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
20VC OGs: SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price | Airwallex Raises $330M and The Battle with Keith Rabois | Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers | IPO Market Predictions for 2026: Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks and SpaceX [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:31:48
AGENDA: 03:46 SpaceX's $800 Billion Valuation: A Deep Dive 09:18 IPO Market Predictions for 2026 18:18 Netflix's Bold Move: Acquiring Warner Brothers 27:43 Tiger's New Fund Strategy 33:02 Databricks' Head of AI $500 Mill…
20VC: Inside Bending Spoons Acquisition Machine: Evernote, Eventbrite, Vimeo | How Evernote Evaluates Acquisitions and New Product Ideas | How Evernote Mastered Product Launches, User Retention and Monetisation with Federico Simionato [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:28
Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product…
20VC: Scale, Surge, Turing, Mercor: Who Wins & Who Loses in Data Labelling | Is Revenue in Data Labelling Real or GMV? | Why 99% of Knowledge Work Will Go and What Happens Then? | Why SaaS is Dead in a World of AI with Jonathan Siddharth @ Turing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:16
Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an astonishing $300M ARR with just $225M raised and a profitable company…
20VC: Anthropic Raises $30BN from Microsoft and NVIDIA | NVIDIA Core Business Threatened by TPU | Sam Altman's "War Mode" Analysed | Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justifies $10BN Price? | Lovable Hits $200M ARR & Rumoured $6BN Round [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:09
AGENDA: 04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA 07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo 15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear 22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive…