On a double-track to startup success

Huddly was founded in 2013 with an aim to deliver amazing wide-angle video meeting experiences. Since Carolina Linkowski joined the company in 2017, she has gone from an intern to holding a key marketing position. At the same time, the startup has transitioned to a mid-sized tech company.

“I work with channel marketing and operations,” says Carolina, who studied marketing at both BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo and Luiss University in Rome.

Starting out at a startup

It was during her year studying at BI Norwegian Business School that she discovered Huddly.

“I had seen that tech companies were quite prominent in Norway and it was a very interesting trend of the Startup world. So I got intrigued.”

She arranged to meet with Huddly at an event at a startup lab in Oslo and asked if they needed someone on the marketing side. They first offered her a position as an intern, but it was not long before the company had to create a new full time marketing position. 

“I was finishing my studies, and at the same time the company was growing so they needed people for more specific tasks.”

Going through the channel

In general, Carolina feels like her position has been shaped around her. Already by the time she had graduated, she had good overview of all of the areas of marketing, due to the double degree programme. She also has certain areas of responsibility.

“There wasn’t anyone from the marketing side that was working with the sales people. So I assist the guys that are out in the market. We have a lot of remote workers as well. So they need a contact from the marketing side for our vendors.”

Since Huddy does not have its own store or sell directly to its customers, she has to find strategies of how they are selling the products.

“We have to go through the channel, or vendors. These are office solution providers who sell our products to other businesses. They are dependent on my help to market our product.”

She also designs marketing processes around how to reach the customers, by making sure that they find their way to the vendors when they get in touch with Huddly.

Small company – big responsibility

There are only four people in total having marketing related responsibilities at Huddly, and Carolina feels that her double degree has been a huge advantage in coping with the variety of tasks.

“Working at a small company, it is expected that you know everything. I think I learned what I had to do very fast. And that’s probably from all of the information I gathered throughout my study years.”

A double degree means that you literally get two master degrees, in Carolina’s case: Marketing Analytics and Metrics, and Strategic Marketing.

“While the first is a mostly quantitative programme, the latter is more theoretical, and covers more social science aspects like customer behaviour. So I kind of experienced the opposite poles of marketing even though we are talking about the same field.”

Two sets of everything

From Carolina’s experience, the value in completing two programmes is far from only being about the curriculum. She has also learned a lot from the two different ways of teaching, and the two different cultures, that each has two entirely different approaches to marketing and business.

“The marketing world is changing fast, becoming more and more about customer data and more towards the internet of things world. So seeing how a different country like Norway approaches the field is interesting. From a business perspective, here in Norway there is a big entrepreneurial spirit. In Italy we have more established companies and it is more of a business structured environment.”

Before taking the step into professional life and getting first-hand experience with Norwegian working culture, Carolina made sure to take advantage of having two different sources of inspiration.

“At both universities, you find professors that inspire you. You take more exams, so you get more knowledge. And you meet more people. So the programme enriches you in different aspects.”

A human touch

Carolina would recommend the marketing path to anyone who likes the human aspect of business, and who is interested in the image a company has from the outside.  

“I’m talking both from brand perspective and how the company speaks to their customers. So giving human characteristics to a business. That is what marketing is about.”

If you are up for the challenge, and would like to gain a holistic view of the field, a double degree is definitely worth considering, she says.

“Or simply, if you want to work in the Startup world, Norway is unique and could be the way to go.”

We always try to interview former students in working life, but certain programmes are so new they have yet to produce their first graduates. In this case, you instead get an industry expert's perspective on the future of the field and current job opportunities.