20Sales: ElevenLabs: Why We Set a 20x Sales Quota | How to Structure Sales Compensation Plans | Customer Success: 'Total BS' or Growth Engine? | Building an AI Sales Machine: What Tools & Tactics Must CROs Adopt Today with Carles Reina

20Sales: ElevenLabs: Why We Set a 20x Sales Quota | How to Structure Sales Compensation Plans | Customer Success: 'Total BS' or Growth Engine? | Building an AI Sales Machine: What Tools & Tactics Must CROs Adopt Today with Carles Reina

Author: Harry Stebbings April 11, 2026 Duration: 1:25:03

Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $350M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investments in ElevenLabs, Revolut, Happy Robot and more.  

AGENDA:

00:00 - Is the Traditional CRO Dead in the Age of AI?

01:01 - Building the AI Sales Machine: Agents that Actually Generate Revenue

08:35 - Will AI Shrink the Sales Teams of the Future?

09:51 - The ElevenLabs Masterclass: Why We Set a 20x Sales Quota

11:00 - How to Structure Explosive Sales Accelerators

12:15 - Why You Should Stop Paying Commission on Pilots

14:00 - Customer Success: Is it 'Total Bullshit' or a Growth Engine?

16:15 - The 'Global-First' Fallacy: Why You Need to Open Every Market Now

17:23 - Why Startups Are Wrong to Ignore 20-Year Sales Veterans

19:15 - The Pipeline Construction Secret: Liquidity vs. Whales

24:30 - Forecasting the Unpredictable: How to Hit a $1B Revenue Target

31:55 - The Substitution Threat: Is AI Voice Just a Commodity?

34:10 - Verticalization Mistakes: Lessons from Scaling India

38:40 - The 'IBM Effect': Does Brand Actually Shorten Sales Cycles?

40:15 - Extreme Expectations: Why ElevenLabs is a Hard Company to Work For

42:15 - Internal Leaderboards: How to Use Public Competition to Drive Results

44:20 - Hunting the Obsessed: Identifying the 'Inner Psychopath' in Hires

46:40 - The SaaS Apocalypse: Will Companies Build Their Own CRM?

48:30 - Formula 1 Branding: The Mindset Behind the Audi-Revolut Deal

50:15 - Dinner vs. Conferences: Which Marketing Channels Actually Scale?

52:45 - Designing Un-Salesy Content: How to Run a Legendary Summit

54:20 - CVC Strategy: Turning Corporate Investors into Distribution Channels

01:01:45 - The Globalization Nightmare: Why You Can't Sell in English Everywhere

01:06:45 - Operator-Investors: Can You Be a High-Performer and a VC Simultaneously?

01:11:30 - Unit Economics in AI: Why Good Early Numbers Might Mean Failure

01:18:25 - The Next Wave: Why Foundational Model Consolidation is Inevitable

 


Hosted by Harry Stebbings, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) pulls back the curtain on the high-stakes worlds of venture capital and startup building. Each episode is a compact, twenty-minute dive into the minds shaping the future of technology. You’ll hear candid conversations with legendary investors, the very individuals who fund and guide the next generation of companies, featuring voices like Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Beyond the capital, this podcast dedicates time to the founders themselves. Weekly, Stebbings sits down with transformative entrepreneurs such as Spotify's Daniel Ek, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman, unpacking the real journeys behind their iconic companies. The format is direct and focused, cutting straight to the core insights on funding strategies, pitch dynamics, and the personal philosophies that drive success. Tuning into this podcast means gaining an unfiltered perspective from both sides of the table, all delivered in a concise and accessible style that fits into your day.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Podcast Episodes
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Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years, he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of…
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20Sales: Why the Best Sales People are F**** in the Head | Why Remote Work is BS | Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruiting Sales Teams | How to Build a Sales Machine | What Everyone Gets Wrong Today in Sales with Chad Peets [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies lik…
20VC: Groq's $20BN NVIDIA Acquisition | Manus Acquired by Meta for $2BN | Why Sam Altman Does Not Care About Dilution | Navan Trading at 4x ARR & Why Going Public Does Not Make Sense Anymore | The Rise of Invisible Unemployment and Labour Markets in 2026 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:47
AGENDA: 04:30 Groq Acquired by NVIDIA for $20BN: The Breakdown 17:13 Meta's $2BN Acquisition of Manus: Did They Sell Too Early 36:04 OpenAI's Stock-Based Compensation Strategy 47:42 Will AI Replace Venture Capitalists 56…
20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:51
I have interviewed 1,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years. Nik Storonsky and our guest today are the two best that I have interviewed. Joining the show today; Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy. Alan has scaled Fus…
20VC: Enterprises Will Not Adopt AI without Forward-Deployed Engineers | Who Wins the Data Labelling Race: How Does it Shake Out? | How Synthetic Data Threatens the Future of Human-Generated Data with Matt Fitzpatrick, CEO of Invisible Technologies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:42
Matt Fitzpatrick is the CEO of Invisible Technologies, leading the company's mission to make AI work. Since joining as CEO in January 2025, he has raised $100M and accelerated AI adoption across industries from sports to…
20Product: On Running's CPO on How to Create Emotion Through Product | Why 99% of Products Fail and How to Create Cults Around Products | The Biggest Product Mistakes On Have Made & Lessons Learned with Gérald Marolf [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:00
Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each delivers performance, comfort and style. Before On, Gérald spent over a de…