The Sales Machine Behind $17.3B Deel

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The potential of photonics.

The technology to interconnect these GPUs.

Global payroll and HR platform.

8 billion operational data points.

Scale-ups over startups.

You'd rather have a million of something than one of anything.

Building the intelligence layer for defense.

There isn't enough power. There's not enough memory chips.

We're at the end of physics of what we can still do.

Shuo, welcome to Sourcery. We're here at the Strike Summit. How's it going?

Uh, thank you so much for having me. Everything is going wow. And then, like, you know, I love—so far I have been loving Monaco.

Yeah. So we're going to talk with you about sales and growth. For people who don't know Deel, I'd be very surprised if you don't. They're crushing it, if not killing it. So Deel is a $17.3 billion company. They most recently surpassed $1.5 billion in ARR.

Yes.

Shuo is the CRO of that, so she's handling all the sales and building the teams around it. So Deel went from $1 million in sales to $100 million in 20 months. Then they went from $100 million to $1 billion in ARR in 5 years.

So, Shuo.

In 3 years.

In—oh, yeah, revise that one.

From $100 million to $1 billion within 3 years. Yeah.

Okay, correction. So how did you scale from $100 million to $1 billion in 3 years?

For a little bit background info about Deel: Deel is a global payroll and HR platform, and we help companies to hire, manage, and pay talent globally. And we're live in 160 different countries. So that means for every single country, we have our own entity, we have our own compliance team, payroll team, taxes, legal, everything.

And we build automation and then products in-house. So that means, like, you know, we automatically have a huge team,right? And then within that huge team, theoretically, everyone can be paid on Deel, and then we just grow very fast because of the market.

And then also, we're global since day one, and it is very different from a lot of the Silicon Valley companies that you focus on one country and you do it very well and you expand. So we can, like, you know, build a global team very, very early on.

Yeah.

What was your decision to go global on day one and not just dominate one market?

I think it is from the founders,right? And then also, like, you know, the product itself. Alex, my co-founder, and myself, we're very international. I was born and raised in China and moved to the States at the age of 16.

And Alex is French, and he moved to the States at the age of 19. And then just from our background, we realized that, like, you know, the world is a very big place. And then there are many, many, like, you know, great talents from every single country out there.

And then it is not only, like, you know, a concentration of one city. And then we want to build a system where we want to build a product to empower everyone to be able to find the best job that they can, regardless of their location.

Yeah.

I know you have some big customers. Are you able to name some of them?

Uh, yeah. Like, you know, I know here ElevenLabs,right? European company, doing extremely well. They're running everything on Deel. And we have AI companies, we have retail brands like Chanel, Hermès are all Deel clients. And what are some other companies?

Sourcery.

Sourcery. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And a lot of, like, you know, we work with a lot of banks as well and venture capitalists as well.

So I have known Shuo for a while. I recently recorded with her at the Hill & Valley Forum in DC. It's like a, for those who don't know, it's kind of like a defense tech bipartisan conference. And I was asking everyone their hottest take.

I asked David Friedberg what his hottest take was. It went completely viral. We asked Shuo what her hottest take was. And it was probably the hottest, most honest take in the room. Shuo, what was your hot take?

I, I—my hot take back then was that I think people need to sell more. Yeah. People are not hustling enough, and then people are not, like, you know, trying their best to get revenue or get clients.

The one thing I've noticed with you, whether we're on vacation or in Hawaii or here, no matter we're at any dinner, she tries to sell whoever we're sitting at the table with. And she'll follow up with it at the end.

So if you guys haven't met her yet, she's coming for you. She's really great. But you started off as an engineer. So what made you, like, work yourself into whatever principles you use for sales now?

That is a great question. I would say, like, you know, my background is robotics. So I started robotics at MIT. And for my first company, I was the CTO of my company. So I designed, like, you know, big machines and products.

I never thought that I would be in charge of revenue or I would be, like, you know, managing a large sales team. And, but the thing is, fundamentally, I think it is all about building systems. And it is all about, like, you know, being as scientific as you can, like, you know, regardless, like, you know, whichever team that you're building,right?

And then for sales, I think it breaks down, like, you know, you need to understand what people want. The people, including what your clients want,right? And you design the best product for that. And also you need to understand what your sales team want.

You need to, like, you know, find ways to incentivize them so that you can be successful, so that they can sell the product to the client.

One thing that's special about this is your team is entirely remote. So how do you do this as a remote organization?

Wow. We are remote since day one. And then we have sales teams across by now 120 different countries,right? And then we have clients, like, you know, truly globally. And then I think the key there is building the good culture,right?

So as I mentioned earlier, we need to understand what sales team wants,right? And I think a sales commission, making sure that they will be able to make a lot of money is very, very important. But also on top of that, I think, like, you know, build a culture of winning and then building a culture of continuously, you know, innovate and then continuously deliver the best product on the market.

Really also, like, you know, access the team. Yeah. And then because of that, I think the team is very, very close. And then, like, you know, they are all very focused to work on the same goal. Yeah. And we have a big sales kickoff, which is what we call Deel kickoff, every single year.

So we flew close to 1,500 people. And then in the same city. And then we closed the door for almost 5 days. And then we just align everyone. What is the goal for the new year will be what is the key areas of focus for product, what's the strategy, and then make sure, like, you know, everyone is super excited.

Yeah.

You guys are evolving your marketing and all the fun with the Deel brand. One of those most recent activations is with Snoop Dogg. So what are you doing with Snoop Dogg?

Uh, wow. That's a really wow. I was very excited for that. Well, thank you for bringing that up. So we are helping Snoop Dogg to hireice cream testers globally. And then Snoop Dogg is paying $10,000 per month for that.

That's insane.

Yeah. Exactly. Like, you know, even Snoop Dogg is going global. So, like, I think for today, if you're building a company, if you're building a brand, you have to aim for global market. Yeah. Because it's the best. It's the best.

Yeah. And you will be growing much faster. Yeah.

So you started with a co-founder. Both of you are international. Can you talk about Alex and how you complement each other?

That's a great question. So I think Alex is like my big brother, even though I am older than him. But I think, like, you know, Alex just has the big brother mentality and he's the CEO of the company.

He's very visionary, very product-focused, and he's very obsessed on, like, you know, customers and then clients and then provide a really, really good product and service for our customers. Yeah. For me, I'm his general. Like, you know, I'm very good at the numbers, understanding, like, you know, data sets and then focus on execution.

Yeah. I would say, like, you know, we really, really complement each other because of that. Yeah.

So your first company was a robotics company. Who helped you? Who inspired you to found that?

Actually, my first company, I got inspired by James Dyson. Yeah. I love him because I think for all of his products that he has built for the past many, many decades, he developed a very simple idea. It's not, like, you know, something that you don't, you're not familiar with, but he's just obsessed by, like, you know, solving a very specific engineering problem and then make that product perfect,right?

So from vacuum cleaner, from, like, you know, air purification systems, from hair dryer. And then today, like, you know, I just saw he's going to launch a toothbrush. I'm going to be.

A $500 toothbrush.

But I'm going to be client number one. Like, you know, I'm just obsessed, like, you know, with how he thinks about the problems, how he builds products, and how he solves those, like, you know, problems. Yeah.

And who inspires you most today at scale as you're growing so fast?

Um, I think, oh, that's a great one. I would say Jeff Bezos. Like.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

He's kind of, like, you know, inspired me since day one. Since one, like, you know, I first decided to become a founder. You know, he has a very famous picture that, like, Amazon sign, which is handwritten. And then he has, like, a very small desk and then no one is surrounded by him.

He's just very focused and then building. So I got inspired by him a lot because I think he's a great system thinker and then he's very, very visionary. And then for, like, you know, what he has been building, he always finds the, he's always innovating himself.

Yeah. And then for me, I think for any founders or anyone that who wants to build an amazing company, your biggest competitor is yourself. So you need to continuously innovate and revolutionize yourself so that you can continuously deliver.

Yeah.

Damn, that's.

That's why I love him. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So as we close out, I'm going to ask you this again. What is your hottest takeright now?

Again, people should sell more. Like, there's so many founders, so many family offices. And, like, you know, if you're a founder, this is, like, you know, you have so many potential clients. Yeah. And another thing I realized is that we're in this part of the world,right?

Everything is so slow. Compared to San Francisco, everything is optimized for efficiency. Like, I just think, like, you know, AI has a lot of potential. Yeah. And then AI hasn't grabbed this part of the world yet. Yeah. So we have a lot of things to build.

Yeah.

Amazing. Shuo, thank you so much. Started off with a bang. Next, we're going to have Jake Brooks of Triumph. Thank you.

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