Grasshopper Group

Q: I am a senior manager supervising a group of IT engineers. My company is small with some, but very limited, plans for growth. The growth is projected in 2012. I worry about retaining these employees. They are all smart, eager and are looking for advancement. There are very few rungs above their current positions. [...]

Passion is an unbelievable thing. It’s often what motivates me to get up in the morning, and it definitely what fuels me to be exceptional at my job. You need passion to start something new, to go above and beyond, or even to approach something in a completely original way. Passion is what differentiates a [...]

Have you ever noticed that girls always seem to travel in groups at night?  Or that smaller guys at the bar always seems to act tougher when “their boys” are around?  Not so much a coincidence.  People are very much a product of their community (or “tribe” as Seth Godin might point out).  In fact [...]

It’s official.  The world as we know it has accepted video as the most effective means currently available to communicate a message to your audience. But why?  What makes Justine Ezarik (known as “ijustine”) able to get 500,000 people watch her in the Apple Store, dancing like a 12 year old boy who drank too [...]

When we asked earlier this month “Is a job at a startup right for you?,” we alluded to the importance in having not just the right skills for the job, but the right personality as well. Of course, being a good fit as an employee is important regardless of the company’s age or establishment. But [...]

The Ambassador of Buzz: Jonathan Kay, Grasshopper “I would say my title helps me remember that I really am a company ambassador, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” While the Ambassador of Buzz might not get invited to many fancy state dinners, the title definitely cuts straight to the heart of the most [...]

Today, we have Siamak Taghaddos as our guest contributor on Fizzlosophy. Siamak is the CEO & Co-founder of the Grasshopper Group in Needham, MA. The topic for this week is: What are 3 startup marketing strategies to build a buzz around your company and product? Here is his response: 1. Target influencers, not customers Do [...]

Marketing is marketing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business trying to attract and retain customers or an eager job seeker trying to capture the attention of potential employers. Your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to position yourself (or your product if you’re a business) that addresses a problem people will [...]

Jay Wilder of Brainshark, Michael Troiano of Holland-Mark, Kipp Bodnar of HubSpot and David Hauser of Grasshopper all have something in common. Even though their companies deal in B2B video, advertising, Inbound Marketing and startup software tools, respectively, there’s something tying them all together. Each of these Boston-area companies have had a hand in creating [...]

The virtual voicemail systems provider is using spinoffs to reach its goal of serving one million small businesses. Siamak Taghaddos isn’t sure how many distinct product lines he’ll need to reach his goal: to serve one million business owners. Could be three, could be seven, could be 20 or more. So Taghaddos would like to [...]