About Us

Our Mission

Laughing Hippo was established in 2008, to help young companies reach profitability quickly.  Its defining mission is to address a common problem faced by young software companies today, namely the cost of sales far outrunning the production of revenue.

Today, in the post-dot.com “bust” era, the business landscape for young software companies is characterized by

· An economy in a significant recession

· Scarcity of venture capital

· Industry consolidation driven by merger/acquisition activity of the “majors”

From 2002 onward, market analysis has shown that the traditional staffing model of sales and marketing units was becoming too expensive. Previously, traditional staffing models of software sales and marketing units had been driven by a healthy economy, insatiable demand for new products and technologies, and a generous supply of venture capital.

Today however, with financial resources scarce, start-up companies in the software space must be focused on two overarching goals, namely

1. Increasing what can be called “velocity of revenue” and

2.  as quickly as possible developing a “repeatable sales model”.

These goals need to be reached at the lowest possible cost of sales. Laughing Hippo’s new staffing paradigm helps reach these goals.

About Laughing Hippo

Gerry Mucha, Principal

My career has spanned over 20 years selling software products and consulting, and has included serving on the sales teams of two successful IPO companies.

In a new company, sales representatives by necessity have to learn and exercise marketing, messaging, technical product knowledge, qualifying, contract negotiation, sales operations, administrative and other various “jack of all trades” skills. The luxuries of a large company infrastructure are not present, adding to the difficulties young companies encounter approaching their market with an unknown and often misunderstood product offering.

I relish the challenges presented by recently formed companies attempting to move from start-up to profitability.  To help young companies, my approach emphasizes experience, experimentation, and analysis. In other words,

1. I’ve seen what’s worked and what hasn’t,

2. I constantly try and refine new techniques of messaging and selling, and

3. I continuously ask questions like-“Is what we’re doing working? Are we getting a return on the investment of time, energy, and dollars?”

 

What Our Clients Say About Laughing Hippo

“Gerry and I crossed paths several times over the course of our careers, but I never had the pleasure of working with him until I needed a pipeline generation dynamo for Star Analytics. My challenge was a plethora of lukewarm suspects that were moldering in our database. I gave Gerry the task of nurturing those suspects into leads and establishing the friendly rapport needed to keep the suspects engaged. Gerry fell into the task with alacrity and created a viable future pipeline. He easily picked up the messaging, tailored it to each company based on the research that he did beforehand, and set a timeline for engagement with each customer to which they agreed. Gerry is personable, non-threatening, perceptive and enthusiastic. Coupled with the persistence and discipline needed to reach people by telephone and email, Gerry is an outstanding choice for a sales support and enablement role.”

Suzanne Hoffman

VP Worldwide Sales, Star Analytics