Tom Tunguz

MAY 2, 2013

To many entrepreneurs, hiring the first salesperson is a mystery. When should I do it? How much should I pay this person? How do I structure the work? The great part about sales teams and sales departments is that they quantitative - sales teams thrive on numbers. At the most fundamental level, sales productivity has to exceed costs. So let’s answer the question of when to hire a salesperson by understanding the financial mechanics of a sales team.

Sales Hiring 113

Sales Hiring Compensation Forecasting Pricing 113

CloseSaaS

MAY 2, 2013

We like to think of our sales software, Close, as having a lot of magic under the hood.

Software 52

Software Sales 52

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2013

To answer that question, you have to look for examples of the best storytellers. The best storytellers are the television studios. They divide the day into different segments to reach different audiences. Morning: news. Midday: soap operas. Evening: Nightly news segues into primetime sitcom. Late night: news segues into comedy. An entrepreneur told me a few weeks ago, when we where talking about how to build a blog audience and I had asked him how he thought about content strategy.

Strategy 102

Strategy Engagement Development Marketing 102

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2013

Could you grow your users at 5% for 15 months? Or at 7% for 12 months? Or at 10% for 9 months? That’s how long it would take to double your user base at those growth rates. Though there is some science to growth developed by the technology-fluent marketer, aka growth hacker, growth remains a confounding art because there isn’t one feature - like implementing FB Connect or promoting Tweets or having a big red button on a home page.

Growth Hacking 100

Growth Hacking Startup Technology Development 100

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Payments

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 30, 2013

There’s something beautiful about handwriting that we’ve never been able to capture on the Web. Handwriting has style, a uniqueness to each writer and also an ability to capture the evolution of thought with crossed out words, carats and interjected clauses and margins full of edits. The image above is my favorite from Emily Temple’s curation effort of a series of famous authors' manuscripts on a Tumblog.

Innovation 100

Innovation Development 100