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 https://youtu.be/9_hERpzF_E0 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Zone https://zonefrontier.com/—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 https://zonefrontier.com/ • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—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 https://fundrise.com/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 http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—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 http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, 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 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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Molly O'Shea?

  Welcome to Sorcery.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  The potential of photonics.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  The technology to interconnect these GPUs.

• 0:14Speaker 03

  Global payroll and HR platform. Eight billion operational data points.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Scale-ups over startups. You'd rather have a million of something than one of anything. Building the intelligence layer for defense.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  There isn't enough power. There's not enough memory chips. We're at the end of physics of what we can still do.

• 0:40Molly O'Shea?

  Shou, welcome to Sorcery. We're here at the Strike Summit. How's it going?

• 0:46Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me. Everything is going well. And then, like, you know, I love, so far, I have been loving Monaco.

• 0:54Molly O'Shea?

  So, we're gonna talk with you about sales and growth. For people who don't know Deal, I'd be very surprised if you don't. They're crushing it, if not killing it. So Deal is a seventeen point three billion dollar company. They most recently surpassed one point five billion in ARR.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:13Molly O'Shea?

  Shou is the CRO of that, so she's handling all the sales and building the teams around it. So Deel went from one million in sales to a hundred million in twenty months. Then they went from one hundred million to a billion in ARR in five years. So, Shou.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  In three years.

• 1:34Molly O'Shea?

  And, oh, revise that one.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  From a hundred million to one billion within three years. Yeah.

• 1:39Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, correction. So how did you scale from one hundred million to a billion in three years?

• 1:45Speaker 03

  For a little bit background info about Deal, Deal is a global payroll and HR platform. And we help companies to hire, manage, pay talents globally. And we're live in one hundred and sixty different countries. So that means for every single country, we'll have our own entity, we'll have our own compliance team, payroll team, taxes, legal, everything. And we build automation and then products in-house. So that means, like, you know, we automatically have a huge team, right? And then, within that huge team, theoretically, everyone can be paid on Deal. And then we just grow very fast because of the market. And also, we're global since day one.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  And it is very different from a lot of the Silicon Valley companies that you focus on one country and you do it very well and you expand. So we can, like, you know, build a global team very, very early on. Yeah.

• 2:43Molly O'Shea?

  What was your decision to go global on day one and not just dominate one market?

• 2:47Speaker 03

  I think it is from the founders, right? And also, like, you know, the product itself. Alex, my co-founder, and myself were very international. I was born and raised in China and moved to the States at the age of sixteen. And Alex is French, and then he moved to the States at the age of nineteen. And then, just from our background, we realized that, like, you know, the world is a very big place. And then there are many, many, like, you know, great talents from every single country out there. And then it is not only, like, you know, a concentration of one city.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  And then we want to build a system, where we want to build a product to empower everyone to be able to find the best job that they can, regardless of their location. Yeah.

• 3:36Molly O'Shea?

  I know you have some big customers. Are you able to name some of them?

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, you know, I know here, Eleven Labs, right, European company, doing extremely well. They're, they're running everything on Deal. And we have AI companies, we have retail brands, like Chanel, Hermès are all Deal clients. And what are some other companies?

• 4:03Molly O'Shea?

  Sorcery.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Sorcery.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Of course, and a lot of, like, you know, we work with a lot of banks as well and venture capitalists as well.

• 4:15Molly O'Shea?

  So, I have known Shou for a while. I recently recorded with her at the Hill and Valley Forum in DC. It's like, for those who don't know, it's, it's kind of like a defense tech bipartisan conference. And I was asking everyone their hottest take. I asked David Friedberg what his hottest take was. It went completely viral. We asked Shou what her hottest take was, and it was probably the hottest, most honest take in the room. Shou, what was your hot take?

• 4:44Speaker 03

  I, my hot take back then was like, I think people need to sell more. Yeah, people are not hustling enough. And then people are now, like, you know, trying their best to get revenue or get clients.

• 4:55Molly O'Shea?

  The one thing I've noticed with you, whether we're on vacation or in Hawaii or here, no matter we're at any dinner, she tries to sell whoever we're sitting at the table, and she'll follow up with it at the end. So if you guys haven't met her yet, she's coming for you. She's really great. But you started off as an engineer, so what, what made you, like, work yourself into whatever principles you use for sales now?

• 5:21Speaker 03

  That is a great question. I would say, like, you know, my background is robotics, so I started robotics at MIT. And for my first company, I was the CTO of my company. So I designed, like, you know, big machines and products. I never thought that I would be in charge of revenue or I would be, like, you know, managing a, a large sales team. And, but the thing is, fundamentally, I think it is all about building systems. And it is all about, like, you know, being as scientific as you can, like, you know, regardless, like, you know, whichever team that you're building, right? And then for sales, I think it breaks down, like, you know, you need to understand what people want.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  The people, including what your clients want, right? And you design the best product for that. And also, you need to understand what your sales team want. You need to, like, you know, find ways to incentivize them so that you can be successful, so that they can sell the product to the client.

• 6:18Molly O'Shea?

  One thing that's special about this is your team is entirely remote. So how do you do this as a remote organization?

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Wow, we are remote since day one. And then we have, we have sales teams across by now one hundred and twenty different countries, right? And then we have clients, like, you know, truly globally. And then I think the key there is building the good culture, right? So as I mentioned earlier, we need to understand what sales team wants, right? And I, I think a sales commission, making sure that they will be able to make a lot of money is very, very important. But also on top of that, I think, like, you know, build a culture of winning and then building a culture of continuously innovate and then continuously deliver the best product on the market, really also, like, you know, access the team. Yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  And then because of that, I think the team is very, very close. And then, like, you know, they are all very focused to, to, to work on the same goal. Yeah. And we have a big sales kickoff, which is what we call Deal kickoff every single year. So we've grew close to a thousand five hundred people. And then in the same city, and then we, we closed the door for almost five days. And then we just align everyone, what is the goal for the new year will be, what is the key areas of focus for product, what's the strategy? And then make sure, like, you know, everyone is super excited. Yeah.

• 7:48Molly O'Shea?

  You guys are evolving your marketing and all the fun with the Deal brand. One of those most recent activations is with Snoop Dogg. So what are you doing with Snoop Dogg?

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Wow, that, that, that's a great one. I was very excited for that. Well, thank you for bringing that up. So we are helping Snoop Dogg to hire ice cream tasters globally. And then Snoop, Snoop Dogg is paying ten thousand dollars per month for that.

• 8:15Molly O'Shea?

  That's insane.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, even Snoop, Snoop Dogg is going global. So, like, I think for today, if you're building a company, if you're building a brand, you have to aim for global market. Yeah, because it's, it's, it's the best, it's the best. Yeah, and you will be grow much faster. Yeah.

• 8:34Molly O'Shea?

  So you started with a co-founder. Both of you are international. Can you talk about Alex and how you complement each other?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  That's a great question. So I think Alex is like my big brother, even though I am older than him. But I think, like, you know, Alex is just has the big brother mentality, and then he's the CEO of the company. He's very visionary, very product focused, and he's very obsessed on, like, you know, customers and then clients and then provide a really, really good product and service for our, our customers. Yeah. For me, I'm his general. Like, you know, I'm very good at the numbers, understanding, like, you know, data sets, and then focus on execution. Yeah, I, I would say, like, you know, we really, really complement each other because of that. Yeah.

• 9:24Molly O'Shea?

  So your first company was a robotics company. Who helped you, who inspired you to found that?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Actually, my first company, I got inspired by James Dyson. Yeah, I, I love him. Because I think for all of his products that he has built for the past many, many decades, is he developed a very simple idea. It's not like, you know, something that you, you don't, you're not familiar with. But he's just obsessed by, like, you know, solving a very specific engineering problem and make that product perfect, right? So from vacuum cleaner, from, like, you know, air purification systems, from hair dryer. And then today, like, you know, I just saw he, he is going to launch a toothbrush. I'm going to be.

• 10:10Molly O'Shea?

  A five hundred dollar toothbrush?

• 10:11Speaker 03

  But I'm going to be client number one. Like, you know, I'm just obsessed, like, you know, with how he thinks about the problems, how he build the products, and how he solves those, like, you know, problems. Yeah.

• 10:24Molly O'Shea?

  And who inspires you most today at scale as you're growing so fast?

• 10:30Speaker 03

  I think, that's a great one. I would say Jeff Bezos.

• 10:36Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:37Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  He, he's kind of like, you know, inspired me since day one, since when, like, you know, I first decided to become a founder. You know, he has a very famous picture that, like, Amazon sign, which is handwriting. And then he has, like, a very small desk, and then no one is surrounded by him. He's just very focused and then building. So I got inspired by him a lot because I think he's a great system thinker, and then he's very, very visionary. And then for, like, you know, what he has been building, he always founded, he is always innovating himself. Yeah. And then for me, I think for any founders or anyone that who wants to build an amazing company, your biggest competitor is yourself.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  So you need to continuously innovate and revitalize yourself so that you can continuously deliver. Yeah.

• 11:31Molly O'Shea?

  Damn, that's.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  That's why I love him. Yeah.

• 11:35Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, so as we close out, I'm gonna ask you this again. What is your hottest take right now?

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Again, people should sell more. Like, there's so many founders, so many family offices. And, like, you know, if you're a founder, this is, like, you know, you have so many potential clients. Yeah. And another thing I realized is that we're in this part of the world, right? Everything is so slow compared to San Francisco. Everything is optimized for efficiency. Like, I just think, like, you know, AI has a lot of potential. Yeah. And then AI hasn't grabbed this part of the world yet. Yeah, so we have a lot of things to build. Yeah.

• 12:16Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing. Shou, thank you so much. Started off with a bang. Next, we're gonna have Jake Brooks of Triumph. Thank you. Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.