Tonic: Selling Fake Data To Engineering Leaders with Karl Hanson of Tonic

Episode notes

Join Pete in conversation with Karl Hanson, Co-Founder of Tonic, makers of synthetic data solutions for software and AI development! (The "Fake Data Company"! Lol!) Karl and Pete discuss the ins and outs of a "top down" dev-tool founder-led sales motion (very much not product led), and the implications of this. Karl also talks about how he grew to appreciate the "craft" of sales over time, the secret to charging for pilots, how they drove efficiency and compression in their sales motion, and more. Karl's successful founder-led sales journey ultimately lead Tonic to graduate to a scaled sales organization, having raised $45m from blue chip investors like Heavybit, Bloomberg Beta, and Insight Partners. More on Tonic here: Sales motion details : Synthetic data generation tooling, large engineering organizations targets, engineering leadership and security buyer persona, six-figure average selling price, multi-quarter sales cycle.