Presentation
to the
Software Council of
Southern California
"Successful Product
Launch Strategies"
Tom Kuhr is hands-on expert in social media, ecommerce, and internet software as a service (SaaS) having demonstrated repeated success designing and launching user-friendly products and services that market themselves through word of mouth. Tom is a metrics-driven new media authority with 15 years experience building technology organizations in rapid-growth environments. He is a seasoned international business manager with proven experience managing every customer-facing department, and has played key executive roles multiplying revenue, increasing profit, and leading global teams with focus, passion and a sense of urgency.
Tom is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at OleOle the world's largest social media web platform for football (soccer) fans. He was brought on board to redesign the website to cover more than 6,000 professional football teams and 57,000 soccer players in 10 languages through the eyes and ears of the fans. OleOle launched in May 2008 and has seen tremendous growth since then. The social media platform currently hosts some of the world's most popular football blogs, and let's fans do the reporting through photos, videos, podcasts, live game blogging and history. OleOle is a social publishing platform, pushing the boundaries of social networking and social media. Before OleOle, Tom launched CircleUp, a venture-backed consumer-focused social communications service and scaled that to 100,000 users in 3 months. Prior to getting back into consumer-focused products, Tom was vice president of global marketing for Telelogic, a $220M public enterprise software / SaaS company acquired by IBM. Tom managed marketing operations and field marketing strategy across more than 38 countries, and oversaw online and offline marketing campaigns and promotions, field marketing, sales training and sales enablement.
Before Telelogic, Tom was vice president of marketing and product management for Preventsys, an information security software vendor. There he increased lead acquisition by over 500% and helped increase revenues by over 40% through the introduction of a disciplined sales process, product marketing and sales training. Preventsys was successfully acquired by McAfee in 2006.
Tom also served as vice president of Stamps.com's international business unit, where he initiated the adoption of Stamps.com's technologies and services by postal organizations and shipping carriers outside the US. He was integral to the design and launch of the world's first online stamp printing service - one of the first software applications delivered as a service. Stamps.com was the most secure non-government software as a service (Saas) ecommerce system on the Internet, and Tom helped to build the customer base to over 300,000 in the first years of operation.
Tom has proven experience creating new B2B and B2C products and services, transforming start-ups into viable growth companies, and excels at technical product marketing, corporate expansion and building repeatable marketing and sales processes. Tom has managed regional offices across the US, Europe and Asia and marketed products and internet services around the world. He has lived in Mexico, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where he developed a passion for football. Tom graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he majored in aquatic biology, of all things, and still lives near the sand in Hermosa Beach, California.