Shaunt Voskanian on Figma’s Sales Motion, Quotas and Coaching

Figma chief revenue officer Shaunt Voskanian joins Harry Stebbings to discuss building a sales organization around a product that many customers initially adopt themselves. His descriptions of Figma’s performance, products and staffing are the company executive’s account; his hiring and compensation advice is his perspective, shaped by that business.

Voskanian says he entered sales by accident, taking a summer job at a mobile-phone kiosk while studying advertising. Given a few pamphlets and little instruction, he had to work out how to help customers. Looking back, his first advice to that younger salesperson would be to stay curious about each buyer’s situation.

Stebbings asks whether busy customers have time for discovery. Voskanian says good enterprise sellers must combine curiosity with a prescriptive point of view: bring relevant insights from other customers, but also learn enough to understand the buyer’s circumstances. He sees the balance as a skill rather than a choice between preparation and questions.

Figma’s early adoption, he says, often began with someone purchasing a few licenses online and sharing the product internally. When he joined, sales largely responded to existing self-service customers and upgraded them to higher tiers. He estimates the company’s scale at that time approximately and does not provide a precise financial period or metric.

Today, Voskanian says Figma serves several customer segments and that much of the sales team’s work, particularly in larger accounts, is outbound. He clarifies that this does not mean all company business is outbound: representatives often approach existing users with ideas for expanding use. His account reflects Figma’s particular customer base, not a universal rule for product-led companies.

Figma does not have a traditional customer-success team, according to Voskanian. He says many users made their own decisions about value, while the commercial team sees opportunities to educate them on additional uses. He characterizes that work as a hunting motion that can involve building new champions and reaching economic buyers.

Asked whether expansion means more users or more products, he says both, with somewhat more emphasis at the time on new products and new personas. For platform sales, he recommends understanding where the customer wants to go and honestly identifying where the offering delivers value compared with an alternative. His product claims come from a Figma executive.

On seat-based pricing, Voskanian says he has not seen evidence in Figma’s business that it is dead, while admitting the long-term outcome is hard to predict. He cites net revenue retention rising from 131% to 136% and says AI credits were about to be introduced. Those are his reported company figures and plans; retention is not a measure of total revenue growth.

Stebbings argues that a seat model may face different pressure in customer support if software replaces labor. Voskanian agrees the distinction is plausible but says he does not know those other businesses as well. He limits his observation to Figma’s customers rather than declaring one pricing model suitable for every category.

Figma also lacks traditional sales-development representatives, Voskanian says, though it uses related resources and continues to adjust their work. He believes account executives must generate their own pipeline. The challenge is to define the incremental contribution of a separate development role, especially when the main opportunity is expansion within existing customers.

He says the company has experimented with development staff supporting account expansion and more recently with handling smaller transactional renewals so strategic account executives can focus. He also sees the role as a potential talent pipeline. This is a changing allocation of duties, not a claim that development work has disappeared.

When Voskanian arrived, account executives and account managers served mid-market and enterprise customers with similar upgrade and support work. He argues that a representative asked to do too many different jobs struggles to excel at all of them. Figma therefore separated the motions according to customer size and the work required.

He describes three motions: online self-service; a product-led sales motion focused on small and medium businesses, which Figma defines here as organizations with up to 500 employees; and sales-led mid-market, enterprise and strategic accounts. The segmentation is Figma’s internal operating model, not a standard definition used by every company.

Asked when to contact a self-service customer, Voskanian prefers a little early to a little late, because even a promising product signal may require several conversations before an upgrade. He says timing depends on usage, product features and customer maturity rather than one universal trigger. His team sometimes loses an upgrade and wins it months later.

For larger accounts, representatives map the organization, develop a view of what a broader deployment might look like and identify the gap with current use. They create opportunities, build champions and run regular pipeline and forecast reviews. Although the accounts may already be customers, he says the work resembles a traditional new-business sales process.

To build a champion, Voskanian recommends offering an insight relevant to that person’s work and helping the team improve, rather than relying only on enthusiasm for a product. The customer needs a reason to advocate for a change internally. He describes this as part of a consultative relationship.

Voskanian calls quotas partly “made up,” but quickly clarifies that Figma does use them. His objection is to treating the total quota assigned to representatives as proof that the company’s target is de-risked. In his view, quotas should express the work needed and how the business wants to reward it, and the right approach varies with the sales motion.

In an early, high-demand product-led motion, the work may be closer to helping customers use and expand a product they already want; he says it still has challenges. In strategic enterprise sales, representatives must generate opportunities, work across stakeholders and bring business insight. He argues that different work requires different compensation and efficiency assumptions.

Voskanian says Figma’s average enterprise representative might carry a quota roughly three to four times on-target earnings, intentionally allowing a relatively attainable target for demanding strategic work. This is his approximate description for that segment at the time, not a company-wide ratio, achieved revenue figure or a general benchmark.

If forced to choose between sector expertise and experience managing a large deal, he favors the latter, provided the candidate actually handled complex sales rather than benefiting from an unusually easy win. He believes a curious person can learn an industry, while building confidence across stakeholders and long sales cycles can take time.

In hiring, Voskanian says a pattern of very short tenures makes him cautious, while recognizing that people can leave jobs for many reasons and others disagree with him. He looks for perseverance and a willingness to learn, but admits these are hard to establish in an interview. These are his hiring preferences, not a reliable judgment about any individual candidate.

Figma’s interview exercise asks candidates to study a case, lead a discovery conversation and demonstrate a short product workflow. Voskanian pays particular attention to the questions and discovery, while keeping a product element to see whether a candidate invested effort in learning. He acknowledges that a polished demo is difficult after only a few days with a product.

He values references outside the formal interview process and looks for genuine interest at offer stage. He says he does not assume that negotiating is a bad sign and respects candidates exploring multiple options, but is cautious when someone still appears uncommitted at the end. His observations about past hires do not establish that negotiation or job changes predict performance.

Asked whether to hire quickly or miss a hiring plan, he prefers taking longer to avoid a candidate the team does not believe in. At the same time, he says even a strong selection process cannot perfectly predict performance. The work continues after hiring through management, enablement and a fair chance to improve.

He recalls a former colleague placed on a performance plan who improved with coaching and later earned promotions. Voskanian uses the example to argue that a struggling representative may have potential if the manager identifies the gaps and supplies support. One anecdote does not prove how often a performance plan succeeds.

He estimates his wider Figma organization is approaching 500 people, including supporting roles, and gives approximate figures for customers and quota-carrying representatives. He says he expects to invest in more sales headcount to support strategic work, but explicitly notes that Figma’s situation may differ from other companies. These are approximations and plans, not a hiring guarantee.

For hiring mistakes, he distinguishes a desire for career growth from a narrow focus on immediate personal reward. He says some of the strongest earners he has known concentrated first on learning and development. This is his interpretation of his experience, not a general finding that candidates who negotiate pay will perform worse.

On onboarding, he says there is no perfect reusable formula: the plan should match what a representative needs to do. A small-business seller handling upgrades may need different preparation from a strategic representative with one or two large accounts. He starts by defining the skills the role actually requires.

For a strategic hire, Voskanian wants early exposure to accounts and customer conversations before a more formal onboarding program. The seller can begin learning the customer’s business and building relationships while getting established. He says Figma was rebuilding its program and moving toward in-person classroom training at the time of the interview.

The planned training covers the product, market landscape, positioning, customer examples and sales process, followed by continued updates as products and competitors change. Voskanian says the team uses an enablement platform, Slack, meetings and other systems. He candidly acknowledges that information is scattered and search and synchronization need improvement.

Asked whether execution has crowded out attention to sales technology, he says he worries that it has. He wants tools to reduce friction such as duplicate data entry, but admits he is not personally an expert in training agents and does not know whether the team has all the necessary skills. His response is to explore and acquire expertise where needed.

His provocative view on performance is that hitting quota alone is not enough to understand a representative’s work. Quotas can be set too high or too low, and results may lag the activity of a strategic account. He fears that judging only the number can encourage managers to avoid examining what actually happened.

Figma’s performance framework, as he describes it, still includes results and quota alongside behaviors and competencies. He cites pipeline generation, discovery and pipeline management as capabilities, and collaboration and growth as behaviors. Stebbings presses him to make the categories concrete rather than reward vague enthusiasm without contracts.

If a representative misses quota despite strong activity and improving skills, Voskanian wants a manager to understand whether the target or timing is wrong before replacing them. He asks what a replacement would be expected to do better. This is his management approach, not a guarantee that strong activity always produces a sale.

He sees room for a productive individual contributor who prefers working independently, provided that person is not harming colleagues. Some people may be unaware of how they are perceived and respond to coaching. He distinguishes that from behavior that damages a team, where he recommends feedback and faster action if the problem persists.

For an early-stage company setting quotas, Voskanian starts with the sales motion: is demand pulling the product into the market, or must the team create demand through difficult outbound work? He favors more attainable quotas to attract people for strategic selling and a greater efficiency focus for a highly transactional, demand-driven motion.

When someone struggles, he says he is generally more patient with a person who is working hard, learning and improving than with someone whose behavior or effort is damaging the team. He emphasizes examining what support the company has provided as well as what the individual can control. The appropriate decision still depends on the circumstances.

Voskanian favors focus and specialization early, but says industry-specific vertical teams depend on the product. Figma had not organized sales teams by industry, he says; it instead used segments, personas and some overlay teams. He mentions the acquired Weavy product as an example of a more specialized sales motion.

In the quick-fire round, he praises his former employer Datadog’s retention and promotion practices, an assessment informed by his own experience there. He is skeptical of sales gifts, although he concedes they may work for some. He says fully remote sales teams are harder to lead but can expand access to talent.

Looking back, he thinks he may have spent too long observing Figma’s culture before making changes, though he does not describe it as a major regret. He is optimistic about possible medical advances from AI, without claiming a specific treatment or outcome. He also wants to be present with his children while continuing to develop the team.

Stebbings and Voskanian close by reflecting on parenting and the limits of time with family. Voskanian says his parents did their best under financial pressures and that he looks back on his childhood warmly despite difficulties. The conversation ends with mutual thanks.