Key takeaways

• Elevenlife experienced rapid user growth shortly after its launch, indicating strong market reception.
• Tying compensation to revenue milestones can effectively incentivize growth in startups.
• Product market fit is best defined by significant revenue from a single ideal customer profile.
• Experimenting with different personas and verticals is crucial for refining enterprise sales strategies.
• Building strong personal relationships with customers is key to early-stage sales success.
• Understanding cultural differences in buyer behavior is essential for effective global sales strategies.
• Product-led growth is critical for lower-priced offerings to align with customer purchasing behavior.
• Continuous client engagement is necessary for expanding deals and identifying new use cases.
• Setting aggressive sales quotas can drive high performance and accountability within sales teams.
• Compensating both account executives and customer success managers for upsells aligns team incentives.
• Differentiating between employees who don’t fit and those building long-term pipelines is crucial for effective hiring.
• Public accountability in sales meetings fosters team learning and performance.
• Venture capitalists often operate similarly to sales development representatives.
• Underestimating pipeline numbers can help maintain credibility with investors.
• Cold calling remains effective in certain markets, but WhatsApp is preferred in regions like Latam and India.

Guest intro

Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs. He was the first investor and fourth employee there, scaling the revenue organization from day one to over $330M ARR in just three years. Carles is also an active angel investor with early bets in Revolut and over 40 other startups.

Rapid growth and compensation strategies

• Elevenlife experienced rapid user growth shortly after launch.

  — Carles Reina

• The company achieved over a million users within a month of launching.

• The compensation structure was tied to revenue milestones to incentivize growth.

  — Carles Reina

• Equity compensation increased with revenue milestones, aligning employee incentives with company performance.
• Understanding the competitive landscape and growth metrics is crucial in the AI voice space.

Defining product market fit

• Product market fit should be defined by significant revenue from a single ideal customer profile.

  — Carles Reina

• A revenue benchmark of $10 million from one ICP is suggested for evaluating product market fit.
• Experimenting with different personas and verticals helps refine sales strategies.

• You keep experimenting and you build like a list and then one week you tackle like a specific persona.

  — Carles Reina

• Adaptability is key in targeting different market segments and achieving enterprise sales success.

Building customer relationships

• Understanding customer needs and building relationships is crucial for early-stage sales success.

  — Carles Reina

• Personal relationships help retain customers and prevent them from switching to competitors.

• Qualified leads can be identified quickly through targeted questioning during initial calls.

  — Carles Reina

• Effective lead qualification processes are essential for successful sales strategies.

Navigating global markets

• Different markets have unique buyer behaviors that affect sales strategies.

  — Carles Reina

• Cultural differences in buyer behavior require tailored sales approaches in regions like Latam and India.
• A product-led growth approach is essential for lower-priced offerings.

• Below that it’s gonna be plg… the trick is like how much money do you feel that like you can put in your credit card.

  — Carles Reina

Expanding deals and upselling

• Expanding a deal requires ongoing engagement and identifying new use cases within the client organization.

  — Carles Reina

• Continuous client engagement is necessary for upselling and deal expansion.
• Customer success teams should be responsible for upselling, but account executives must remain involved post-sale.

• For those ones my request to the account exec is like your job is not finished even if you transfer it to a customer success manager.

  — Carles Reina

Sales quotas and compensation

• Setting a quota of 20 times the base salary is a strong strategy for sales teams.

  — Carles Reina

• Aggressive sales quotas emphasize high performance and accountability.
• Compensating both account executives and customer success managers for upsells aligns their incentives.

• The interesting piece like on the upsell side is we compensate both the account exec and the csm if the contract is upsold.

  — Carles Reina

Effective hiring and team dynamics

• Understanding the difference between employees who don’t fit and those building long-term pipelines is crucial for effective hiring.

  — Carles Reina

• Firing based solely on short-term performance can overlook potential for long-term success.

• I completely disagree with the notion that because someone’s selling to large enterprise you can’t tell whether they’re good or not.

  — Carles Reina

Building a sales culture

• Salespeople need to be on the road rather than just in the office.

  — Carles Reina

• In-person interactions are crucial for effective sales.
• Building a sales culture remotely requires being ruthless and maintaining high accountability.

• How do you build a sales culture remotely by being ruthless? You need to be on top of it.

  — Carles Reina

Accountability and performance

• Public accountability in sales meetings is crucial for team learning and performance.

  — Carles Reina

• Addressing underperformance publicly ensures accountability.

• I need to tell you like what is right and what is wrong… you’re gonna get fired.

  — Carles Reina

Sales skills and investment

• Being a good salesperson enhances your skills as an investor.

  — Carles Reina

• Sales experience is valuable in evaluating investment opportunities.
• Investors need to assess the compatibility and adaptability of founders during the pre-seed stage.

• There is a sixth sense that we get specifically on the pre-seed stage… are they willing to pivot?

  — Carles Reina