How Deel Scaled From $100M to $1B+ ARR in 3 Years

Deel went from $1M to $100M in ARR in under 20 months, then from $100M to $1B in just 3 years.

Today, the company has surpassed $1.5B in revenue and is valued at $17.3B.

I sat down with Shuo Wang, Co-Founder & CRO of Deel, to break down the sales and operating machine behind one of the fastest-growing companies in tech.

Shuo co-founded Deel alongside Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO, in 2019. They built Deel as a global company from day one. Today, the company helps businesses hire, manage and pay teams around the world.

We get into:

› How Deel scaled from $100M to $1B in three years

› Why Shuo thinks founders simply aren't selling enough

› Building and incentivizing a remote sales organization across 120 countries

› How an MIT-trained robotics engineer became CRO and applies systems thinking to sales

› Shuo and Alex's founder dynamic, going global from day one and what she's learned from James Dyson and Jeff Bezos

Recorded at the Strike x Sourcery Summit in the South of France

Shuo Wang: https://x.com/shuooo

Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea

Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊

YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/9_hERpzF_E0

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery

• Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com

• Turing—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery

• VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com

• Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery

• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery

Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!

https://www.sourcery.vc

Disclosure

Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒

(00:00) Shuo Wang, Co-Founder & CRO at Deel

(00:41) How Deel went from $100M to $1B ARR in 3 years

(02:43) Why Deel went global from day one

(03:36) Who uses Deel? From ElevenLabs to Chanel

(04:16) Hot take: People need to sell more

(05:15) Why sales is really about systems

(06:18) How to build a winning remote sales team

(07:48) Going global with Snoop Dogg

(08:34) How Shou and Alex divide the roles

(09:23) The founder who inspired Shuo

(10:24) The Bezos mindset

(11:36) Hot take: Why founders need to sell more