Thought Leadership and Startups: the Path is the Goal

Don’t aim to ‘become a thought leader’. It’s not about the label. But do strive to make a difference in your industry with thought leadership. Originally published on Authority Magazine as an interview with Abe Alon under the title “ ” Mauro Battellini Of Black Unicorn: 5 Things You Should Do To Become a Thought Leader In Your Industry Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? I moved from Argentina to Germany when I was a kid. After school in Leipzig, Saxony, I moved to the United Kingdom to study in Bristol. I made a short pit stop in Amsterdam for a Master’s before moving back to the UK, where I got my first real job in the market research industry in London. I spent five years in market research in London, moving roles from research, sales to ecommerce. I started out collecting information about the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) for FMCG markets and interviewing trade contacts. I later sold this same type of research across Europe, first directly as an account executive, and later £1 million of it yearly, as the EMEA inside sales manager. My last role at that company was as their first ecommerce manager. The idea was to bring with me the learnings from inside sales to build a robust e-shop for market research reports. It was a great idea but, unfortunately, the corporate structure made it difficult to execute and achieve the startup-like growth that was desired. In 2018, I became the co-founder of Black Unicorn PR. The agency was in its first year and JJ Jegorova, the founder, was looking for someone with complementary skill sets and experience to join forces. She had deep expertise in the realm of PR, having worked in numerous PR roles in-house, at agencies, freelance, and also heading PR for a startup. The proposition was not just another agency, but one that would cater to the specific needs of the startup world. Working in sales, I always felt a sense of fulfillment from being proactive and achieving more by fine-tuning methodologies and improving processes. Given the meteoric rise of startups in Europe at the time (and still ongoing), the prospect of getting involved in that area with something of my own was a no-brainer. Can you briefly share with our readers why you are an authority about the topic of thought leadership? As a startup-focused agency, every client we work with has to become a business that needs to be ten times more impactful for its clients than the next best solution. By their very nature, startups also strive to cause a substantial change in some way for the industry they are in. Like AirBnB did with accommodation or Uber did with ride-hailing. The new wave of startups changing things may be called Revolut, Bolt, Klarna, Glovo, or N26 but they all have one thing in common. To make it big, their founders can’t be anonymous. We often work with founders directly, especially in early-stage startups. These startups have raised their first serious round of venture capital, and believe their product could achieve serious scalability. They either went from 0 to 1, or are very close to getting there, and are starting to build a team to take this progress from 1 to 100. Part of that journey from 0 to 100 includes building trust and reputation. To win large numbers of clients, from individual consumers to large corporations, organizations including startups need to build a certain degree of trust that goes beyond the odd article here and there. And that means blasting press releases doesn’t cut it. Especially in the B2B space, the people behind new companies really matter. Large corporations making spending decisions have a slow and painful process for a reason — they need to make sure their vendor, or partner, is more than legit. Working with a startup that has built up its reputation, and dealing with a founder that is known in the field, attends and speaks at conferences, a founder that has published his or her opinion on various media outlets, makes an enormous difference. Conversations with someone that is known in the space will have a completely different starting point. The entire process will be smoother. That startup simply has more chances of being considered and succeeding. People are drawn to people they trust. Over the last few years, I have worked with dozens of startup founders who found themselves in that stage. That point in time, when it is crucial to start not only general PR activities but building thought leadership. We have helped them take their first steps and incrementally raised their profiles so that stakeholders in their space, from journalists to investors to tech workers, know them better. This has led to new opportunities, introductions, better conversations and warmer leads, helping them to better raise money, win clients and partners, and hire global talent. Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Something interesting that happened to us was related to the ups and downs of the pandemic. Our shortest and most unusual client ever, but with the biggest impact. We had signed a client on a rolling retainer towards the end of 2019, but with the partnership to start in February of 2020, after the Christmas and New Year “break”. Although Covid was already talked about, it didn’t seem like a big thing in all of Europe yet. Both my co-founder and I traveled to another country to meet them in their offices. We had a big onboarding meeting, with lunch at a restaurant and everything. We work with startups across the globe, these are companies that maximize the utility of their time and money, so communication mostly entails video calls, email and Slack. And that was the case even before the pandemic. So even though it doesn’t sound like something incredible, it was a bit unusual to do this face to face. It seemed like the start of a great collaboration. Only a month later or so, things had changed drastically — we indeed were facing a pandemic, and most European governments were introducing lockdowns. As with most crises, it brought uncertainty to the wider economy, including venture capital and startups. And that usually means that startup founders will look to extend their runway (the number of months they can go on with the funding they have so far, either until they get new funding, or become economically sustainable) by cutting costs. So unfortunately, after only one month of working together, our collaboration had to end. The same was the case for many other clients. However, this particular startup had been extremely well positioned in their market, and our efforts from one month kept giving us inbound leads and opportunities for a few more months to come. It was a fintech startup in the open banking space. Located in Eastern Europe, and much smaller than its main competitors in the UK and Western Europe, it was suddenly a part of the open banking conversation. We continued supporting them to a certain extent while not formally under contract. Their team was great and their product was unique. We did end up working with them again on interesting projects many months later on, even though it was not in the way we had envisioned. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that? Now I can laugh about it, but it was definitely not funny at the time. This is a bit like the other side of the coin to the answer to the previous question. Like most new agencies, in our early days at Black Unicorn PR, it was important to collect case studies. Normally, in a ‘people industry’ like PR, you would want to make sure there is chemistry. But we were just getting started and got tempted to skip some of these hygiene checks. We wanted to get cash flow going and establish a starting point. It was a mistake. It shouldn’t just be about the money, especially as a PR agency. We ended up working with a few clients that were not only extremely difficult to work with but also ended up not paying or paying very late. Even your first clients should be companies and people you should be, if not proud of, at least OK working with. In the long term, being selective about the people and clients that you actually want to work with will help you reach success faster. We made the mistake of not being selective enough and paid the price. We did know about the perils of it. I had educated myself on the business model of the agency, and read what a number of big agency founders from London had to say about the early days. The good news is that it made us think hard about the companies we wanted to work with, and we couldn’t be happier to learn that lesson. It’s these types of mistakes that make business owners develop a really good sense for assessing future partners. Sometimes, you need to make the mistake yourself to learn the lesson better. Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define what a ‘Thought Leader’ is? How is a thought leader different from a typical leader? How is a thought leader different from an influencer? Broadly speaking, I consider a thought leader to be someone who expresses their thoughts and opinions on the industry, hypotheses and suggestions for the way forward. He or she is backed by having a sufficient degree of skin in the game in that industry. That means that they lead an organization in that industry or play a significant role within the organization. They can interpret what is going on and guide others. They can make sense of the industry as a whole, allowing them to point a finger to its shortcomings where others look the other way and provide constructive criticism that is also actionable. In that way, the most influential thought leaders actively play a role in shaping the future of the industry. Through their actions with their companies, as well as through the shift in thinking they may trigger as a result of their shared opinions. They will face backlash or muster support, but always provoke a reaction. Having said that, there is no formula that can determine who can be considered a thought leader. Just one article, just one speech, and just being on social media alone are definitely not enough. A thousand LinkedIn posts or tweets by themselves will also not cut it. Any ‘become a thought leader quick’ schemes are definitely not to be trusted, in fact, it would be best to run away from anyone making such promises. Real thought leadership will often correlate with the commercial success or influence of the organization that the individual represents. This is one of the reasons why agencies can’t simply turn people into thought leaders. What agencies can do is help them get on the right path and punch above their current weight as much as possible. Just like the word ‘thought leader’, the word ‘influencer’ has created a lot of confusion lately. Most people now understand influencers to be people with large Instagram followings who are available to promote products. They can be influential through their sheer follower size, or they might really move the needle also for a smaller audience. Using that definition, we can definitely say that being an influencer is much easier than being a thought leader. Build a large enough, relevant audience and you may qualify as an influencer or micro-influencer. I’m not a fan of that definition of influencer. I see influencers more as a category. There are many, different types of influencers. Social media influencers for product placement purposes is only one of them. There are content curators, pundits, activists, industry experts and more. It’s definitely something that the marketing industry should talk about more (there is room here for a marketing thought leader to bring more clarity and discussion). Can you talk to our readers a bit about the benefits of becoming a thought leader? Why do you think it is worthwhile to invest resources and energy into this? In my opinion, arriving to the point where you are ‘known as a thought leader’ is less important than the activity of building thought leadership foundations and carrying out thought leadership activities. Actually, someone who has the potential to become a thought leader should not care about the label itself. And anyways, it wouldn’t be the label that makes the person recognisable, but all the efforts they did to get there. There are enormous benefits in doing thought leadership. Like many things in life, it’s something that requires a long-term, consistent effort. It may take a while to reflect in terms of benefits but it does certainly pay dividends. Thought leadership activities are a great way to grab the attention of important stakeholders in the industry — other influential company founders, CEOs, regulators, journalists and more. It also helps people to know you and your thinking better, from investors to future employees. “No introduction needed,” as they say. At the highest level, thought leadership can help to provoke change in the industry. It might drive attention to solving some of the biggest issues, ultimately impacting consumers. An example is open banking in Europe, a new sector in which the public conversation between company founders, authorities and the media have played a huge role. Almost like Greek democracy in the Agora. On a more tactical level, thought leadership contributes greatly to marketing. Articles and other notable results from thought leadership can enhance not only the reputation of the individual, but also the company’s. Each step taken on the path of thought leadership is a small marketing win, too. It can provide material for a company to improve its social media, as well as backlinks that can improve its SEO. We can also view it from the point of view of the customer journey. As well as creating some awareness for the company and founder, over time it can help at the middle stages of the journey, where stakeholders are scrutinizing each option to take an eventual decision. By doing thought leadership, you are creating a history or track record of expressing opinions and getting involved in the industry, and that can be a differentiator when you are being compared to another company. Counting with the right credentials is not only something that helps with customers, but investors and others as well, including journalists themselves. Anonymous founders might be able to focus more time on product and other things. This is a viable option at the very early stage, but eventually they will need to work more on storytelling. From time to time, one of our clients from South Africa, the CEO and co-founder of a mobility company reminds us of what their investors tell them about the role of a CEO, and I think it’s spot on. The role of the CEO, at least in startups, is inextricably linked to three areas. Hiring top talent, fundraising and PR. And to pursue those effectively, thought leadership is vital. Let’s talk about business opportunities specifically. Can you share a few examples of how thought leadership can help a business grow or create lucrative opportunities? To answer the question thought leadership can generate a number of those opportunities. It can pave the way for more venture capital. It can help convince talented individuals to follow your line of thinking and work at your company. It can attract like-minded individuals in the industry who would like to partner with their own companies. And it can also draw the attention from the media, who are more likely to be attentive to the opinions of people they consider thought leaders. However, the interesting thing about thought leadership is its ability to turn expertise, experience, and hard work into a transformational force for good. I tend to focus on startup founders, and therefore the change they can bring to their industries. However, other fields outside of technology also have thought leaders. Education, medicine, and even philosophy. It’s about charting the future course of that area, influencing how paradigms compete, and perhaps creating new ones. Yes, thought leadership will add to the flywheel that is business growth. But the reality is that thought leaders will have already created business growth or lucrative opportunities. Thought leadership activities themselves bring marketing value that reinforces that and adds to the flywheel. But the real power of thought leadership goes much further than making money or growing the company. Ok. Now that we have that behind us, we’d love to hear your thoughts about how to eventually become a thought leader. Can you share 5 strategies that a person should implement to become known as a thought leader in their industry? Please tell us a story or example (ideally from your own experience) for each. Here are 5 principles that have helped us elevate our clients when it comes to thought leadership. Do note that this is quite geared at startups: 1: Start small, local and niche. And expand from there. Let’s face it. You are a new founder or CEO of a startup that is not very known yet. It will be impossible to go to speak at the likes of Slush or Web Summit straightaway. Slush, for example, looks mainly at post-Series B startups. Your strategy should, as always, be linked to the stage of your startup. Ideally, you will already know the local startup scene and ecosystem facilitators. If not, get networking! This should make it easy for you to present at local events. Once you raise your first serious money, around seed stage or even before, you should target more regional events. These could also be your national events that attract international audiences. And then from Series B, you can more realistically have a go at the big ones. This is important though: just because you have grown as a startup doesn’t mean you should ignore smaller local or regional events. The same applies to podcasts, bylined articles, and other contributed content. There are great podcast shows and startup outlets focusing on different countries and verticals. And there are media outlets that focus on fintech, edtech, SaaS, healthtech, deeptech and any other startup vertical you can imagine. These are your first allies before going to more mainstream and higher tier business and technology publications. Of course, there are loopholes and opportunities to ‘skip’ some of these steps sometimes. But it’s not the norm, and the effort-to-results ratio might not make it worthwhile for you. 2: Consistency is key. In activity and messaging. Keep up the good fight and plan ahead. Meaningful thought leadership is not the result of one lucky break, or of random opportunities that get thrown at you. It’s the compounding of many steps taken in the right direction. Once on the thought leadership path, it’s important to be consistent and avoid complacency. You should aim to speak at multiple events every year, write multiple bylined articles in different media every year, speak to various podcasts every year, and so on and so forth. It should really become a habit. Planning all of this in advance, whether yourself or supported by your company or your agency, is advisable. At some point the flywheel will be spinning so well that people will reach out with opportunities to you, and you might be the one declining them. Think of your thought leadership messaging strategically. What you will find is that over time people develop their own individual theses. Of course, you can’t talk about the same exact things and arrive at the same conclusions every time you have something to say. As well as boring, it would lack any kind of insight or novelty. What I’m referring to is a number of core messages or beliefs that could evolve with the years. These theses will be a part of your (and your company’s) DNA and will help you stand out from other leaders. Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of someone who takes activity to the next level, making use of almost every minute of his time awake to exercise thought leadership. And this reinforces one of the messages he is most known for: that every company is becoming a content business, on top of the product they sell. 3: Don’t do thought leadership in a silo. Don’t just go to speak to an event and leave it at that. Don’t just speak at a podcast and leave it at that. Think about different channels where you can amplify. Don’t just start a Medium account and think that everyone will flock to your articles. What social media channel is your target audience in? If you are a startup founder, it is likely Twitter and LinkedIn are important. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can pay dividends for founders of DTC companies and others but will rarely help as a mechanism to become a thought leader, if we consider thought leadership as defined earlier. But you can share a media win, podcast interview or other sources there to amplify. So, share it there too, if relevant! If a publication shares a link to your bylined piece, comment on it and thank the editor. Or reshare with a comment. There are many more things you can do. Your company can even include your piece in their newsletter and their own social media. Look at the tools available in your marketing toolkit and see how they can combine with more narrow thought leadership activities. 4: Pursue relationships, not transactions. It can happen that, in the pursuit of aggressively chasing numerical targets, we forget about the humans. This is especially true when it comes to PR. I’m referring to journalists, event organizers, local ecosystem leaders and many more. You don’t need to send presents, or even email frequently. But there are things you can do to develop a relationship. Even if your agency facilitates these opportunities, do interact in a personable way. After the process, connect with the people via LinkedIn if you haven’t and send a personalized thank you note. These small things get noticed and could pave the way for further conversation and collaboration. 5: Read what current thought leaders are saying and start a conversation. Keep reading, educating yourself, and learning. This one might seem like it goes without saying. As a founder, CEO, or leader, you will likely already have a solid foundation and, quite possibly, deep expertise in your field. Executives in these positions know, not only that education is something that never ends in life, but that it’s necessary to keep executing at that level on a consistent basis. You probably read books and keep up with the news. To effectively do thought leadership you will have an even bigger burden (or pleasure?). There is a part of thought leadership that involves the clashing of ideas. Or, at least, a dialogue between industry leaders in which ideas are discussed. In social media, it’s the ability of being connected versus the potential to be manipulated. In ClimateTech it’s helping reduce carbon emissions versus offsetting it. In computer vision AI, it’s privacy versus security. These are just some examples, and there is never just one clash of ideas. Nor is it ever so black and white. You should ask yourself: which ideas are currently clashing with each other in this industry? Who are the main voices behind those ideas? What are these individuals saying? Where do I stand in relation to them? In the same way you shouldn’t limit your tactics when it comes to your own thought leadership, you should also not insulate yourself from others’ thought leadership. In fact, stay attentive and react to opinions. It is totally valid to do reactive thought leadership. The whole point is conversation, and elevating conversations that might bring the industry to the next stage. In your opinion, who is an example of someone who has done a fantastic job as a thought leader? Which specific things have impressed you about that person? What lessons can we learn from this person’s approach? In Latin America, the founder of fintech startup Ualá, Pierpaolo Barbieri, has leveraged thought leadership very efficiently (and continues doing so). In every step of the startup journey, he always takes the opportunities to step up his thought leadership to be perceived as trustworthy. In an industry like fintech, this is key. Founders and companies need to position themselves as credible in front of actors like banks and financial authorities. And they also need to have opinions with weight that will help move the industry forward, encouraging change and innovation. Barbieri has made time for different activities, from niche podcasts to television interviews. He also tweets incessantly and is one of the region’s best on that platform, quickly growing his following to more than 100 thousand followers, much higher than the average startup unicorn founder (Uala’s last valuation was about $2.5 billion). His brand of thought leadership even includes responding to individual tweets from customers, creating a perception of a leader that sees them not just as a number, but as a valued individual. He is one of the most recognizable faces of startups in Argentina, and of fintech in Latin America. Similar examples exist in Europe and beyond. When Anne Boden from Starling Bank shares an opinion, everyone listens. I have had clients with whom we would react to Anne Boden’s articles with their own articles. When it comes to Buy Now Pay Later, few are as well positioned as Sebastian Siemiatkowski from Klarna. And when Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe speaks at TechCrunch Disrupt, his take on the future of mobility influences the articles that journalists write, the decisions that investors make, and the companies that tech talent consider joining. Just having an opinion and getting out there is not enough though. All these individuals have grown their thought leadership together with their businesses. This doesn’t mean that the biggest companies in the industry will always have the biggest thought leaders. The key is to, regardless of the stage of your company’s growth, punch above your weight and as high as possible in your thought leadership output. I have seen some discussion that the term “thought leader” is trite, overused, and should be avoided. What is your feeling about this? A lot of that is true. Yes, the term has become overused. But more importantly, it has become misused. There is a huge difference between using ‘thought leadership’ and ‘thought leader’. You can work on thought leadership, carrying out a certain type of activities, but it doesn’t immediately turn you into a thought leader. There is no mathematical formula that can determine “you are now a thought leader”. You can work a lot on your athleticism, but that doesn’t make you an athlete. Nevertheless, it’s a good thing to work out. It’s tempting to throw the term ‘thought leader’ around. As we discussed before, there is a good reason for CEOs, especially startup founders, to get involved with thought leadership. But we need to be careful about making promises. So I would run away from people making bold promises of turning me into a thought leader. But, at the same time, I’d want to make sure the people I’m working with include thought leadership activities within their set of tools. There’s a good quote from Game of Thrones. Tywin Lannister (the main Lannister character for most of the series) tells his grandson that “any man who must say ‘I am the king’ is no true king”. I believe something similar applies to thought leaders. Even if you are one, would you introduce yourself as a thought leader? Would you label yourself as one? Not really. Again, the path is more important than the destination. What advice would you give to other leaders to thrive and avoid burnout? I think it boils down to time management. We are not robots and can’t be working all the time. I would advise to be protective of a minimum amount of time needed for mental wellbeing. But I would take it even further and argue that there also needs to be time to feel fulfilled and happy as a person. That, in turn, can be energizing and help with work. Quality time with others, especially your family is extremely important. But also, quality time with yourself. Whether it’s going for a run, hitting the gym, or meditating, we all need to clear our mind from time to time. Speaking of meditation, I don’t believe that closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, or yoga, works for everyone. For me, meditation is something that helps you clear your mind and takes you away from thinking about life too much. In my case, that’s football (the European kind). I’d also like to reassure workaholics out there who might get FOMO if they don’t work. You can achieve a higher output at work if you take time off work, using a simple 80–20 rule. There are so many ways of looking at the Pareto principle, but this is one of my favorites. If you work 100% of the time you will burn out. Simple as that. Working yourself crazy and becoming a zombie, is a much greater waste of time than taking energizing breaks. If you acknowledge that and work at 70% or 80%, you will not only prevent burnout and stress, but you will also make time for other important stuff without a guilty conscience. So, ask yourself twice every time you get tempted to do that little bit more work or stay that little bit longer in the office. Your brain, your body, your family, and your friends will thank you. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-) There are huge issues in the world, like global warming, poverty and widening inequality, war, and human rights violations. Gender inequality, racial injustice, modern slavery. Those are the most important issues that if tackled would bring the biggest amount of good. Personally, I would like to see a change in the educational system, not just in the US or Europe, but globally. I believe it would make a huge impact on the speed of innovation adoption and help better tackle some of the global issues mentioned above. One thing that I’ve learned in the past years working with startups is that people in this industry are more resilient. They are more resilient to changes in the economy and can adapt to work in different roles in different industries. They don’t need to have university degrees and can ‘learn by doing’. Naval Ravikant, a startup founder and investor (and you could say, thought leader), has observed how the most productive economic units are increasingly smaller companies. Larger organizations, which multiplied because of the industrial revolution, are not as efficient as smaller, nimbler companies that sprung up because of digitization and delocalization. These include solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and agents. On the flip side, de-industrialization has meant massive job losses for people. And these people in industrial jobs are less likely to be able to find new types of jobs if they lose theirs. The problem is that there is a huge disconnect. The education system is still shaped by the needs of the industrial revolution. It is many years behind the real needs of the digital economy and, therefore, the potential wealth and well-being of people. It needs urgent change. I would also love to help animals more, especially dogs. Over thousands of years, we have created an animal that loves us unconditionally without needing that much in return. But people often abandon and mistreat them. It doesn’t make any sense. Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life? It isn’t a quote per se. It is, however, something that is echoed by many leaders across the world in different ways and using different words. It would be to “with the end goal in mind, take it one step at a time”. There is a famous YouTube video of a commencement speech by a US Admiral, William H. McRaven, in which he describes the benefits of going through a succession of small wins to eventually arrive at something big. According to him, just making your bed in the morning increases your chances of success for the rest of your day. This is also the mentality of the most successful coaches of professional sports teams. To win the league you must also win individual games. And to win games, you have to train in the best possible way. This also highlights the importance of attention to detail. The best sports teams and clubs have an entire team of coaches that plan different training sessions in advance, each with their own objectives. If we considered ourselves to be a sports club, how would we plan our training for success in life? One step at a time also means there is room to learn from mistakes, iterate and improve. No one makes it big without some challenges on the way, and the most successful people are the ones that had the courage to be more open than others to experience failure. I’m not saying we shouldn’t think many steps in advance. That kind of chess thinking is crucial in life. But what we should avoid is the crippling fear of starting a project or a business or acting on an idea we feel passionate about, just because we think it could take us too far outside of our comfort zone. The same applies to thought leadership. No one starts out as the most recognized voice of the industry. There are lots of small steps that need to be taken, including paying attention to smaller forums and opportunities that might be tempting to skip. It provides not only the training and experience that will make these activities second nature in the long run, but also builds momentum. The key is to sustain it, make it second nature, and let it snowball into something big. We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have lunch or breakfast? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-) Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos lead companies that are more powerful than entire states. But we are all constantly looking at their actions. They are crazy busy and wouldn’t have even a minute for breakfast with me. There are thousands of company builders who will be keen to help other entrepreneurs out. We can reach out to them ourselves. I think what would have been really interesting is to speak to someone like Van Gogh. A misunderstood artist who lived an extremely humble but still unusual life. Those people are impossible to pinpoint at the right time. I think that two types of people are important to make an effort to understand. New people outside your network that challenge your thinking and expand your awareness. But also the people we cross paths with naturally, because those are people we live around. Especially in cities, people don’t know their neighbours or don’t care for others. How can our readers further follow your work online? The best places to follow me are Twitter and LinkedIn, and we are doing our best to contribute to the startup community with PR advice on our Black Unicorn PR blog. Twitter: https://twitter.com/MauroBattellini LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauro-alexis-battellini/ BUPR blog: https://www.blackunicornpr.com/blog/