How Repsense Built a Data Driven Sales Engine: Insights From Co Founder and CRO Robertas Danielianas

In this episode of Startup Sales Talks, Dom Urniezius sits down with Robertas Danielianas, Co Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Repsense. Known for his two decade journey across corporate sales, gaming, 3D technology, and finally AI, Robertas explains what actually drives sales success inside a fast growing startup.

He covers the evolution of modern sales, why sales leaders fail, why reputation management has become a core part of the sales funnel, and how automation is reshaping the role of the rep. His experience spans more than twenty years of B2B selling, building teams, scaling internationally, and helping launch Repsense before the generative AI boom.

This is a practical, grounded conversation every founder, sales leader, or SDR should study.

From Corporate to Startup - a sales career nobody plans for

Robertas opens with a truth every salesperson quietly knows. Nobody dreams of being in sales. You simply fall into it, discover you’re good at it, and stay long enough to master the grind.

He started selling more than twenty years ago during Lithuania’s early capitalist era. His first job involved a phone, a sheet of pricing info, and a giant Yellow Pages book. No training. No scripts. Just raw calling and pure commission.

That early pressure created two foundations that guided his entire career

• an obsession with measurable output
• comfort with constant rejection

As his career progressed into enterprise sales and later the gaming industry, he learned how to scale teams, replicate success, and experiment with outreach long before sales automation existed.

Why he left corporate life?

Corporate sales taught him strategy, structure, and how to work with Fortune 500 buyers like Ikea and Mars. But it also showed him the limits. Slow decision making. Endless political layers. Little room for fast iteration.

This is what pushed him into startups where you build, test, and adjust immediately. In his words, in a startup you actually get to drive change instead of waiting months for approval.

Building repeatable sales: everything is an experiment

One of Robertas’s strongest principles is simple

Sales is a series of experiments.

Before running any outbound play he defines

• what success looks like
• what failure looks like
• when to stop
• how many iterations are required

Launching a new market means testing multiple industries, languages, and outreach angles. Opening a new country might require one hundred different outbound scenarios until the pattern emerges.

He stresses that data only became useful once CRMs integrated deeply with email and calling tools. When logging finally became automatic, teams could measure reality instead of guessing.

The hardest transition in Sales: from top performer to leader

Robertas admits that becoming a sales manager was one of his hardest challenges. High performers want to clone themselves. But people cannot be cloned.

He experimented with two extreme management approaches

• pure autonomy
• full control

Both failed for half the team.

The only approach that works is enabling each rep to run experiments of their own and measuring them objectively. No preconceptions. No instant judgment. Let ideas live long enough to produce data.

He also emphasizes the importance of hiring. Leaders make their biggest impact when choosing people. Rushing hires in sales is one of the most expensive mistakes a startup can make.

How he hires salespeople in the AI era

Classic tasks like writing emails or doing mock calls no longer matter. Tools like ChatGPT make these tests meaningless.

Instead, he wants candidates to talk about

• real successes
• painful failures
• what they learned
• how they think
• how they operate under pressure

His favorite method is a panel style interview where multiple team members ask the same core questions and score answers independently. This removes bias and reveals consistency.

If someone underperforms, his team uses a structured personal improvement plan with weekly measurable indicators. Many reps improve dramatically. Others realize the job isn’t a fit — and say so themselves.

Handling rejection: the mental framework

Rejection destroys many sales careers. Robertas explains that the key is to detach emotionally from outcomes and focus only on repeatable actions.

His method

• break your week into tiny achievable goals

• celebrate completion, not results

• avoid relying on a few nearly closed deals

• replace every lost deal with immediate new activity

Momentum protects confidence. Inaction kills it.

Why reputation management is becoming the new sales funnel

This is where his work at Repsense enters the picture.

Today, seventy five percent of B2B buyers research a product before ever speaking with a salesperson. If someone googles your company after a trade show and finds confusing info in the wrong language or poor reviews, the deal collapses before it begins.

Robertas describes the search results page as the new business card. The digital reputation that prospects see must create trust fast.

Repsense focuses on

• understanding what people see when searching
• measuring reputation indicator
• tracking share of search
• identifying which signals create credibility in a market
• helping companies present a unified, trusted presence globally

Buyers now behave like consumers. They research deeply before clicking “book demo.” You must win that battle before a rep ever appears.

Choosing sales channels: everything works if tested properly

Email isn’t dead. Calls aren’t dead. LinkedIn isn’t dead. The real question is which channel matches the target industry.

His rule

Test everything until you know what works for your segment.

But if you want results fast, nothing beats live events. Spending your nights at networking events, bar meetups, after parties, and hotel lobbies can deliver more qualified leads in three days than months of cold emails.

He advises planning conferences months in advance, booking meetings early, then using nights to form deeper connections.

Why most startups fail at sales?

Some build too early. Some sell too early. Many skip customer interviews. Others ship product before the offering is clear.

Robertas recommends conducting one hundred buyer interviews before formal outreach. Without this step, most startups enter the market unprepared.

Learning sales

Robertas doesn’t believe in magical sales books or courses. Sales is more emotional than academic. You need content that makes you feel unstoppable. For him, motivation ranges from comedy clips to deep philosophical material.

However, he reads technical content when learning a new field like SEO or automation. Methodology is important, but mindset is what keeps reps consistent.

Closing thoughts

Robertas Danielianas brings twenty years of sales experience into the fast evolving world of AI. His approach blends scientific experimentation with human psychology, automation with reputation, and discipline with creativity.

Whether you’re a founder preparing your first outbound campaign or a sales leader scaling internationally, his lessons are universal

• run experiments
• measure everything
• hire slowly
• manage reputational footprint
• keep momentum through rejection
• use channels strategically
• and build trust before a rep ever speaks

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Repsense is shaping the future of reputation analytics.