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Fireside Chat with Daniel Head: Former CRO at Braze who achieved $200 million in ARR
Fireside Chat with Daniel Head: Former CRO at Braze who achieved $200 million in ARR
Daniel “Dan” Head was the global CRO at Braze, the leading comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love.
He helped lead the charge, using his 25+ years of experience in tech, as Braze first achieved $200 million in ARR, and quickly reached $350 million in ARR just a year later.
They also raised a $520 million IPO in 2021.
When Dan first joined Braze, he wasn’t immediately appointed CRO. No, he worked hard for over seven years to reach the C-suite level.
At the start, he was brought on as the first employee working in the EMEA regions. Continuing to showcase high performance as a sales leader, he rose through the ranks - achieving the SVP of Sales title and then the SVP of Revenue role before eventually reaching the peak and becoming the CRO.
Being in tech for his entire career, it’s safe to say that Dan is pretty familiar with the landscape. He is now an advisor for Cuvama, a tech tool that makes value-selling easy for B2B software companies.
Discussion topics
Dan’s early journey in tech before landing at Braze
Climbing the ranks from VP & GM EMEA to CRO
Trials & tribulations as the 1st employee in the EMEA regions
How Braze achieved $200 million in ARR
His work as an advisor for Cuvama
Key Takeaways
When selling within an existing category, Dan found that the persona Braze was target was actually different than typical persona others in the same vertical would target. Braze’s persona consisted of new age tech disruptors - folks that were building up their tech stacks from scratch. Eventually these disruptors migrated to enterprise level orgs, giving Braze an opening to penetrating those bigger sized orgs.
Enabling your reps when you’re a startup is tough. You aren’t hiring A+ star reps. Hire smart people, even if your reps lack experience, if they’re smart, they will learn.
When thinking about reps and remote work you have to think about how sales is like solving a puzzle. When your reps are remote they aren’t getting that collaboration aspect to help solve the puzzle. Sales is about the outcome. If your rep is remote and smashing their number then great. If they’re not then they’d probably benefit from being around their peers.