The Exchanges

Q What would be some others from your perspective?

A It takes time. It takes fucking long time. Like, and that is the reality. It's like, um, if you're coming into, like, the distribution side with partners, Uh, or you're building an entire partner ecosystem thinking that you're gonna be, like, making another 20% of revenues, like, in two quarters, you're wrong. Like, that doesn't happen that way. You need people dedicated to it, you need incentives for them, because people lose interest, and you need your incentives for your own team. So initially, start using, like, SQOs, uh, Sales Qualified Opportunities, or SQLs, or Sales Qualified Leads, to be able to actually track how much volume has been generated, and what is the actual traction being generated, And then once you start having a solid, like, motion in there, then you start tracking and moving towards, like, the revenues. So each one of the SQOs needs to be generating a certain amount of revenues.

AI assessment note: “It takes time. It takes fucking long time. Like, and that is the reality.”

Q How do you think about empowering your competitors?

A I think, like, fundamentally, like, we, we've been very happy to actually support the entire infrastructure layer, because we believe that, like, the opportunity in the market was, like, way bigger than anyone, anyone was expecting, right? Voice and, and, and, and interactions with humans and human technology interaction, like, it is the fundamental piece that was missing in the entire puzzle. Now, you end up having situation where, like, similar to, I don't know, like, A NVIDIA that was, like, competing with, like, powering everyone, but also competing with everyone, right? Like, I think that's actually fine. Like, it's, it's okay that the market is big enough for multiple companies to coexist, and then try to target the same customers. I'm not gonna deny it. I think, like, also means that, like, everyone needs to be aware that that will happen. So when we launch our agents product, I called the biggest platforms, agents platform that were operating, um, in our platform, and I told them, like, guys, FYI, like in the next couple of months, we're going to be launching our agents product. We're going to be competing with you, right? Just wanted to make sure that like, you're okay with this. I wanted to make sure that like, you understand that like, we are going to this space. And the funny part was like all of the founders that I interacted with telling them this, they were like,…

AI assessment note: “it's okay that the market is big enough for multiple companies to coexist”

Q No, no, there's no such thing as strange. I think we all need to be a bit more strange. Um, what is the thing that makes Matty so good?

A What makes him so good is like, I think his ability of listening to people and then making a decision Um, regardless of whether he gets it right or wrong, and he will acknowledge if he got something wrong, and then change it immediately. And I think that's what I really value, because, like, you get CEOs that will tell you, like, most of the times I need to get it right, and then make some mistakes in there. And I, for me, the, it's actually the opposite. Like, you should be always getting it right, or like, 99% right in, like, five percent of the things that are really mega important. Like, in the 99%, 95% remaining things, you should be getting it mostly wrong. And I think that's what Matt is trying to do, and he's very successful at that, like, allowing people to, like, experiment and get it wrong, and then push back, but also run with their ideas, and if there's a thing that he believes, like, it is, like, fundamentally, like, it needs to happen in a specific way, he will say it, and he will do it, and everyone gets to be, needs to be aligned, and he has that ability of, like, combining both things in different moments in time, and it works really well. We've seen it at 11 Labs.

AI assessment note: “What makes him so good is like, I think his ability of listening to people”

Q Where are people challenging you where you don't have an answer?

A Which market should we be opening? Like how deep should we go into like some of the structure changes? Like the company is going growing very quickly. Do we need a global accounts team? So I'm already thinking about the global accounts team. When do we implement it? How do we implement it? How do we motivate people? Um, like, should it be 20 X? Should it be something else? Like, um, what product should we be selling? Should we be selling to competitors? Should we be selling to resellers? So there is all of those things like the team challenges every single day, and I love it because it's intellectually stimulating, but also because it forces the entire business to rethink our position every single day.

AI assessment note: “Which market should we be opening? Like how deep should we go into”

Q So you would advise founders today to go to as many markets as possible as soon as possible?

A Not as many markets as possible. I think like you need to map out and have a reasoning and a thesis of why that market so that you cannot refer to that and understand whether the market conditions have changed. And then you have to actually like evolve your, your thesis. But for me, this is like go to market is similar to like investing in venture capital, right? So you need to test like a hundred things to actually be able to find like the three, four, five, six things that actually perform and do really well. We do the same in venture. Right. We invest in companies knowing and believing that all of them are going to work and all of them can be like a billion or trillion dollar company. And then we realize like, shit, it not worked, but I still have like three or four or five that are going to be working really well. Go to market is actually the same thing. Like test as many things as you can, not only in the opening markets, but also like, do you need to try like self service? Do you need to try like working with resellers, like with partners, with the cloud ecosystem, like with a grants program, with an affiliates program, there's so many things. And opening markets is one of those ones.

AI assessment note: “Not as many markets as possible. I think like you need to map out”

Q You, you, you divided everyone and then it didn't work. Like what happened?

A It didn't work because like a people were not passionate enough, be like, it was like a lot more like you needed a long time to actually close, like some of the biggest sales and see, like, I, I, I, like the team was way too small. And like, if you do it like early on, if you segment too early, then you fundamentally end up like screwing things up. So what I realized, like I have this placeholder in my, in my calendar every single week that is called pipeline construction. And that pipeline construction, um, it's like similar to like portfolio construction that you're familiar with. But for me, it's like pipeline construction. How do I take a VC term and put it in like, in my mindset is like, how do I design the perfect pipeline for any given market and segment? And that that's when you start thinking is like, actually you need like the liquidity, but you also need the big whales. So each one of my account execs needs to have the ability of like closing big whales, specifically on the enterprise segment, but also having like liquidity in the pipeline so that they don't lose their confidence because people were losing their confidence.

AI assessment note: “It didn't work because like a people were not passionate enough”

Q You're crushing in other areas. Why do government?

A Um, fundamentally because one is very sticky. Number two is like, it's a benefit that we make to society. If we can deploy agents for people to have better interactions with like the actual like government and government services, it's an absolute no brainer. And I don't care if I don't make enough money to justify it or like I lose money. It doesn't really matter to me. And then the three is like, it's a hard industry to get in. So the moment you actually get in, then it's just like, you never leave that industry. So fundamentally, like when you start mapping those things out, you need to make the bets in one of the, some of those bets will pan out really well. Some of the ones will not like pan out that well, but it's like literally portfolio contraction. Like how quickly can I do some of this, some of these sales so that I can spend time also like, like in the difficult ones. And my investors don't call me saying, What the fuck are you doing? I'm gonna fire you, right? And I think that's, like, a fundamental idea of, like, portfolio construction, and you do it at, like, a country level, each one of the new countries that you actually want to be launching, and that is a completely different concept than what the majority of, like, CROs are actually thinking these days. If you tap it into, like, AI agents for, like, uh, go to market and other pieces, then you have, like, somet…

AI assessment note: “fundamentally because one is very sticky. Number two is like, it's a benefit”

Q Would you rather premium branding on a worst team, or secondary branding on a number one team?

A Premium branding on the worst team. 100%. You get more exposure, and also, like, you have a lot more creative freedom, and also you're betting. So the reason, one of the main reasons why we ended up picking, like, Audi Revolute F-One is because, like, if you look at the past, the story of, like, or the history of, like, Audi is, like, every single, like, sports entertainment or sports championship they've entered, they've ended up winning within five years. And, and that's fantastic. And, like, they're building the car from scratch. They build it on, like, engine. They build, like, everything from scratch. They're competing with, like, all of the big ones, and I'm a big Formula One fan, but they compete with all of the big ones. And I actually feel that, like, this idea of, like, incumbents, like, very technologically driven, with a really clear, like, mindset, drive, idea to win, and so on, it is who we are as a company, 11 Labs. But it also is who, like, who Nick and the team are at Revolut. So it fits really well with your entire narrative as a company. If you try to do it away.

AI assessment note: “Premium branding on the worst team. 100%. You get more exposure”

Q Um, that's just tough for me as like a seed venture investor to get on board with that cost curve to dollar gain. Do you know what I mean?

A And it doesn't, that's, that's what needs to change fundamentally. Like, how do we create content That is like, takes less money dollars to actually be created. You start very slowly, but also then you ramp up once you realize that actually there is product market fit in that content. And I've spoken with a lot of studios over the past like three years. I've spent a lot of time in, in LA, in, in the industry. And my pitch always to them is like, Hey, let's try to create content that like will capture, capture people's attention across like the channels that they operate today. And if it works well, Let's scale it. Then you have the fifty million dollar budget. And I think like what's where AI can benefit a lot, but you have, and because like you can iterate a lot, you can create content that is personalized, you can create them that is like, is engaged by people. And then we were talking yesterday about like this idea of like cost per engagement. Why don't we use exactly the same framework? How much is the cost for every single person that gets engaged in your content? And that content can essentially expand to be extremely high quality. As you're proving that like fundamentally dynamic changes, right?

AI assessment note: “that's what needs to change fundamentally. Like, how do we create content”

Q Where else has the game changed? Where else are old school CROs out of date?

A In general, like, like one single market going one market at a time, it doesn't work. Traditional BCs, like, they've, like, the traditional method has been like, oh, you open one market, you go deep, you win the account, you show, like, the value, then you go to the next one, and then you go to the next one, and so on. And there's, like, the bullshit advice that, like, BCs have been giving, like, for many years. And I know, like, Now it's changing fundamentally because like, hey, like the reality is like, if you're gonna have a hundred competitors, um, in the next like month, because you're starting to get some traction or because of whatever reason, or everyone is thinking about the same problem and then going deep, then go opening one market after the other one, after the other one, instead of actually parallelizing and trying to do multiple bets at the same time, then it's just counterintuitive.

AI assessment note: “one single market going one market at a time, it doesn't work”

Q So when you say things, do you mean like channels, like affiliates, like partners, like referrals, or do you mean like products?

A Channels, products, ideas, should we be pitching services? And I was like in a, in a meeting with a CEO of an airline, um, very recently in, in a few days back, and we were talking about like agents and all of that stuff. And then at some point he was like, but Carlos, like everyone, it keeps pitching me. I get over a hundred pitches every week of pitch, like companies doing like customer support. Like, I mean, I don't want to have another, another pitch on that. And I was like, and you're a hundred percent right. And I hate it. Like, actually don't get me wrong. We do it and we do it really fucking well. But at the same time, it's boring. Like the majority of companies will start with the bottom line optimization.

AI assessment note: “Channels, products, ideas, should we be pitching services?”

Q Today is fantastic. Versus in the UK and the US, very big, and much easier. Does brand reduce enterprise sales?

A Yes, one million percent. And whoever tells you no, it's like, just lying. That is a fact, right? And I think like the ideal scenario is like, no one gets fired, like the idea, like, you remember like IBM, right? It's like, no one gets fired for actually buying IBM. It's like, that is the ideal scenario for any brand. It's like, literally, you become the safest asset in the block. Great. It's, it's a long way. I think, like, the two companies that today have been able to make it is, or three companies, if you want, OpenAI, Anthropic, full respect for them, Cursor. The three of them, I think, for me, are, like, Cursor has killed enterprise unbelievably well. Yeah, they've done super well. It's fantastic. Like, those are the three, like, brands that are, like, blue cheap organizations right now in, like, in, in the procurement's, like, team's perspective, an IT team's perspective. It's fantastic. It's great.

AI assessment note: “Yes, one million percent. And whoever tells you no, it's like, just lying.”

Q What's the, what would be your advice on the content, design it well, what does that mean?

A It has to be like, not salesy. I think if it needs to feel natural, like you should do like a presentation about your company, like some insights, talk about like the things that are coming next, your vision. But if you make it to salesy, people will walk away and never come back. And I think that's the fundamental trade off. Like for me, like these big events are like, we talk a little bit about the level up. So Matti ends up doing like, like always the big speech, the big, the big keynote. But then after that, for me, it's all about how do we put those partners, those companies that are building in our platform, Or are using our technology in front of as many people as possible. So we learn about them. And I, I did my, my, I did a fireside chat with, uh, three amazing companies like BCG and, and a tool G and, and, and, and, and connect, uh, for me, it was more of a, like, how do we enhance their appearance? How do we like talk about like, what are they building? What they're using? It's less about like them. Right. And I think that's like, you need to plan the content in a way that like, it feels less salesy. You talk about it, but also you bring partners to validate That what you're doing is actually right.

AI assessment note: “It has to be like, not salesy. I think if it needs to feel natural”

Q and sales comp, according to that clip, which again, now it's like five million plus views, which is insane. Dude, I actually wanted to start on, you have now kind of led the way in a new CRO charge, I think. 11 Labs is probably one of the most exciting companies on the planet. You as CRO there lead the way. Um, are a generation of CROs being left behind?

A Some of them, yes. But I think, I think it's fundamentally that like the market has changed the way that we build companies today. Has completely evolved. We can do deals much quicker, but also like for me, the key item is like a deal can be done. You can hire teams that like have a ton of experience, but how do you think beyond a single deal and think about like distribution entirely? Right. And I think that's what we're thinking, like what we were actually missing in many ways, like, yes, it's great to do business development. It's great to do like, think about affiliates. How do you think about much more on a strategic level, but also like able to execute. Um, and for me, and those are the key components, how do you embed AI in your entire distribution component so that, like, you are able to actually do more with less, right?

AI assessment note: “Some of them, yes. But I think, I think it's fundamentally that like the market has changed”

Q on the show, you do not ever want your farmer going against someone else's hunter. Meaning you're kind of cushy, but super nice CS enablement. Hey, like, let's get champions in your company. Kind of happy. Um, Against someone else's all-star hunter who is there to close your business. How do you feel about that? True? And then how do you think about then retaining the hunter on the account?

A The hunters are important. Very important. Specifically when you think about distribution, you think about like outbound, inbound, you think about like a lot of different pieces, right? Um, but at the same time, a hunter that is not well managed will create more damage than actually like opportunities. So let's say for instance, you're trying to close a company that is, has multiple companies, multiple sub companies. Uh, it's a big holding company. We can use any name you would want, right? And then you have a hunt that essentially tries to go to each one of them, but doesn't do it in a very structured way, like trying to align what are the incentives for this big account. Like then fundamentally, you end up having discrepancies on pricing. You end up having discrepancies, like what is the actual, like, uh, the value for them. And then each one of them discrepancies ends up coming back to hunt you down essentially when you try to renew the contract or the other forms. So like, it is important to have them, but at the center, you need to have like them in check. Together with the customer success. I actually am a big believer of customer success. I don't believe customer success as a satisfaction or happiness moment for customers. No, it's like customer success needs to be a money generation function for the business that in sense works for the customer, but also works for the b…

AI assessment note: “I don't believe customer success as a satisfaction or happiness moment... needs to be a money generation function”

Q So I think like the biggest bet you've got today that's not generating revenue?

A Um, so we, we have, we're generating a good amount of revenue, but like government work fundamentally just like it's a tiny portion of it. And I think that's okay because like the role of a CRO is fundamentally thinking about like not the revenues today, but the revenues of tomorrow. I'm already thinking like all of this quota I've already been thinking of like, how do we put the pieces together so that the 11 Labs next year grows even faster than this year? Because I know this year we'll smash the numbers. I have the right team. We're going to continue hiring. We have like the motion that we set up last year. It's going to grow really well. How am I doing it for next year? Being very creative so that I can start putting the right bets. That's what be my quota.

AI assessment note: “government work fundamentally just like it's a tiny portion of it”

Q of Hollywood, and I think it was a Wall Street Journal article, but it essentially said about the democratization of content creation and what that's done to consumer attention, and hence the decline of Hollywood that's producing less and less content. You are, in large part, Powering that, I can paint a very positive case for democratization, income equality, equalizing content, and also declining Hollywood. Is that a good thing?

A I, I don't think that's how I would put it. I think like, I don't think, I think Hollywood is declining in this model that they have today, where like very big budget productions that require a ton of people, that require a lot of different things, right? And I think they're going through a crisis, but I actually think, uh, Hollywood will come out, like, even stronger than this. Um, and I think at the end of the day, like, it's like, imagine that you get a startup, and the startup tells you, like, you know what, I need a hundred million dollars, I need fifty million dollars pre-seed just for this idea, and then it's gonna take me five years to get it out. I don't know who's gonna buy it, I don't, what are you gonna say? Like, why don't you raise a million dollars? Right. That's going to be like raise a million dollars, prove like some points and then start going there. And I think that's the problem with Hollywood right now. I don't think it's like AI voices. I don't think it's AI video. I think those are like additional solutions to make sure that you're democratizing it and you're reducing your cost of launching new ideas to the market. But, um, and that is going to be part of the solution.

AI assessment note: “I actually think, uh, Hollywood will come out, like, even stronger than this.”

Q So I think you have to be unwaveringly aggressive now on BD and sales, because I think you have an 18 to 24 month period where CIOs, CISOs are like, hey, we have to have it, we have to have a message for it. That won't last forever. Do you agree?

A A hundred percent. And our team is dedicated to that. It's like everyone is like selling agents left and right. We've had the best quota ever. It's been fantastic, but people are incentivized to sell agents because we know like we are competing with other companies. And sometimes those companies that ends up complaining to us being like, why are you competing with me when you also like selling it? But the reality is like, Hey, if I like you charge me, like you pay me like one dollars, one dollar, and I could be charging the end customer, like, or you're charging the end customer, 20 dollars. Then I'm like, I mean, maybe I'm doing something wrong here as well.

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. And our team is dedicated to that.”

Q How do you test hunger on go-to-market specifically?

A I think it's very difficult. I think it's like, for me, it's like, if, uh, in the first conversation, I want to understand, like, how are they thinking about go-to-market already? Um, and if they tell me, like, sorry, I'm just, like, I'm only thinking about, like, building research and doing all of these things, like, fantastic, I love your product, this is great, it's fantastic, your mindset, your ideas, it's just not for me. Because then you're gonna be fighting with them for, like, go-to-market. And I have a bunch of my portfolio companies that actually are like that, and it's great, don't get me wrong, they're doing super well, and I love them, and I'm as helpful as I can, but at some point, the party ends, and if the music ends, and you're stuck without having a product where you're monetizing it, and you're stuck with the idea that like, we can always make more money later on, then you're gonna get fucked.

AI assessment note: “in the first conversation, I want to understand, like, how are they thinking about go-to-market”

Q And I think, like, I mean this in the nicest way. Did you not massively miss that quota then?

A I don't think so. It's like, I think you need to put a quota that is challenging but also fair. And if people miss it fundamentally because it's too high, they need to do the right thing and then lower it or compensate them correctly, right? But also, Salespeople, good salespeople, they want to be the best ones. They want to actually, they'll move it by the coin. They move by the fact that like, um, like a big challenge ahead of them. If you don't put that challenge, they're just going to be like slacking. They're just not, you're not going to get the best out of it. Right? And I think for me, that's the key items. Like we say like, Hey, you reached your quota a hundred percent. Fantastic. And then you start unlocking accelerators to the point that like, I'm very happy. Like if we sign a million dollar commission check, I'm the happiest person in life. Fundamentally because like that person did so much money for the business and for our shareholders and for the rest of the company. That is an absolute no brainer. Again, like for me, it's like for every one million dollars in revenues that any single person signs. And I don't care if it comes from like the SDR, the account exec, the CSM, or it's an engineer that went all in and then managed to get a contract. It's like every single million has thirty three million dollars in extra valuation for the company. If you put it that wa…

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. It's like, I think you need to put a quota”

Q What's your towel for the obsessed that wins?

A For me, like you can get it very quickly, right? Like people that have extremely high energy, that are sharp, that like are thinking quick. And also like there's other people that like will be slightly opposite, but also like they're going to be very, very deep. And it's like, it might take them a little more long, like more time to actually like get there. And those are like less obvious, but once they do, it's just insanely good. Right. Like if people are like sharp and they're energetic and passion and they come across like someone that really wants to win and you can ask them like, Hey, like pitch me 11 laps as if I was, I don't know, like a fish, whatever it is, like, doesn't really matter. Right. Like then you get a sense of like how quickly they're thinking and how passion they have, like how much passion How much actually, um, like, did research the company? Who are they thinking? All of that stuff, like, you end up having in a, in a very short conversation. Like, I don't need to spend more than 20 minutes to know if, um, if I want to hire someone or not. And I will tell you, like, um, the majority of times, I end up putting my feedback in, uh, in Ashby. We use Ashby internally. I end up putting my feedback in Ashby during the conversation. By the middle of the conversation, I have my feedback, and I'm one of those, like, Crazy guys that like write a lot while I'm talki…

AI assessment note: “people that have extremely high energy, that are sharp, that like are thinking quick.”