Ilana Elbaz
Employee #5 & first go-to-market hire at Deel; angel investor at Deel
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.
In their own words
From What Makes a Founder Worth Backing at Pre-Seed? With Ilana Elbaz | GTM at Deel · First ChequeIn a startup, there is no wrong decision. There's only the decision you didn't make.
Key moments
Jump straight to the part of Why You Should Think Global From Day One: Ilana Elbaz on Deel you want.
- 0:00 Five people to 7,200, and zero to over a billion
- 1:45 Meet Ilana Elbaz, head of sales and go-to-market at Deel
- 2:30 Doctor or entrepreneur, and a first company at 19
- 5:02 How Deel was founded, and the pivots through Y Combinator
- 7:26 Is Y Combinator still worth applying for?
- 8:50 Remote-first from day one, and why proximity is a bad filter
- 10:56 Eating your own dog food: how the employer-of-record product got built
- 12:29 Where 7,200 people actually sit
- 14:34 Why a small market forces Australian founders outward
- 16:41 Slack from day one: async, written and measured
Connections
Spot something wrong? Suggest a correction Updated 25 September 2026
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