A day in the life of… Aline!

First, let me introduce myself: my name is Aline Oosterhof and I am an independent contractor in the field of Marketing and Communications. One of my main (and favorite) projects is working in the Mercator Launch Marketing Team.



“It’s 7.00 AM when my alarm goes off. I jump out of bed and get into gear. My running gear that is. To energise myself (and others) during the day I need a good kickstart every morning.

Some days, that kickstart consists of a short walk before I crawl behind my laptop and other times it’s a good cup of coffee while watching my favorite show… today it’s running! 😊

After my run I feel the adrenaline flowing and I’m ready to start my day. Today is going to be a very special day: I’m giving the ‘Promote your startup’ Marketing Masterclass to some of the Mercator Launch IMPROVE-alumni.

So, after I’ve had my coffee and some yoghurt, I start my workday by reviewing my Masterclass one last time and I check whether I estimated sufficient time for every part of the workshop. I make one small adjustment and decide to leave it at that. I’m 100% ready for this afternoon!

Then it’s time for our weekly marketing meeting where we discuss our content calendar, important news and events that are coming up that need our attention. This week is packed with putting out interesting content AND the organisation of the Innovation Competition. Everything’s on track and we talk about the content we have lined up for next month.

During the marketing meeting, we briefly touch on the subject of Growth Hacking, one of our experimental marketing projects. After our meeting, I check the performance statistics of our latest LinkedIn campaign out of curiosity and I’m very pleased with the results. Our LinkedIn campaign is part of one of our Growth Hacking experiments that really seems to be paying off. Every two weeks, we carry out one or two really ‘out-of-the-box’ marketing experiments for little to no costs to decide if that’s an effective way of doing marketing for us. It’s a very interesting and fun way to find out what works for your company. A great tip for startups to ‘hack’ your way to success! (Check out this book on Growth Hacking!)

Now it’s time for lunch and a quick walk outside with my ‘Ommetje’ app before I’m cooped inside for the rest of the day!

At 12.45 PM I go into my Masterclass Zoom session and make sure my camera angle is good. I’m always a bit nervous before I have to talk to a group, but after the first minute my anxiety makes way for a rush of energy. I’m connecting to people and helping them build their companies by teaching them a thing or two about marketing. All the participants are really involved and passionate about their startups. There’s a great vibe during the entire Masterclass and everyone is sharing their stories and complimenting each other on their ideas and pitches. After an exhilarating three hours I shut down my computer. That went well! It feels really good to be able to share my knowledge about the subject with others and help them grow their business with marketing!

I quickly call my colleague to debrief and decide to call it a day. I go outside for another walk and process the Masterclass. What went well? What could I do better next time? With a smile on my face, I think: you never know what another day working for Mercator Launch will bring, but one thing is for sure – it’s always inspiring!”

Do you have a question for Aline?