Applied economics became pricing, and pricing became the clearest way to understand how companies create value.
Our companyFOUNDED BY AMMANUEL “TOM” SELAMEAB
Pricing became the way I bet on my potential.
In 2017, I left Minnesota and moved to Silicon Valley. I did not know anyone there. I had never worked in technology. I simply knew I was capable of contributing more—and that pricing was the skill through which I could do it.
The chapters
In 2017, I moved west without a technology background or an established network—only the conviction that this was where I could contribute more.
I built pricing teams inside technology companies, advised investor-backed businesses, and founded a pricing technology company.
Curly’s brings that operating experience to one narrow problem: making consequential monetization decisions with better evidence.
My background
From operator, to founder, to building the pricing firm I thought should exist.
That move to Silicon Valley became the beginning of a career working on pricing and monetization inside technology companies, advising startups and investors, and building a pricing technology company.
At Carta, Sprout Social, and Revinate, I built and led pricing from inside the business—accountable not only for the recommendation, but for what happened after the company acted on it.
Building Accrue taught me what happens when you try to turn pricing expertise into a repeatable technology product. Advising investor-backed companies exposed the same underlying problem from another angle: enormously valuable monetization decisions were being made without enough customer evidence.
Curly’s is the firm I always thought should exist: small, specialized, research-driven, and extremely good at understanding what customers are willing to pay—and where that creates revenue and EBITDA opportunity.
The experience behind the firm
Carta · Sprout Social · Revinate
Built and led pricing from inside the business, accountable for the decision and its commercial consequences.
Accrue
Built a pricing technology company around the belief that better evidence should lead to better monetization decisions.
Investor-backed companies
Worked across company stages, business models, and categories to solve high-stakes monetization problems.
Company values
Curly’s is an extension of how I think.
These principles determine what we research, how we interpret the evidence, and which work we are willing to take on.
Evidence before opinion
A senior title does not make an assumption true. When a question can be researched, we collect evidence instead of debating it.
Ask the uncomfortable question
The purpose of research is not to validate the preferred answer. It is to discover whether that answer survives contact with customers.
Stay narrow
We would rather be exceptional at pricing and monetization research than average at twenty kinds of consulting.
Make the economics explicit
Every finding should connect back to revenue, EBITDA, enterprise value, or the risk of getting the decision wrong.
Finish the work
We define the question, complete the research, deliver the answer, and move on.
The company, in my own words
Three conversations about why Curly’s exists.
A more personal account of the story, the research philosophy, and the value-creation belief behind the firm.
WHYVIDEO 01 · COMING SOON
Why I built Curly’s
The personal story behind the firm—and why pricing became the work I chose to build my life around.
TRUTHVIDEO 02 · COMING SOON
Why most companies do pricing research incorrectly
The research mistakes that create false confidence—and what it takes to produce evidence a team can actually use.
VALUEVIDEO 03 · COMING SOON
Why pricing is underused in private equity
Why pricing may be one of the most powerful—and most neglected—value-creation levers available to a portfolio company.
Build with us—or work with us