At $11 billion AI startup ElevenLabs, the message to sales reps is simple: Hit 20x your base salary, or you’re out.
Speaking on the 20VC podcast on Friday, Carles Reina, VP of sales at the voice-cloning startup, talked through its “ruthless” quotas.
“So if I pay you $100,000 a year, your quota is $2 million. That’s it. If you don’t achieve your quota, then you’re going to be out, right?” Reina said. “And we’re ruthless on that end.”
ElevenLabs — which was recently valued at $11 billion after closing a $500 million funding round — operates in micro-teams of five to ten people each, according to CEO and cofounder Mati Staniszewski, who spoke on a separate 20VC podcast episode in September.
Reina said he prefers to operate in smaller teams that hit their quotas, and pay them more.
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Small teams have become a growing trend in tech, with AI startups touting their ability to scale with far fewer employees by working alongside AI agents.
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman wrote in January that a team of 15 people using AI can rival a team of 150 who aren’t.
Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg said on a Meta earnings call in July that he has “gotten a little bit more convinced around the ability for small, talent-dense teams to be the optimal configuration for driving frontier research.”
Reina said the “ruthless” quota has been successful at ElevenLabs, saying on the 20VC podcast that more than 80% of reps hit their sales quota.
ElevenLabs did not respond to a request for a comment.
He added that the firm compensates both the account executive and customer success manager if they upsell a company within the first 12 months.
“I’m paying double, but I don’t care,” Reina said. “It makes perfect sense because then I have these two people busting their ass to make sure that they actually can make more money, which is fantastic for me as a company.”
The push for higher performance isn’t limited to AI startups.
In April, Google said it was restructuring its compensation structure to increase rewards for top performers. “High performance is more important than ever,” Google’s head of compensation told staff at the time.