Datadog

The Death of Sales Inertia: Why PLG is Only the Beginning Many founders fall into the trap of believing that a strong Product-Led Growth (PLG) motion renders a traditional sales force obsolete. They see the viral loops, the self-service credit card swipes, and the organic adoption and think the machine runs itself. Shaunt Voskanian, the CRO at Figma, dismantles this myth. While Figma spent six years perfecting its product before aggressive monetization, the true scaling happened when they layered a sophisticated sales motion on top of that organic foundation. In the early days, sales at Figma was reactive—essentially upgrading self-service users to higher tiers. Today, it is a proactive, outbound powerhouse. The pivot from being order-takers to becoming strategic partners is what separates a successful startup from a generational company. When your product is already in the building, the sales role shifts. You aren't just selling a tool; you are selling a vision of what that tool can become within the specific architecture of a client's business. This requires moving beyond simple curiosity to being prescriptive. You must bring insights that the customer hasn't yet discovered for themselves. The Quota Fallacy: Why Modern Sales Needs a New Philosophy One of the most provocative stances in the current venture landscape is the rejection of traditional quota setting. Most sales leaders treat quotas as a mathematical hedge—if you need $500 million in ARR, you dish out $600 million in quota to account for underperformers. This is lazy leadership. It creates a false sense of security while ignoring the actual work required to close complex deals. At Figma, quotas are viewed through a different lens: they are a philosophy of reward rather than a tool for risk management. For high-stakes, strategic work, Shaunt%20Voskanian argues for aggressive, attainable quotas. If you are asking a rep to manage multi-stakeholder deals, build champions in massive enterprises, and navigate a complex tech ecosystem, you cannot treat them like a transactional commodity. By setting quotas at roughly 3x to 4x of On-Target Earnings (OTE), you incentivize the right behaviors. This contrasts sharply with the "efficiency-first" model seen at companies like 11%20Labs, which might utilize a 20x quota. The choice depends entirely on the market pull. If the market is pulling the product out of your hands, focus on efficiency. If you are pulling the market toward a new solution, focus on rewarding the strategic hunters. Behavioral Metrics Over Lagging Indicators Judging a sales rep solely on whether they hit their number is a recipe for disaster. Quota attainment is a lagging indicator; by the time you realize a rep has missed their target, the damage is already done. Instead, elite organizations must be obsessed with behaviors and competencies. This means documenting exactly how a rep shows up: Are they collaborative? Do they have a growth mindset? Are they executing discovery calls with precision? When a rep struggles, the first question shouldn't be about the number, but about the 'why.' If the rep is grinding, executing high-quality pipeline generation (PG), and following the methodology—yet the deals aren't closing—the problem might be the quota itself or a systemic market shift. Moving a high-performing 'behavioral' rep out of the business just because of a missed number is a tactical error. You must be patient with those who exhibit the right 'will' but are still refining the 'skill.' Conversely, have zero patience for those who lack the drive, regardless of their past performance. A 'bad seed' who hits their number can still poison the well for the rest of the team. The Specialized War Room: Killing the SDR/CS Tradition Figma has taken a first-principles approach to team structure, effectively eliminating traditional Sales Development Representative (SDR) and Customer Success (CS) roles. In many organizations, SDRs are used as a crutch for Account Executives (AEs) who don't want to hunt. This creates friction and ambiguity. At Figma, AEs are responsible for their own pipeline generation. This ensures they are intimately familiar with the accounts they are trying to close from day one. Similarly, the traditional CS role often becomes a reactive support function. Figma replaced this with a hunting-focused expansion motion. Instead of 'managing' accounts, they map them. They identify the gap between a client's current usage and a best-in-class deployment. This isn't support; it’s sales. By creating specialized segments—SMB for the PLG upgrade motion and Mid-Market/Enterprise for the strategic sales-led motion—the organization ensures that every rep has a clear, focused mandate. When you ask a rep to do fourteen different things, they will be mediocre at all of them. Specialization is the only way to maintain high-velocity growth at scale. The Architect of the Deal: Hiring for Grit and Perseverance When building a world-class revenue org, the hiring process is the most critical inflection point. While industry experience is valuable, deal experience is non-negotiable. You can teach a smart person a new industry in a matter of weeks, but you cannot easily teach someone how to manage a multi-stakeholder, long-cycle enterprise deal if they've only ever done transactional sales. Look for candidates who show a visceral reaction to challenges. Avoid the 'jumpy' resumes—those who spend twelve to eighteen months at a company and then bail. Scaling a startup requires people who can weather the 'trough of sorrow' and persevere when things get tough. A rigorous interview process should include a 'take-home' assignment that forces the candidate to demonstrate discovery skills and a willingness to dive deep into the product. It’s not about a perfect demo; it’s about seeing if they have the intellectual curiosity and the grit to lead a conversation in a foreign environment. Future-Proofing the Sales Org: Agents and Innovation The next decade of sales will be defined by the integration of agentic AI and automated workflows. While many sales leaders are currently focused on execution, those who ignore the shifting tech landscape risk being left behind. The goal is to remove the 'friction of the mundane'—data entry, CRM updates, and administrative overhead—allowing reps to focus on the high-value, strategic work that only humans can do. As we look toward the future, the successful sales leader will be an orchestrator of both human talent and technological agents. This requires a move toward classroom-style, in-person training to foster culture, combined with a relentless adoption of tools that make the job easier. The mission remains the same: find the problem, build the solution, and ignite the market. But the tools we use to achieve that mission are evolving faster than ever. Stay hungry, stay curious, and never settle for a made-up number when you could be building a movement.