Ahrefs Home Page, Digital Health Trends, 2022 Marketing Predictions – TechCrunch
As we approach the end of the year, we publish more articles that return to topics we have examined in depth over the past few months, and several that offer well-informed predictions for the year ahead. .
This week, Bill Taranto, President of Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, wrote a TechCrunch+ article that explored six digital health trends his corporate venture fund is tracking as we enter 2022. .
Between the first and third quarters of 2021, healthcare startups raised $21.3 billion in venture capital, “eclipsing the previous record high of $14.6 billion set in 2020,” Taranto writes.
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“Companies with strong deals, management teams and balance sheets are poised to capture huge value.”
According to Crunchbase, Merck GHI has made 75 investments with 22 exits to date, including companies that span everything from drug discovery to diabetes detection.
Artificial intelligence, IoT and data analytics are key drivers of innovation, Taranto says, “especially with data becoming the central currency of healthcare.”
We’re posting on a light schedule between now and the New Year, but we’ll be back with another roundup on Friday, December 31 to close out 2021.
Thank you so much for reading TechCrunch+, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas weekend!
Walter Thompson
Editor-in-Chief, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist
10 Growth Marketing Experts Share Their 2022 Predictions and New Year’s Resolutions
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We reached out to 10 growth marketing experts to find out how they’re preparing for 2022 and to ask if they have any New Year’s resolutions to share.
The responses and advice we received were as varied as the people we interviewed, but almost all indicated that learning – for example, training in analytics, getting to grips with AI tools, etc – was at the top of their to-do list.
Here’s who we spoke to:
- Jonathan Martinez, Founder, JMStrategy
- Kate Adams, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Validity
- Richard Meyer, Growth Marketing Specialist, Tuff
- Bas Willems, Marketing Manager, DataSnipper
- Gus Ferguson and Alyssa Crankshaw, co-founders, Ascendant
- Shane Hegde, Founder and CEO, Air
- Tracey Wallace, Director of Marketing, MarketerHire
- Greg Sheppard, CMO, Templafy
- Lauren Kelly, CMO, ThoughtExchange
How does former Better.com CEO Vishal Garg still have a job?
Picture credits: better.com
Former Better.com CEO Vishal Garg is now taking time off after laying off 9% of the company’s workforce weeks before its planned public market debut.
The announcement was so mishandled that the company quickly hired a crisis management firm and relieved Garg of his leadership role after emails emerged in which he berated investors.
Better.com says it has since hired an outside firm “to do a leadership and culture assessment.”
Mary Ann Azevedo and Alex Wilhelm examined the company’s corporate structure and found that investors had enough clout to push the beleaguered founder over the edge, meaning they “don’t have to make any agitation for the complete withdrawal of Garg”.
Capital is a commodity
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By July 2021, startup founders had raised $268.7 billion from global VCs, an amount that topped the previous year’s total.
When money is this abundant, “capital is a commodity,” according to Charlie Graham-Brown, partner and chief investment officer of Seedstars, and Daniela Moreno, head of investment marketing at the firm.
In an article that introduces founders to different styles of venture capital platforms and the value they can bring, the authors state two rules:
- No individual or venture capital firm is good at everything.
- What a startup needs most will change over time.
Demand Curve: How Ahrefs’ Landing Page Drives Prospects to Buy
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Landing pages with high conversion rates have one thing in common: they make it easier for a customer to buy.
“People have a short attention span, so if your homepage is confusing, they’re going to leave,” writes Demand Curve Community Manager Joey Noble in his latest TechCrunch+ article.
In a detailed analysis of the homepage of SEO agency Ahrefs, Noble explains how the site captures the reader’s attention, reduces friction and increases desire.
Bitcoin is a religion; web3 is greed
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In the latest edition of The Exchange we’ll publish in 2021, Alex Wilhelm turned his attention to a recent Twitter thread where Block CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that end users don’t own web3, “VCs and their LPs do it”.
His comment did not go down well with some prominent crypto enthusiasts who insisted that the decentralized nature of Web3 is one of its main features. “Is Jack wrong? No he is not,” Alex wrote.
However, “while I’m more than happy to salute Jack stirring the web3 pot, I don’t agree with his general philosophy.”
Dear Sophie: What is allowed between a K-1 visa and a green card?
Picture credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch
Dear Sophia,
Good news! After a long COVID delay, my fiancée finally arrived in the US on her K visa.
We’re thinking of running away to Las Vegas for a quick wedding so we can start her green card application. (In Silicon Valley, it would take a few months to get a marriage license.)
After filing our case, we want to have a big spring wedding with his family and friends in his hometown, then go on honeymoon. Is this allowed?
— Happy in Hayward
