20VC with Harry Stebbings• Mar 21, 2026• 1:05:06Interview

This is why I don't believe in sales quotas | Figma CRO

From 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Sean Boscanian•CRO, Figma

Executive Summary

Figma employs an unconventional sales organization without traditional Customer Success (CS) or Sales Development (SDR) teams, making Account Executives responsible for their own pipeline.
The company's go-to-market strategy layers a proactive, outbound sales motion on top of a strong Product-Led Growth (PLG) foundation, focusing on expanding within its large existing customer base.
Figma sets relatively low sales quotas (3-4x OTE) to incentivize complex, value-add selling and views quota attainment as a lagging indicator, focusing instead on inputs like pipeline generation and discovery skills.
The company is evolving its pricing, defending the success of its seat-based model while planning to introduce a usage-based, credit system for upcoming AI features.

12 quotes

Concerns Raised

Managing fully remote sales teams is more difficult and puts significant pressure on leadership.
The risk of making bad hires when scaling a sales team rapidly.

Opportunities Identified

Driving significant expansion revenue by proactively selling new products and use cases into the large existing customer base.
Monetizing new AI features through a usage-based pricing model.
Continuing to increase sales headcount to deepen strategic work with enterprise customers.
Capitalizing on a high net retention rate (136%) to drive compound growth.

Key Themes

Product-Led Sales (PLS) Evolution

Figma built its sales machine on top of a powerful self-serve, PLG motion. The sales team's role has evolved from converting self-serve users to higher tiers to a proactive, outbound motion focused on expanding product adoption and introducing new use cases within the existing, vast customer base.

This provides a successful blueprint for SaaS companies on how to layer a sophisticated sales function onto a PLG foundation without cannibalizing the core motion, driving significant expansion revenue.

Unconventional Sales Org Design

Figma deliberately eschews traditional sales roles like SDRs and CS. Account Executives are held directly responsible for pipeline generation, and the 'hunting' motion of educating customers on new value is considered a core sales function, not a post-sale success function.

This model challenges conventional wisdom about sales specialization, suggesting that a more integrated, AE-driven approach can be highly effective, especially when expanding within an existing user base.

Pragmatic Quota and Performance Philosophy

CRO Sean Boscanian believes sales quotas are often arbitrary. Figma sets them at a relatively low 3-4x OTE to reward the difficult, proactive work of expansion. Performance is evaluated on leading indicators like pipeline generation and discovery skills, not just the lagging indicator of quota attainment.

This counter-intuitive approach to quotas and performance management can foster a healthier sales culture, reduce churn, and better align incentives with complex, value-based selling motions.

Strategic Hiring and Scaling

Figma's sales hiring process is rigorous, with a strong negative bias against candidates who frequently change jobs. The process emphasizes identifying grit and perseverance, often through take-home assignments, and prioritizes making the right hire over filling seats quickly to meet a hiring plan.

This highlights the importance of a disciplined, quality-over-quantity hiring approach to build a resilient and high-performing sales team, even during periods of rapid scaling.

Hybrid Pricing Model Strategy

While many SaaS companies are shifting entirely to usage-based pricing, Figma's data supports the continued success of its seat-based model, which recently contributed to a net retention increase to 136%. However, the company plans to adopt a usage-based credit system for new AI features, indicating a flexible, hybrid approach to monetization.

This demonstrates that a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy is not necessary. Companies can successfully operate a hybrid model, leveraging the predictability of seat-based pricing for core products and the flexibility of usage-based pricing for new, resource-intensive features.

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Topics

Sales Strategy Go-to-Market (GTM)Product-Led Growth (PLG)Product-Led Sales Sales Team Structure Sales Quotas Sales Compensation On-Target Earnings (OTE)Account Executive (AE)Customer Success (CS)Sales Hiring Enterprise Sales SaaS Pricing Models Seat-Based Pricing Usage-Based Pricing Figma Net Retention

Processed Mar 29, 2026 yt-dlp + mlx-whisper + Gemini