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Case study · Co-founded · Sales
El Toro: from a basement to 100+ employees.
El Toro sold IP targeting, ads delivered to specific households and businesses by address, before most buyers had heard of it. The hard part was not the technology. It was getting buyers to understand it and trust it.
100+
employees, grown from three co-founders
No. 13
Deloitte Technology Fast 500, North America, 2017
Inc. 5000
fastest-growing private companies
2015
Emerging Company of the Year, Louisville Business First
The situation
El Toro was founded in Louisville in 2012 by three co-founders, including Sean Stafford, and started in a basement. It became the largest ad-tech company in Kentucky.
The constraint
Buyers could not purchase what they could not picture. Every sale started with explaining a technology that did not have a name most people recognized.
What we built
Plain-language messaging that explained IP targeting in terms buyers already used
A repeatable sales process from first conversation to signed contract
Pipeline and prospecting built to keep demand ahead of growth
A sales team hired and trained to sell the same way
The result
El Toro grew from three co-founders to more than 100 employees, ranked No. 13 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in North America in 2017, made the Inc. 5000, and in 2019 announced an expansion into a larger headquarters in NuLu.
“What El Toro has done in a relatively short amount of time is phenomenal.”
Sources: Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development · Trade & Industry Development, 2019 · Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (2017)
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