Paris Talks Marketing

In today's episode, I interviewed Hristo Boyadzhiev a founder of TukTam - "Here and There" - a self-funded non-profit organization. In recent years, the company has been focusing on uniting and strengthening the bond between Bulgarians living all over the world. At the same time showing the beneficial living opportunities that you can find in Bulgaria. There are approximately 1.5 - 2 million Bulgarians living abroad, so Hristo believes that Bulgaria can greatly benefit from creating a stronger connected Bulgarian community globally. More in the episode on how TukTam as an organization reaches out to Bulgarians from around the world and creates a network for Bulgarians to stay connected and engaged. Tune in with us and enjoy!

Meet Giles Blanchard, the CEO of a coworking space - This Way - located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Due to the pandemic and social distancing, the demand for coworking spaces has surprisingly grown. Most of the demand is coming from corporate companies that are rethinking their real estate strategy. Companies are moving away from the old traditional way of thinking about offices and realizing that people want more flexibility in order to be productive. Humans are social creatures and seek communication and social connection on a daily basis. In order to preserve the company culture in the current situation, companies are leaning towards coworking spaces for small groups of employees to work in rotation while still getting a chance to socialize. Curious to find out more about how our working dynamic and environment is changing? Tune in with us and Enjoy!

In today's episode, I interviewed Atanas Neychev a technology journalist, a content creator, and a community builder. Atanas is a Co-Founder of SlavConf company that provides information and connection opportunities for the creative people community in Bulgaria. Find out in this episode how he supports, grows, and contributes to the creative industry in Eastern Europe. Tune in with us and Enjoy!

In today's episode, I interviewed Brendan Kane growth strategist who recently published a book called "The Hook Point". There are more than 60 billion messages pushed out by online platforms each day, you have approximately 3 seconds to grab your consumer's attention. You need to have a hook point in everything that you post online, that will make people stop scrolling and say "Wait. What?". Brendan shares 3 core pillars that will make you stand out from the crowd; can you grab your audience's attention for 3-4 seconds? What kind of story or message are you going to tell to hold their attention? And, will your audience believe it and trust it? Want to find out more on how you can make a great hook point that grabs your audience's attention? Tune in with us and Enjoy!

Today we chew the fat with Rob Lowenthal, Founder of Whooshkaa, an innovative audio platform the serves both podcasters and companies. Rob has combined his background in radio with his love for the spoken word and created Whooshka as a platform that simplifies the podcasting and audio creation workflow. Less tools means more time to focus on the content. He currently relies on organic growth channels like referrals and word-of-mouth, but recognizes that he could be doing more to get the word out for Whooshkaa. What I found most interesting is that Whooshaa primarily serves enterprise clients such as Atlasssian, who use Whooshkaa to create and distribute audio content that engages, trains and informs their team. It's a great way to keep employees connected to the company and to each other -- especially in the age of remote work. Many companies put huge efforts into building and maintaining intranet systems, when a company podcast might better serve those needs in an easier and more fun way. He asks company HR leaders to consider this very intriguing question -- "What is your company's audio strategy?" This certainly got my wheels turning, and I'm sure it will get you all thinking about how to answer the same question in your company or within your team. After all, audio is the easiest to consume content format of all, considering you can do it in parallel with almost any other activity. Enjoy the episode!

In this episode, I sit down with Grant Hosford, Co-founder and CEO of codeSpark Academy, the world's #1 coding app for kids aged 4-10. Among other things, Grant and I chew the fat around topics such as: •Grant's inspiration for starting codeSpark (hint: it has to do with his own kids) •Kids' natural superpower in learning sophisticated logic once you get the keyboard, mouse and coding syntax out of the way •The benefits of knowing code when navigating the automated jobs of the future •The ginormous potential reach of codeSpark •How they penetrated the classroom so quickly •Marketing and growth KPIs for codeSpark •The unique challenges of the customer and the user not being the same person •Key partnerships with code.org and others •How the pandemic has effected their business and the way kids learn It's a truly fascinating interview with one of my favorite entrepreneurs. Have a listen!

Today I sit down with Viren Kapadia, President and CEO of Learning Management System (LMS) Gyrus Systems (http://gyrus.com), which he acquired in 2009. The $31 billion corporate learning industry was growing at 11% per year *before* the pandemic. This year, all bets are off, and Gyrus has impressively managed to grow even faster than the white hot market it operates in. In the age of remote work and heavily restricted travel, 2 trends have greatly stimulated the growth the LMS market this year: (1) Service-based companies that traditionally relied on face-to-face training now urgently need a remote training platform to continue onboarding employees and training them on their standard operating procedures (SOPs). (2) Professional trainers who used to fly around the world training teams are now grounded and must deliver their content through new remote platforms. Viren and I talk about how people shop for, evaluate and ultimately decide on which LMS to buy. ROI from a LMS investment is measured less by revenue and more by employee productivity and happiness. This makes the LMS one of the most important software decisions a company will make -- and this year that decision is more important than ever before. Enjoy!

Today, I interviewed Stoyan Angelov, founder and CEO of Evedo, an innovative virtual event platform built on blockchain technology. The Evedo platform serves 3 primary audiences: 1) Event organizers and vendors of virtual events 2) Virtual event audiences and attendees 3) Webinar organizers (the fastest growing segment) Evedo took advantage of the massive shift from live in-person events to online virtual events in 2020. The business is booming. In our chat, we discuss how the events industry has been shaken up in 2020, and how it might look when things return to normal. We also chatted about how the platform can begin offering distinct event marketing services to its organizer customers beyond what it does today. Enjoy!

Today I sit down with Angelos Paraschakis, CEO of DDB Group in Bulgaria and my new partner in Tribal Worldwide. We discuss a wide range of topics including: •How he arrived in Bulgaria and decided to remain and build the country's leading creative ad agency, DDB. •The impact of the pandemic on brands and marketing budgets this year. •The sacrifices and trade-offs from transitioning to remote work for a creative agency. •The hidden creative and digital marketing talent pool in Bulgaria. •Tribal Worldwide's new ambition -- to integrate performance marketing with creative. Why are we doing it, and why now?Enjoy!