The KTM Team

​​Along with a support staff of researchers and graphic designers, Joe Carlen has directed KTM to provide the very highest quality of valuation reports, business plans, market assessments, feasibility studies, and other strategic documents. That is why Know Thy Market has become known for providing data-driven, professionally-written, visually appealing, and powerful strategic documents to savvy companies and entrepreneurs throughout the world. ​
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Joe Carlen: Co-Founder & Lead Consultant
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Carlen offers a unique combination of financial knowledge, business acumen, and strong writing skills. Collectively, these are leveraged for the benefit of clients through the preparation of highly effective strategic documents. A specialist in business valuation, patent valuation, market assessment, and business plans, Joe Carlen has been sought out by a wide variety of firms, such as Pacific Plastics & Engineering (medical device design & manufacturing) and Unicom Technology (telecommunications infrastructure) and larger firms like Time Warner and Westinghouse Energy.

​A Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) with the NACVA who also earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and an MISM (Information Systems) Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon University, Carlen brings his strong financial and technical knowledge to bear on all projects. Mr. Carlen wrote The Einstein of Money, a comprehensive biography of valuation guru Benjamin Graham, followed by A Brief History of Entrepreneurship for Columbia University Press (see details here).

Carlen has been featured as a guest speaker at Columbia University, Fordham University, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the Museum of American Finance and other respected institutions. He has also been hired for corporate speaking and public speaking coaching engagements across the country. In recent years, Carlen has made over thirty media appearances, including on such highly-rated programs as the Cheri Hill Show, Good Books Radio, TheStreet.com, and the nationally syndicated MoneyTalk. He has also written articles for Bloomberg, CNBC.com, ValueWalk, and other well-known business media outlets.
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Robert Bell: Co-Founder & Consumer Products Specialist

​​Robert Bell grew up in a relatively tough middle-class Miami neighborhood where he developed an indomitable work ethic and a fearless entrepreneurial spirit. As chronicled in his Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times bestselling autobiography From Lifeguard to Sun King (co-written with Joe Carlen), his story is a case study in successful market-oriented business excellence:

Having spent much of his youth as a lifeguard & pool boy at some of Miami's most prestigious hotels, by the time he launched his Banana Boat sun care brand, there was no one who knew the sun care market and its unmet needs better than him. In remarkably short order, Bell proceeded to build the Banana Boat sun care brand from, literally, a garage operation to the global consumer products giant that it remains to this day.

Bell later applied these same market-oriented strategic principles to success with other consumer product brands.Robert Bell has been honored by both President Bush (Sr.) and President Clinton. He has also been a recipient of Merrill Lynch/Ernst & Young/Inc Magazine's prestigious "Entrepreneur of the Year" award and has been inducted into the American Entrepreneurs' Hall of Fame. In short, Robert Bell is acclaimed as an exemplary American entrepreneur. As such, he is a highly coveted business speaker and consultant across the world. At Know Thy Market, Bell collaborates on select projects pertaining to the consumer products industry.