Talk to any entrepreneur or business leader and they’ll often admit that their company is their "baby." They brought it to life, spent time raising it, and are emotionally invested in its growth. Entrepreneurs who are also parents to real babies say that many of the skills they use at home have enhanced their workplace.

Katherine Hays is cofounder of Massive Inc., an in-game advertising company she sold to Microsoft in 2006. Five years ago, she became a mom, and she says becoming a parent has helped her grow her latest venture, mobile-marketing tech company Vivoom Inc., launched in 2014.

Everyone expects more money will be spent on mobile advertising next year than this past year as users spend more and more time on their devices. Looking ahead, marketers and brands alike still are unsure where that spend will go -- and it may not even be totally clear until this time next year.

Katherine Hays, CEO of Vivoom, believes there still is no effective model for mobile marketing and advertising, although cord-cutting is pushing video inventory to mobile devices. Her company focuses on brand-safe user-generated content, and she sees social influencers playing a major role in the future of mobile advertising. 

User-generated content is growing dramatically on the Internet, yet brands remain hesitant to connect their messages to viral videos gone wrong.

Vivoom a mobile media company based in Cambridge, analyzed more than 4,000 videos made through its video-creation platform and found only 6.6 percent of the videos were problematic for brands.

Vivoom, a Cambridge-based app that originally launched as an Instagram video alternative, is trying something new this holiday season. And it might just help you connect with your loved ones (without a lot of trouble on your part).

Proven sales pitches and promotional tactics that register with Baby Boomers and Gen Xers can bomb when directed toward 18-34 year olds. That's because, whether it's due to intrinsic fickleness, innate skepticism, or vexing demographic complexity, Millennials can be downright difficult to market to. But if you can speak their language and attract their eyeballs, you stand a better chance of engaging this increasingly populous and powerful consumer segment.