How ElevenLabs is Scaling Outbound From 5% to 46% With Human SDRs

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Jonathan Chemouny is GTM at ElevenLabs, where he scaled outbound from 5% to 46% of pipeline in one year with a small distributed team. He previously built SDR teams at Intercom and Lattice. His team runs with no job titles, no standups, and no activity metrics, operating on async Slack and trust-based autonomy.

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Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Snipd.

This episode was first published on outbound.kitchen.

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We discuss:

• Why an AI-native company at 95% inbound decided to hire human SDRs instead of automating everything

• How ElevenLabs defines outbound -- pure cold vs. PLG-assisted -- and why the distinction changes the entire playbook

• Why finance and VC backgrounds outperform career SDRs, and the 4-round hiring process that screens for AI fluency and pressure tolerance

• The operating system: no standups, no pipeline reviews, async Slack (”Slack militaire”), and AI agents replacing management overhead

• SDRs running demos, flying to meet prospects, and attending events solo -- one rep skipped President’s Club for CCW Berlin and returned with 60+ SQOs

• The AI SDR handling multilingual inbound qualification (78% of decisions require no human intervention)

• WhatsApp as a prospecting channel in Europe and why LinkedIn is outperforming email

Referenced:

• ElevenLabs VP of Sales, Carles Reina: Inside ElevenLabs $330M ARR Sales Machine & The 20x Sales Comp Plan Reps Must Hit (20x Base-to-quota model)

• Jonathan Chemouny on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chemouny/

• ElevenLabs: elevenlabs.io

My biggest takeaways from this conversation: