From 100 sales meetings a week to $600M ARR - Carles Reina [ElevenLabs]

<p>Today on <strong>BILLIONS</strong>, I&#39;m sitting down with <strong>Carles Reina</strong>, the<strong> first investor and fourth employee at ElevenLabs</strong>, to unpack the AI bubble, the rise of Chinese models, and Europe&#39;s fight to stay in the race.</p><p>Carles helped build ElevenLabs&#39; go-to-market engine on the road to over<strong> $600 million in annual recurring revenue</strong>. As the founder of <strong>Baobab Ventures</strong>, he also sees the other side of the boom: the funding rounds that may be getting ahead of reality.</p><p><br></p><p>Before the scale came 80 to 100 sales meetings a week, a Google Sheets CRM, and months of testing who would actually pay. Then came a sales model most teams would question: quotas set at <strong>20 times base salary</strong>, uncapped commissions, and <strong>average quota attainment of around 167%.</strong></p><p><br></p><p>But this conversation goes beyond the ElevenLabs growth story. We debate the commercial barriers Carles sees around Chinese AI models, why he believes Europe is not investing seriously enough in AI infrastructure, and what it takes to build a global company from day one.</p><p><br></p><p>He also explains why extraordinary growth and an AI bubble can exist at the same time - and why he expects some aggressively valued startups to face a funding reality check within six to nine months of this conversation.</p><p>In this masterclass, we break down:</p><ul><li><strong>The 100-Meeting Week</strong>: How Carles tested his way from creator demand to a repeatable sales motion, then hired reps who started closing deals within weeks.</li><li><strong>The 20x Quota Rule</strong>: Why ElevenLabs set targets at 20 times base salary, rewarded overperformance with commission accelerators, and adjusted expectations when markets proved tougher.</li><li><strong>Permission to Fail:</strong> Why Carles encouraged experiments with company money - and only needed one idea out of 100 to unlock the next stage of growth.</li><li><strong>The AI Adoption Gap</strong>: Why strong Chinese models do not automatically translate into easy enterprise adoption, and why Europe needs more than technical talent to compete.</li><li><strong>The Operator-Investor Playbook:</strong> Why Carles kept Baobab small despite $23M in commitments, and why he wants to return capital to investors along the way.</li><li><strong>The Valuation Reality Check:</strong> How real AI demand can coexist with overheated funding rounds,