Marketing

Heat pump orders doubled in a month. Solar panel inquiries up 250%. EV leases up 85%. The Iran crisis has done something interesting: it's made energy security feel personal. I understand why: I have solar panels, a heat pump, and an EV and we're on a flexible tariff. When gas prices spike, my bills don't move by much. What the Octopus Energy and British Gas data show is that millions of households are now doing the same calculation. Not because of climate targets or government incentives, but because the numbers make sense. The interesting question is whether this demand surge translates into lasting infrastructure — installers, grid capacity, financing — or whether it fades when prices ease.

Tip: Chrome DevTools lets you see line-level performance! and now it's even more precise! We should all want our users to have a fast, great experience. If you use Chrome DevTools, you may be familiar with the Performance panel. After recording a trace in the Performance panel, the Sources panel can displays the timings observed in the trace on a per-line basis. This allows you identify exactly which lines of code are consuming the most execution time. We supported this feature for a while, but it wasn't well known and used to have bugs making it unreliable in a number of cases (such as when using source-maps). These issues have been resolved, making line-level profiling accurate and usable for production-ready, minified code. Check it out in Chrome 145! #programming #softwareengineering #webdevelopment

🔬 Latest pharma industry updates 👇 🤝 Eli Lilly and Company and NVIDIA will build a 5-year AI research lab in the San Francisco Bay Area, investing $1B and using Nvidia’s “Vera Rubin” AI chips. 📈 Eikon Therapeutics filed for an IPO after raising about $1.1B privately, it would be among the largest pre-IPO war chests since Moderna (2018). 💔 US pharma companies cut 25,367 jobs in 2025, far above 2024’s 14,010. 💼 Merck is reportedly negotiating to buy Revolution Medicines for about $30B; talks could conclude this month but remain uncertain. 🧪 Fabentech won approval for the 1st global ricin antidote, using equine-derived polyclonal antibodies. 💔 Lyra Therapeutics halted development of LYR-210 for chronic rhinosinusitis, cut most staff, and is exploring strategic options. 📈 Abivax spiked then cooled after reports Eli Lilly and Company might bid up to €15B - France’s Economy Ministry said it received no foreign-investment authorization request and has no contact with Lilly. 🚫 Atara Biotherapeutics received an FDA Complete Response Letter for EBVALLO, saying the single-arm ALLELE trial is insufficient for accelerated approval. 💰 Kinaset Therapeutics raised $103M Series B to advance frevecitinib, an inhaled pan-JAK dry-powder therapy for severe uncontrolled asthma. 🧠 Insilico Medicine’s rentosertib is entering Phase 3 for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, potentially a first AI-origin drug to market. 🤝 Teva Pharmaceuticals and Royalty Pharma struck up to $500M financing for TEV-’408, an anti–IL-15 antibody for vitiligo. 🧠 Novartis licensed Alzheimer’s anti–beta-amyloid antibody programs from SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals for up to $1.7B.. 🧬 AbbVie will pay RemeGen $650M upfront (potentially >$5B total) for ex-China rights to a PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody in Phase 1–2 solid-tumor trials, including lung and breast cancer. 🤝 AstraZeneca acquired Modella AI (price undisclosed) to expand generative/agentic AI capabilities for oncology R&D. 🧫 Caldera Therapeutics raised $112.5M (Series A/A1) for a Phase 1, aiming to raise efficacy ceilings in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. 👁️ Sanofi is reportedly preparing a higher bid for Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. after its board rejected an initial $16/share (~$2.2B) offer. 🛡️ The FDA and EMA jointly published “good practice” principles for using AI across the drug lifecycle. 🏛️ Novo Nordisk Foundation granted €736M to Denmark’s BioInnovation Institute (BII) through 2035, BII has incubated 130+ startups since 2018. 📊 American Cancer Society data show overall 5-year cancer survival reached 70%, up from ~50% around 1971. 🩸 A Nature's Medicines study validated a finger-prick blood test for Alzheimer’s with 86% accuracy in 337 participants. 🏷️ TrumpRx is expected to launch soon in the US, connecting patients to manufacturers offering discounted prices on their own sites. ---------- 📩 Get those updates directly via email (link in my profile)

Cleartrip won Contextual Marketing game! Other brands fighting for "End of Year" sales. #Cleartrip is selling us 2026. I saw this ad in The Economic Times today, It’s a masterclass in understanding customer psychology, at least how I see it. Here's why: - The Simplicity: Stripped away 320+ days of the year. By showing only the days that matter - the long weekends, they’ve reduced the cognitive load for a busy professional. - The Anticipation: Marketing isn’t always about immediate conversion. By helping people visualize their 2026, Cleartrip occupies mental real estate before the holiday planning even begins. - The Utility: Instead of a generic Book Now CTA, they provide a QR code to sync a Long Weekend Tracker on their calendars. It moves from being an "ad" to being a "tool" - The Timing: Published on a Saturday morning. This is exactly when their target audience is sipping coffee and dreaming of their next getaway. Cleartrip isn't selling tickets here; they’re selling ideas to take a break Don't just sell a product. Sell the solution to a problem your customer hasn't even started stressing about yet. What do you think? Does it attract you and make you think? #Marketing #Advertising #2026

My biggest takeaways from Elena Verna (Head of Growth at Lovable): 1. In AI, you now need to find product-market fit every three months. Product-market fit used to mean: build something people want, then scale it for years. In AI, the underlying technology changes so fast—and customer expectations with it—that you’re constantly re-earning that fit. Even at $200M ARR. 2. The growth playbook has fundamentally changed for AI companies. Elena has led growth at Miro, Dropbox, and Amplitude and advised dozens more companies on growth. At Lovable, she says only 30% to 40% of what she learned in 20 years still applies. 3. At Lovable, growth is driven mostly through new features, not optimizing funnels. At the fastest-growing company in history, optimization drives about 5% of their growth. The other 95% comes from launching new features and products. Small tweaks don’t move the needle when everything is changing. 4. Ship constantly, and talk about it. Lovable’s main growth and retention strategy: ship features fast enough that customers feel the product is always alive. Engineers announce their own updates. The founder tweets progress daily. This keeps users curious—and keeps competitors scrambling. 5. Give your product away like candy. AI products are expensive to run, so most companies gate them behind paywalls. Lovable does the opposite: they fund hackathons, sponsor events, and hand out free credits. They treat this spending as marketing, not cost—and it compounds through word of mouth. 6. Influencer marketing outperforms paid ads by 10x. Lovable found that short videos showing what the product can do spread faster and convert better than traditional paid advertising. Showing beats telling. 7. “Minimum viable product” is dead. Elena describes the new minimum bar as “minimum lovable product.” If the experience doesn’t delight people, they won’t tell anyone. And word of mouth is your primary engine. 8. Community isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a key lever for growth. Lovable’s Discord has hundreds of thousands of members helping each other. This amplifies word of mouth, drives retention, and makes customers feel like insiders. Building the product alone isn’t enough anymore—you’re building a world. 9. Hire people who create clarity from chaos. Fast-moving AI companies don’t have neat job descriptions or stable roadmaps. Elena looks for high-agency people who thrive in mess, including new graduates who are AI-native and former founders who know how to operate without instructions. 10. You can work at one of the fastest-growing companies in history and still see your kids. Elena wakes at 6 a.m. Stockholm time, protects her gym and family hours, and refuses to treat burnout as a badge of honor. Her point: if you set boundaries, the work will fill the available time—not all the time.

If someone told me in the 90s that some day people would pay to count their steps and track their sleep, I would have laughed. Back then, fitness in India was very simple. Some basic gyms. Morning walks. A few public playgrounds. No business models. No content. No communities. I started training because I loved it. I did it for my body, my mind and my work. Somewhere along the way, it became who I am. Over the years, I’ve watched fitness slowly turn into an industry. First came the big shiny gyms. Then the boutique studios. Then the apps & watches, the challenges, the programs. Today, fitness is no longer just workouts. It is a full ecosystem. Trainers, physios, nutrition coaches. Sports academies for kids. Senior citizen programs. Group classes, local leagues, communities. Wellness tourism too! There are businesses being built around fitness and wellness now. When you build it right, a fitness business does 2 things. It makes people healthier. And it money earned with a clean conscience. The hard part is doing it right. I’ve seen gyms open with big launches and shut down quietly a year later. Apps that spent on downloads & influencers, only to see users disappear in weeks. The real problem in fitness is not getting people to start. It is making them stay. The businesses I like are the ones that understand this. They invest in good coaches. Their pricing allows them to survive for years, not just months. They’re honest about what’s possible in 3 months, and what will take 2 years. It may not look very exciting in a pitch deck. But that is the only way any fitness business truly wins. I see a huge opportunity in India for those who understand this. Parents who want their children to move more. Professionals who sit long hours and need strength, not just looks. Seniors who want to stay independent for as long as they can. If you can build for these people with patience and realism, you will not run out of work. I also feel the next big wave in fitness will be about community, not weight loss or abs. Local sports leagues. Small group training. Like this group of runners I see regularly, training for a marathon. I love seeing young adults spend their Saturday nights playing football or cricket on the turf with their friends. Ahan tells me these turfs are always booked. At least in the big cities, padel and pickleball are a part of almost every second conversation. That tells me people are looking for movement that is fun, not just serious. People do not only want a six pack. They want to feel like they belong somewhere. I say this as someone who’s been training for years. Workouts matter. But the people around the workout matter just as much. If you are building in fitness or wellness today, do not just ask how many people signed up this month. Ask how many came back. Ask how many feel stronger and safer in their own body because of you. If you can keep that number growing, you’re building something that is built to last.

I think brands gotta stop posting daily on social. Seriously. Content calendars shouldn't be full. I really believe the biggest reason most brands can't go viral & can't drive more customers through content is an expectation on volume over individual post effectiveness. More often than not, daily content leads to weaker content, not better results. Why? 3 Big Reasons. 1. POTENCY > PERPETUITY. I’d rather your brand post 10 great pieces of content than 30 forgettable ones. Social is a potency game. One incredible post can outperform a month of calendar fillers. I'll bet if you cut your cal in half and spend twice as long per post, you'll more than double your per-post metrics & outswing your current monthly averages 2. YOUR BRAND NEEDS BIGGER SWINGS. “Safe, fine, decent” content dies instantly in today’s feeds. You're competing on the For Your Page, and you'll need better ideas + better hooks to beat out all the other content. That type of creativity needs space, and breathing room, and time to get weird, and to rewrite and rethink. 3. YOU CAN'T WIN SOCIAL WITHOUT VIDEO, AND VIDEO TAKES TIME. Short-form vertical video is the only format universally pushed by TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, but most teams don’t have enough time, budget, staff, or creative energy to produce daily video that’s actually good. And bad video is worse than no video. So here's your new posting strategy: 1. Post less. 2. Make each post hit harder. 3. More time on brainstorming, less time on production. No one remembers a brand because they posted every day. They remember the really great one off posts.

I once lived at distributor’s home in a small town because I had no choice... When Marico Limited was nascent, Bombay Oil Industries was still the family’s backbone. In those early days, I wanted our business to transform from a commodity trade into a branded consumer company. To do that, I had to understand the ground truth. There were no fancy hotels in the towns we visited. I stayed in dusty and small guest rooms. I sat with distributors over chai and samosas. I watched how coconut oil was stored, how shopkeepers priced it, how packaging changed hands. One day, a retailer told me matter-of-factly: “You always sell big tins. When people come back to buy, they carry a few kilos. If your packet is small, they will pick your brand at convenience.” That simple insight was a turning point. It nudged us to expand SKU ranges, introduce smaller packs, and think about how to become a “grab-and-go” brand, rather than just a bulk commodity supplier. If you ask me where innovation begins, it begins in the least glamorous places. In the musty shelves of neighbourhood stores, in conversations that feel insignificant, in paying attention to what people don’t say aloud. Takeaway for entrepreneurs: Your real research lab isn’t spreadsheets or agencies. It’s the ground. If you go build empathy for your customer at the shelf level, the brand strategy almost builds itself. #entrepreneurship #business #resilience #mindset #growth

“Stop calling everything an agent” Folks are slapping 'agent' on anything that touches AI. It’s confusing. I jumped on Peter Yang’s podcast to unpack why that’s misguided, and why the middle ground (agentic workflows) is where real ROI lives. Workflows = determinism and reliability Agents = judgment and flexibility Stitch them together and you get the safest, most powerful form of AI orchestration. Give your agent just enough tools and context to do one job exceptionally well, and orchestrate the rest with workflows. Two examples of this I’m using personally: 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 (Workflow / Determinism)  👉 A teammate submits an Interfaces form to request exec engagement, the AI drafts an on-brand message, posts to Slack, and tracks it in Tables. This one runs hundreds of times a month. Zero chaos, total clarity 𝗜𝗻𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 (Agent / Inference) 👉 When a new email arrives, the agent reads it, checks HubSpot, uses reasoning to categorize it, and sorts it in Slack. It flags customers, intelligently routes the right things to my EA Cortney, and clears all of the noise. It reasons like a human assistant, saving us hours each week with full transparency logs Cortney’s Inbox Management agent is actually available as a template, you can steal it here: https://lnkd.in/gR8UjTCN Full episode coming soon. Thanks for having me, Peter.

“Marketing Attribution” — new cartoon and post In the early 1900s, Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” In a way, Wanamaker is the grandfather of marketing attribution — the science of giving credit to each marketing touchpoint that a customer was exposed to before a purchase. More than ever, marketers are pushing to understand what worked and what didn’t so they can invest in tactics that truly drive sales. With the rise of data-driven marketing, marketers aren’t in the dark as much as they were in Wanamaker’s day. But it’s still murky, particularly when trying to capture the impact of long-term brand building that is harder to directly link to sales. How much credit to assign to a TV ad versus an email offer versus an in-store promotion? The easiest (and laziest) approach is “last-click attribution”, which gives 100% of the credit to the final marketing tactic before the sale. The easy measurability of “last-click attribution” helped drive a hard swing to short-term sales activation in the digital marketing era. Often at the expense of long-term growth. Les Binet and Peter Field wrote the seminal book on this pressure to be short-termist in “The Long and the Short of It” in 2013. They advise that it shouldn’t be one or the other. Marketers should instead consider a 60/40 rule in their advertising plans: 60% focused on brand building and 40% on sales activation. As Les Binet once said in an interview: “The addiction to the short-term is not a new phenomenon, but it has got a lot worse. One of the problems is that for short-term activities, you get immediate feedback: responses, clicks, or short-term sales. “If you are a marketer who’s spending money and nervous about what you’re getting for your money, you can immediately see that this stuff pays back. It’s become easier and easier to see these short-term effects, because we have more granular short-term data that comes through faster and faster … “All businesses now have short-term metrics, which can distract them from long-term growth. I think that’s the real reason why business is becoming short-termist. It’s not quarterly reporting. It’s not the short tenure of marketers. It’s the data.” >>>>> To sign up for my weekly marketoon email newsletter, click here: https://lnkd.in/g9DBM6tD For related cartoons and all the links in this post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gFu-d_J9 #marketing #cartoon #marketoon