About Us
Sean Simon and Tom Barbaro are experienced sales leaders with a long history of working side-by-side to build and lead lucrative tech company sales teams. As VP’s of Sales (East and West) at Criteo, they played an integral role in the companies success from early days through IPO. Together, they then built and launched sales efforts for PebblePost, taking the company from Series A to Series C and zero to $20MM in annual revenue. During their time together at PebblePost, they noticed some increasing challenges facing Marketing and eCommerce leaders.
Most brands and agencies don’t have easy access to emerging technology that is cutting edge and addressing the exact business challenges they are trying to solve. Many of these tech companies go through tech accelerators that are sponsored by the largest brands in the world at the cost of $100k and up per year. When the tech companies exit these programs, they are lost. They don’t have the right network and many don’t speak our industry language. While at the same time, buyers are being bombarded with emails, LinkedIn messages and phone calls that are usually irrelevant to their needs, causing them to ignore everything.
We wanted to create a member driven network where we work together to curate and vet technology companies so that we can find the best fit for our members without all the noise and hassle. We hear constantly from buyers that they don’t like having to buy from Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc… but they don’t have the time or resources to curate and vet solutions thoroughly. This is where the Cogent Collective comes in. Buyers can invest in our solutions knowing that they were vetted by their industry peers. Best of all, Cogent stays involved throughout the relationship and often serves as an account manager, ensuring success for everyone.
Our Mission
Our mission at Cogent is to help brands and agencies evolve the way they buy technology solutions. By leveraging collective data, we proactively source and vet solutions. When needed, we will present them with options so they can make informed decisions without the hassle and pressure of the traditional sales process. Additionally, we want to help our members grow their individual networks for professional and personal growth.
Brands and Agencies face changes in their business and industry on a regular basis. Marketing and eCommerce teams are constantly short on resources to help them stay on top of the solutions that can help them address the constant change. Some large companies have access to various types of incubators but they cost a lot of money to be a member. Cogent aims to bring emerging tech to brands and agencies without any cost in an effort to democratize innovation.
Our goal is to build a community of peers that can help each other succeed in their current roles and entire career. Education is a large part of what we offer and we will continuously search for ways that members will want to engage.
“We want to change the way tech is discovered and piloted in the mindset of “always be testing.”