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Dannie Herzberg

President, Baseten · 1 appearance on the record, plus 1 compilation re-air.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

executiveoperatorinvestor@dannieherz ↗LinkedIn ↗baseten.co ↗

Dannie Herzberg is President at Baseten and a former growth-stage Partner at Sequoia Capital. She previously led and scaled enterprise sales teams at HubSpot and Slack through their IPOs.

31statements → 3claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.22/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

3 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 1 opinion · 26 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Dannie argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

244 words/min while actually speaking · 0 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Dannie Herzberg: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 32 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 6,767 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Dannie Herzberg is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 3 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 2.3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 40%

Everything Dannie Herzberg said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Herzberg: Effective PLG sales reps act as extroverted user researchers
“A good seller within a PLG company is kind of like an extroverted user researcher.”
Dannie Herzberg Nov 16, 2022 ▶ 14:19 20 Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Onboarding for New Sales Reps and Sales Leaders, The Biggest Red Flags in the First 30 Days & What Can Be Done to Set Them Up for Success with Leaders from Figma, Dropbox, Miro and more.
Insight
Herzberg: Sales leaders not meeting weekly customers is a major red flag
“If a leader had not gotten in front of a customer, if he or she was sitting in virtual or physical conference rooms for their first two months, and wasn't talking to one new customer at minimum every single week. That is a major flag for me about customer orie…”
Dannie Herzberg Nov 16, 2022 ▶ 15:53 20 Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Onboarding for New Sales Reps and Sales Leaders, The Biggest Red Flags in the First 30 Days & What Can Be Done to Set Them Up for Success with Leaders from Figma, Dropbox, Miro and more.
Insight
Herzberg: First sales hire should be a player-coach, not executive VP
“The next one could be a Player coach who can roll up his or her sleeves, do the selling while simultaneously taking the lead on hiring the next four account executives. And often we see that we look for someone who has led a team before. So they are thinking c…”
Dannie Herzberg Jul 27, 2022 ▶ 11:57 20VC: The Memo: What is a Sales Playbook? Does the Founder Need to Create It? Should the First Sales Hire Be a Leader or a Rep?
Insight
Herzberg: Founders must sell the product themselves before hiring sales staff
“So the founder needs to sell the product before anyone else can. So day one, founder equals head of sales.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 12:03 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Behavioral interview questions yield scripted answers for sales candidates
“If you ask hypothetical and behavioral questions, like what's your 30, 60, 90 plan, you are going to get really articulate, well-scripted answers that do not help you vet the candidate in earnest.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 20:01 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Testing sales candidates in their comfort zone yields better evaluations
“I want to see what it looks like when they are in their absolute Comfort zone. And I want to see them rock it in their comfort zone. So I would say, pitch me your product, or let's do a discovery call, because I think that's more telling than a pitch.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 23:02 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Trust hiring intuition over isolated negative reference checks
“Your intuition matters. References are critical, but they aren't everything. And if your intuition is saying, I had a good connection with this person, I've heard plenty of good things around them, and sure, they may have frustrated one person or been a really…”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 27:45 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Striving for approval undermines leadership courage
“And what I realized is if you're striving for people to like you don't have the courage to say hard things, to challenge your peers, to challenge someone you work for.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 28:45 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Herzberg will hire candidates she dislikes if they have high integrity
“So for that reason, I'm totally okay hiring someone who I don't like per se, so long as I respect the way that they think, and I think that they are a high integrity human being.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 28:55 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Product teams own the pipeline in PLG companies
“If it's a product-led growth company, then product essentially owns the pipeline number.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 37:26 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Hour-long sales slide decks are dead
“Slide decks. No hour-long slide decks. They're boring. This is a world where people want to see the product, feel it, see it customized to their context.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 39:57 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Founders wait too long to hire revenue ops and sales enablement
“They wait way too long to hire revenue ops and sales enablement teams to make the team successful. So they invest all this time and money Into hiring a sales leader, maybe some sales reps, and they don't have the support systems to set them up to thrive and sc…”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 40:11 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Opinion
Herzberg: Figma and Notion have executed the best recent sales strategies
“Figma and Notion. Community first. Welcome sales assist. Impassioned user base.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 43:21 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Closing initial deals builds sales empathy and informs product
“And after selling the first 10, 20 customers. The founder will, number one, have a really good sense of empathy for the first official salespeople that he or she brings on, and number two, will learn that selling is one of the most important input mechanisms f…”
Dannie Herzberg Jul 27, 2022 ▶ 11:30 20VC: The Memo: What is a Sales Playbook? Does the Founder Need to Create It? Should the First Sales Hire Be a Leader or a Rep?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Herzberg: In 2010, HubSpot was mostly a media site with little product
“If you're not familiar with what HubSpot was back in 2010, it was basically a media site with a little bit of a product.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 4:59 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Treating company culture as a product requires dedicated budget and leadership
“We treated culture as a product. So we were constantly shipping new features. It had a budget. It had resources. There was even a senior leader to make sure that we got it right.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 7:01 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Herzberg: Slack initially harbored internal cynicism toward sales
“To be honest, there was a bit of cynicism around sales in the beginning at Slack, and I totally got that.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 10:16 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Product is the primary top-of-funnel driver in PLG
“Specifically in PLG, product is the most important component of the top of the funnel.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 10:40 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Expansion dictates most sales revenue in PLG companies
“Expansion dictates most of the sales driven revenue, which means the sales and success need to work in lockstep with one another, which means you need to build customer relationships for the long run and figure out how to engage exact sponsors, even if a custo…”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 10:52 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: First post-founder sales hire should be a player-coach
“The next one could be a player coach who can roll up his or her sleeves, do the selling while simultaneously taking the lead on hiring the next four account executives.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 13:07 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Startups only need a CRO after proving sales formula
“You need a CRO when you're past the zero to one phase. So the sales formula is working. It's time to scale it to the next level.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 14:06 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Early startups in low $10Ms ARR should hire VPs, not CROs
“So if you're an earlier stage company, let's say in the low two Tens of millions. I would hire a VP or an SVP so that they have something to grow into. We with sales DNA are very internally competitive, so it's always good if there's something to work toward.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 14:16 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Sales leaders unable to name followers present a red flag
“If they don't have Three or four people off the top of their head that would follow them. To me, that's a yellow flag, maybe a red flag about who they are as a leader.”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 15:43 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital
Insight
Herzberg: Sales leaders who cannot explain past tactic failures lack flexibility
“And if that person cannot name what won't fit a new culture as opposed to what worked in their old one, they're not showing any flexibility. And my hunch is they're going to be a playbook person, takes a carbon copy and brings it from one place to the other. T…”
Dannie Herzberg Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 19:03 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital

Show 7statements(7 left)

The other half of the tape: Dannie Herzberg's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Dannie Herzberg, by other people (1)

Assertion Partly supported
Slack grew revenue from $100M to $1B during Herzberg's tenure
“Danny is a partner at Sequoia Capital, and prior to entering the world of venture, Danny spent four years at Slack, As their head of enterprise sales at Slack, Danny built and scaled the self-serve, mid-market, and enterprise sales orgs across the Americas, as…”
Harry Stebbings Feb 2, 2022 ▶ 0:25 20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring Scorecard and How To Construct Yours & How To Structure the Onboarding Process for all New Sales Hires with Dannie Herzberg, Partner @ Sequoia Capital

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Onboarding for New Sales Reps and Sales Leaders, The compilation Nov 16, 2022 3m
20 Sales: How To Build Sales Teams with a Product-Led-Growth GTM, What is a Sales Hiring S Feb 2, 2022 30m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Dannie Herzberg was played rather than Dannie taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
20VC: The Memo: What is a Sales Playbook? Does the Founder Need to Create It? Should the F Jul 27, 2022 1m clip played
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