Raaz Herzberg: evaluation

Transcript context

…Awesome. That's incredible. Often, the heuristic I hear is, one or two million ARR, and then you start to hire salespeople. Okay, that was an awesome lesson. I love that. I want to talk about your current role. So currently, you're CMO, and also, VP of product strategy at Wiz. You started as an engineer, you moved into product, and now you're in marketing, which is not a traditional path, especially for product people. First of all, why did you decide to move into marketing, from product? Yeah, it's not a traditional path for anyone, I think, also not one I would have necessarily expected myself to be on. First of all, it's not like I had this plan, right? In general, I myself, people sometimes ask me about career progression, and I never had a plan for anything. That is just, the only thing I did was follow good people around. That's it. I never had a plan for anything I do. So myself, coming to Wiz was following Assaf and Ynon in the founding team. And two and a half years into Wiz, at that time, Wiz was already, it was a very clear product market fit. Our revenues were already there. We had a sales team that was fully functioning, but at that point at Wiz, we felt marketing was still something we didn't fully figure out. It wasn't working super well for us. We were at this stage where, yes, if there was a POV, a proof of value happening, we would win it, versus competition. But many times, we would come to a customer, and they would be like, "Oh, I wish we heard of Wiz, we just signed with a competitor," which it breaks your heart, because I know they would have chosen me, had they heard about me in time. So you started feeling that challenge around awareness and marketing. So two and a half years into the company, basically Assaf, our CEO, asked me if I was willing to take on marketing. Originally, I thought it was, I remember, he knocked on my, bothered me while I was working on my computer, and we went into this super cold room. It was like, when you were a fast-growing startup, all of the rooms are always full, you know what I mean? We went into this server room, which is freezing cold, and I was in the middle of something, and he told me, "I think you should lead the marketing org now." I told him, "Okay." I was like, "Assaf, I'm cold, I'm going back to work. I have a lot to do." It sounded that bizarre to me. It's not only, do they not know marketing, I spent my life in engineering, and in any product, it's not the go to market side, even. I was never part of the go to market, or I have never heard of a lead in my life. I did not know the word "pipeline." All of those things were very remote to me, very. It sounded like such a bizarre motion. But that was on a Thursday, and then, I spent the weekend, because he asked me to, and again, I just follow good people, and do what they tell me to do. So I spent the weekend listening to a ton of podcasts, talking to CMOs, just to even understand what do CMOs do, what do marketing orgs do in B2B companies? Then I ended up deciding to just give it a try, and we did not know if it was going to work. I also don't know if it's going to work forever, but we ended up deciding to give it a try. I think the thing that's convinced me to do it was that, in some ways, I really felt like if, in the early days of the company, finding product market fit is a major block for the company. And then, building a sales organization becomes a major block for the company. ys, I really felt like if, in the early days of the company, finding product market fit is a major block for the company. And then, building a sales organization becomes a major block for the company. I felt like we were at the point, where you have to figure it out to scale. At some point, of every product, people start looking really heavily at brand, whether we think that way, or we don't. When I buy my iPhone, I have no idea how it really is compared to an Android phone. I did not look at the specs. I truly have no idea. So why do I buy an iPhone? I just know it's the thing to buy. B2B products, even the most complex products, people are still people. They still buy it, because brand matters a lot. That was part of what convinced me that this is super important. So if I'm asked to attempt, at least try, because I do think it's really important.…

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