Dan is a Venture Partner at Index Ventures, where he invests and supports B2B software and AI companies.
He is inspired and energized by working with founders, and aims to inspire and energize them in return. He is particularly talented at helping founders with recruiting and go-to-market strategy, facilitating collaboration across business units, aligning the C-suite, and proactively ensuring that promising companies get IPO-ready early on.
Prior to joining Index, Dan served as Chief Revenue Officer at Datadog. He has worked at five startups, four of which had billion-dollar IPOs. He also serves on the board of Homes For Our Troops and founded Imagine Reading, which helps dyslexic students learn to read.
Outside of Dan’s work and philanthropy, he continues to learn and challenge himself every day. He is an avid snowboarder and martial artist, and lives in Larchmont, NY with his wife and three kids.
How does your background inform your approach to investing?
I’ve always been passionate about technology and startups. Throughout my career, I’ve played a critical role at five different startups. Through that work, I learned that founders are my favorite people. I have a lot of respect and admiration for anyone who has the courage to take an idea and go all in with it. A great idea executed well can change people's lives and the way people work. Being a part of that is inspiring to me.
Right now, the industry is at an inflection point. Most founders are product people, but it’s never been easier to copy a competitor’s product. Helping companies outpace their competition both from a product and a GTM perspective is where I excel, as a mentor and as an investor.
I bring energy and inspiration to the table, which is important for founders who are about to embark on a challenging journey. Steering a company toward success is rewarding, but it comes with peaks and troughs. I bring a steadiness from my years of experience and expertise that helps keep people inspired and focused on the mission.
How did your experience at Datadog shape the person and investor you are today?
As Datadog’s CRO, I helped take the company from $60M ARR to $1B ARR, and we earned every bit of success that we enjoyed.
My time at Datadog taught me that the hard work a startup demands of its people is never linear. When the company went public, we rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and then went back to the office to do deal reviews. Some people might see an IPO as a culmination of work, but we knew it was just beginning. Accepting that helped us build the most high-performing team possible.
I bring that mindset to every founder I work with now. In my experience, to be successful, you have to work your tail off, and you have to be cheek to jowl with both your people and your customers. Anything less won’t cut it.
What qualities do you look for in founders?
I’ve never met a founder who isn’t really smart. High intelligence is table stakes.
Beyond that, the ability to collaborate is extremely important. So is being able to challenge your mentors, investors, and people’s ideas. It’s through collaboration, conversation, and deep thought that we understand which parts of the company are universally true, and which parts might change based on AI or other marketplace factors.
My goal working with founders is that, together, we build each component of your company and your team exactly right. Your GTM team should be just as great as your product team.