StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Jordan Van Horn

COO, Monte Carlo · 1 appearance on the record, plus 1 compilation re-air.

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

executiveoperatorLinkedIn ↗montecarlodata.com ↗

Jordan Van Horn serves as Chief Operating Officer at Monte Carlo, a data observability company. He previously served as Vice President of Sales at Segment and led enterprise sales for Dropbox Business.

21statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 4.12/5average certainty → 2.44/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 4 opinions · 11 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 1 names 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 Jordan argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Monte Carlo reached $1B valuation and 80 GTM employees without HR
“One funny thing about Monte Carlo is we managed to get to like a billion plus valuation. We managed to get to an 80 person go to market team, and we still hadn't hired a recruiter or a head of HR.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 4:34 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 27 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

306 words/min while actually speaking · 27.7 um and uh per 1k words · 9.6 false starts per 1k · 23.6% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 11,763 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. 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 ▾ 2.3/10
setup questions received 25%

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

Assertion Supported
Monte Carlo reached $1B valuation and 80 GTM employees without HR
“One funny thing about Monte Carlo is we managed to get to like a billion plus valuation. We managed to get to an 80 person go to market team, and we still hadn't hired a recruiter or a head of HR.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 4:34 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
ARR does not matter in the early days of a startup
“Early days, I don't care at all about what price people pay. ARR doesn't matter at all. There's a hot take from a sales leader early days. I think the only thing that matters is that you're learning and that you have good customers who are good fits that are g…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 14:15 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Dropbox struggled by lacking clarity between consumer and enterprise sales
“I would say that Dropbox did struggle at times with a core identity of whether it was a consumer company or whether it was an enterprise sales company. And so I think that we spent a lot of cycles and we missed a lot of opportunities because we didn't have tha…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 2:45 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Van Horn starts sales interviews by listing Monte Carlo's operational flaws
“I start every first interview, I don't know if it's a good iron practice or a bad one, but I say like, oh man, we have problems. Like, let me walk you through all of the things that are wrong at Monte Carlo and all the things that we need to fix in the next si…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 28:11 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Low ASP sales motions should be single-threaded and move quickly
“It doesn't make sense to build like this multi-threaded, overly engineered you know, go to market motion when you have a 4000 dollar ASP. And so for those lower end of the markets, be single threaded, that's fine, but just move quickly because time kills all d…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 16:39 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Managers should know within 30 days if a new hire fits
“You should know within 30 days about whether someone's going to be a fit or not.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 49:07 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Pure top-down enterprise sales to CIOs using slide decks is dead
“Pure tops down sale. I will never be able to go into a CIO's office and show them a really spiffy deck and give them a customer reference and get a deal, right?”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 57:50 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Jordan Van Horn: Founders are 100% accountable for creating the V0 sales playbook
“I think a hundred percent, a leader of an organization, a founder is accountable for that V zero of that playbook.”
Jordan Van Horn Jul 27, 2022 ▶ 4:34 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
Van Horn: Managers should spend one-third of time supporting month-one hires
“It's incumbent on the manager to go spend a third of their time with new hires in the first month.”
Jordan Van Horn Nov 16, 2022 ▶ 10:06 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
Van Horn: Sales leaders should determine new hire fit within 30 days
“You should know within 30 days about whether someone's gonna be a fit or not.”
Jordan Van Horn Nov 16, 2022 ▶ 10:52 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
Founders must own the initial sales playbook and define anti-ICPs
“A hundred percent a leader of an organization, a founder is accountable for that V zero of that playbook. And that V zero should really only clearly document three things. They're just the foundational go to market pillars. They are what problem are you trying…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 6:44 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Monte Carlo operates 100% through enterprise sales without PLG
“The lens that I'm looking through today at Monte Carlo is a very specific enterprise tops down sales motion that's focusing on one specific team. And that's why we don't have you know, a product led growth model. It's like all at 100% sales side growth.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 8:50 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Exploding discounts create a horrible customer experience
“I will either give you an exploding discount. It's 50% if you sign today and it's like no discount if you sign tomorrow, that's a horrible Customer experience.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 13:27 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Founders still spend 25% of time selling after hiring first rep
“You're still gonna spend 25% of your time with customers, right? Or prospects. Like that's not gonna change. That's not gonna change for six or nine months.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 20:48 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Asking 'what was hard about it?' reveals a salesperson's actual skills
“There's like a key question that I think gets to all skill set that has been the most powerful question that I ask. It's what was hard about it? Because that question gets to the root of what that person actually did and why their skills are relevant to your c…”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 30:19 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Van Horn has tried to eliminate pitch presentation interviews for seven years
“I've been trying to kill the pitch presentation interview for like seven years and my sales leaders just won't let me do it.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 31:46 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Sales hiring committees should be kept under six people
“Getting really clear about what the person that you need in this organization, and then keeping that decision-making group to less than six is the third thing that's just so important.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 38:08 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Monte Carlo reached eight figures in revenue within 18 months
“Growing from like no revenue to like eight figures in revenue in 18 months is really freaking hard. Growing a team from zero to 80 is really hard.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 1:01:08 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
MongoDB successfully pivoted from top-down to product-led sales
“MongoDB has always impressed me, but it, to go from tops down enterprise led to product led sales you know, in the last couple of years, that's a really hard transition. I don't think I've ever seen anybody do it and they've done it really well.”
Jordan Van Horn Aug 17, 2022 ▶ 1:03:06 Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Jordan Van Horn: Founders must explicitly document who NOT to sell to
“Also, by the way, it's really important for that founder to document who you're not trying to solve the problem for, because that's going to be a direction of how you actually focus the sales team that you go and hire.”
Jordan Van Horn Jul 27, 2022 ▶ 4:51 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
Jordan Van Horn: Top founders own go-to-market positioning in perpetuity
“I'd argue that no matter how successful a company is, the best founders in the world are accountable to answering those three questions in perpetuity, not at just at seed stage, but at series A, series B, series C as a public company.”
Jordan Van Horn Jul 27, 2022 ▶ 5:23 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?

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 Sales: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Onboarding for New Sales Reps and Sales Leaders, The compilation Nov 16, 2022 2m
Jordan Van Horn: 3 Reasons Salespeople Fail; How to Make a Sales Playbook | 20VC #918 · 20 Aug 17, 2022 45m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Jordan Van Horn was played rather than Jordan 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 2m clip played
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more