Activate, Retain, Reap for customer acquisition and Growth.
- It’s never too early to start building traction. You may want to start building before launching the produc
- Build MVP ( minimum viable product and take it to marke
- Get users to Aha moment as soon as possible.
- Run experiments and measure result
Digital Vidya: Do you have any suggestions for us to further increase the value of our Digital Marketing Webinars for our community?
Bhaskar: It would be nice to know the attendees expectation from the session.
Digital Vidya: Would you like to share few words about the work we are doing at Digital Vidya?
Bhaskar:
There are no formal schools/ curriculum for Digital Marketing. Digital Vidya is the pioneer in Digital trainings and is helping create professionals who are the best in the industry. Kudos! to DV team.
