In recent years, video content has risen to become a critical weapon in the engagement arsenal for digital marketers. But aside from its potential to deliver messages in a concise, memorable and emotive way – prompting increased consumer-brand engagement – video is also now emerging as an important ranking factor for SEO, with Google’s ownership of YouTube meaning (unsurprisingly) that websites incorporating high-quality video can expect a significant uptick in their organic search traffic.

Digital media businesses are having a tough time of late. Traditionally, media companies rely on advertising for their revenues. But despite total global ad sales growing for many years, today 85p in every £1 is currently going to just 2 companies in the digital ad space; Google and Facebook. Media companies are left to fight for a shrinking slice of the pie.

What does this mean for newer media companies like Culture Trip that compete in this market? And, how can they use tech to help them monetise?

As startups often are, Habito began from my own simple story of acute frustration; I bought a house and the experience was nightmarish.

My home-owning dreams weren’t being quashed by the fault of any particular individual, company or intrinsic malice working against me. It happened because important processes – like home buying – have mutated over time into complex and convoluted chains of different stakeholders, from regulators to lenders, brokers to surveyors, estate agents, buyers and sellers.

I have been in tech recruiting for the best part of 25 years now, and I can safely say it’s an industry that systemically overrates technical ability and underrates behaviour. Invariably, issues that arise within technical businesses – and, really, in any business – don’t come down to technical competence (i.e. what people know) but have everything to do with behaviour (i.e. what people do).

Though Prodigy Finance has now extended over $325 million in student loans, the company began, humbly, over a couple of beers. My INSEAD colleagues and I sat around, nodding our heads in complete understanding as we chatted about the difficulties we experienced in finding the funds to pursue our MBAs.

We weren’t an anomaly. As many as 82% of Prodigy Finance-funded masters students have no alternative sources of educational financing. They’ve been accepted into top universities to pursue advanced degrees with potential for exceptional salaries – and banks can’t take that into account.

Commentators have talked about the death of the high street for several years now, and indeed the market continues to change as customers change their shopping habits with the continued rise of online. Whilst as the high street as we know it, stuffed with large chain retailers, ancient technology and products you can find anywhere, is suffering, this in turn is creating an opportunity for a new wave of independent boutiques and retail spaces. With more independent shops opening than closing in 2016^[1], the large chain retailers are no longer providing the shopping experience customers are after. With online retail here to stay, the future of retail is changing to encompass the best of the online and offline worlds, focusing on consumer experience more than ever before.