Pick My Brain with Alan Jones 
About Ilana Elbaz
Ilana Elbaz was Deel's fifth employee and its first go-to-market hire, helping build the payroll and compliance platform's sales function from scratch. Based in Singapore, she now leads Deel's global sales team across multiple segments and time zones, having helped scale the company's revenue past a billion dollars in annualised recurring revenue. She is also an active angel investor, backing companies including French IT-as-a-service provider Primo. On Pick My Brain with Alan Jones and First Cheque with Cheryl Mack and Maxine Minter, she spoke about thinking global from day one and what makes a founder worth backing at pre-seed.
- Talks about
- Going Global, Growth & Scaling, Sales & GTM, Hiring & Team, Venture Capital
In conversation.
2 episodes
Start hereWhy You Should Think Global From Day One: Ilana Elbaz on DeelTells her Deel story from employee five to more than $1 billion in ARR, with practical remote-hiring advice for Australian founders.
Pick My Brain with Alan Jones 
First Cheque with Cheryl Mack & Maxine Minter What Makes a Founder Worth Backing at Pre-Seed? With Ilana Elbaz | GTM at Deel
Go straight to the good bits.
Key moments from Why You Should Think Global From Day One: Ilana Elbaz on Deel.
- 0:00Five people to 7,200, and zero to over a billion
- 1:45Meet Ilana Elbaz, head of sales and go-to-market at Deel
- 2:30Doctor or entrepreneur, and a first company at 19
- 5:02How Deel was founded, and the pivots through Y Combinator
- 7:26Is Y Combinator still worth applying for?
- 8:50Remote-first from day one, and why proximity is a bad filter
- 10:56Eating your own dog food: how the employer-of-record product got built
- 12:29Where 7,200 people actually sit
- 14:34Why a small market forces Australian founders outward
- 16:41Slack from day one: async, written and measured
In their own words.
“In a startup, there is no wrong decision. There's only the decision you didn't make.”
Deel on Day One
Deel is one platform for payroll, HR, benefits, mobility, performance, and device management across 150+ countries.
4 people · 5 episodes
Across the network.
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correctionUpdated 29 October 2026
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