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COO & Co-founder

Sam Hall

COO and co-founder of GrowthFactor. MIT Sloan MBA. Writes about retail operations, market analysis, and the real-estate-committee process that turns a site selection model into approved deals.

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Sam runs operations at GrowthFactor and co-founded the company with Clyde and Raj after MIT Sloan. Before Sloan, he spent three years at Bain & Company in New York, then ran ops and business development at Chord Commerce, an early-stage commerce-tech company in Cambridge.

His side of GrowthFactor is what happens after a site model says "yes." Market work, comps, demographics, cannibalization checks, and the committee packet that has to survive a CFO question at minute fifty-eight.

He writes about the real estate committee process: what gets approved, what gets sent back, and why. He cares about how a model becomes a decision a finance team can defend, not just a score on a slide.

If you have a REC packet that keeps getting kicked, his posts are the right ones.

Recent posts by Sam

Tenant first or space first: how developers pick sites differently

Retailers hold the brand constant and search for space. Developers hold the parcel constant and search for a tenant. The same data, run in opposite directions.

Sep 21, 2026

Same trade area, different results: the operator no site model can score

A site model grades the ground. Your P&L grades the ground plus whoever is running it. Here is what the research says that person is worth, and why the variable belongs outside your score.

Sep 21, 2026

The 30-second filters operators run before the numbers

Most candidate sites die before anyone opens a model. Three questions do the killing: who else is in the center, whether the physical box fits the format, and whether the rent clears the occupancy ratio the business actually runs at.

Sep 4, 2026

Do You Have to Drop Your Current Site Selection Vendor?

Almost nobody reads the contract before assuming they are stuck in it. Here is what a site selection agreement actually restricts, and how to test a second source mid-term without canceling anything.

Aug 28, 2026

How to Buy a Franchise: The Operator's Step-by-Step Guide

The eight stages of buying a franchise, which disclosure document sections decide the deal, how the money and the financing work, and where the process usually stalls.

Aug 10, 2026

White Space Analysis: How to Map Untapped Market Opportunity

White space analysis finds the markets where demand for your brand exists but no store serves it yet. Here are the three conditions, the step-by-step process, and why a blank spot on the map is not the same as an opportunity.

Jul 10, 2026

Ask GrowthFactor where to open next

Watch it pull the data, run the analysis, and explain the answer in maps and tables. It does the analysis. You make the call.