Inside Figma's $1B ARR Machine | Shaunt Voskanian

We don't actually have a traditional CS team. We also don't have traditional SDRs. My perspective is quotas are kind of made up.

Today we have Shaunt Voskanian joining us in the hot seat. Shaunt is the CRO, Chief Revenue Officer at Figma, where we discuss how to build a sales machine on top of a PLG motion.

An average enterprise rep here might have 3 to 4X their OTE for a quota, and we're happy with that. Focus and specialization, no question, as early as possible. Now, if we're talking about verticalization-

Ready to go? [upbeat music] Shaunt, it is so good to have you on the show, dude. I said I, I'm so lucky in the way that, like, I get to interview the coolest people, and, like, Figma as a product is incredible. The machine that you've built is awesome. I'd just love to start on you and, like, the love of sales. When did you know that you loved sales? Was there a, "Aha, this is my career"?

Uh, it happened kind of by accident, like I think it maybe does for a lot of people. I mean, when I was, um, going to school, graduating high school, thinking about college, it wasn't really, like, a, I mean, there was obviously the sales profession, but it wasn't something you really studied. And so for me, I kind of fell into it. I, um, I ended up going to school at BU. I was studying advertising. We had to get a summer job, and I remembered, um, you know, for me, just, like, the year before, I'd got my very first cell phone. So this is back, you know, 2000. Cell phones were becoming a thing. You didn't have them when you were much younger than that. And I remember when I got my phone, it was in a mall. It was in one of those kiosks. And I remember asking the woman who worked there, I was like, "Hey, how did you get this job?" She was like, "Well, I'm a law student, and this is a way to make extra money, and you can do really well." And I was like, "I wonder if, like, I could do that." So, uh, you know, I went to the same kiosk in the mall that I bought my own phone with my mom the year before, and I met this guy who was working there. And I said, "Hey, how, how does one get a job like this? I have no idea. But I'm, you know, I'm home for the summer. I'm looking for work." And, uh, he said, "Well, why don't you start by just, like, writing down some information here about yourself?" So he gave me this piece of paper. I wrote down my name, my address, my phone number. He's like, "Okay, great. You start Tuesday." And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Yeah, cool. You're hired, man." Like, and I showed up Tuesday. Uh, he handed me some pamphlets. He was like, "These are the plans you want to sell, and you make money. These are the ones you don't want to sell. No one cares about the phones. You sell whatever's in the, in the bin. Go to work." And he left. And I was like, "Oh my God." And, um, I started figure, figuring it out.