Jason Lemkin
29 statements across 3 episodes · 10 bullish · 7 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Feb 18, 2024 by Jason Lemkin · said 4 times in 2 episodes since 2022 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Jason Lemkin's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Lenny Rachitsky (3), Pete Kazanjy (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
Everything said about Jason Lemkin, oldest first
Feb 18, 2024 negative
Feb 18, 2024 bearish
Lemkin: I always pass on SaaS startups lacking top-decile churn rates
“And when I meet any startup like for investing or anything, if the churn is not top decile for a low end product, I'm always out. It's almost unsolvable. It's almost unsolvable. This three to four percent a month churn rate that a lot of SMB stuff, it's almost…”
Feb 18, 2024
Feb 18, 2024
Feb 18, 2024 negative
Feb 18, 2024 positive
Lemkin: Products offering free editions are structurally better software
“Free products are better software. Products that cannot offer a free edition cut corners because they don't have to be good at onboarding. That products that do not have a free edition have human beings that bridge the gap between buying and deployment.”
Feb 18, 2024 negative
Lemkin: VC advice to force annual contracts is terrible
“Another related terrible piece of advice VCs give you is switch to annual contracts. This is terrible advice. Terrible advice, Lenny. Terrible advice from people who have never built products and aren't in the field. Going to annual contracts on a spreadsheet …”
Feb 18, 2024
Feb 18, 2024 positive
Lemkin: Tension between product and sales indicates a well-run B2B company
“This stress between product and sales is a good thing. It's a sign of a well-run B to B company when there is stress between product and sales. It's a good sign. It is a good. If there's no stress, you're not in enough deals.”
Feb 18, 2024 positive
Lemkin: Force-ranking feature requests always alters sales teams' priorities
“I can tell you Lenny, a hundred percent of the time in the sales meeting, when you force, do a whiteboard force rank, you end up walking out with very different outputs than when you start the meeting in sales a hundred percent of the time.”
Feb 18, 2024
Lemkin: Always hire sales reps whose prior product was harder to sell
“Trust me, you gotta hire someone whose last product was harder to sell. This is so important. This is a recipe for utter disaster. If you take someone in sales and their last product was Easier to sell. They will have none of the skills to sell your product”
Feb 18, 2024 negative
Lemkin: 14-day trials originated to fit Salesforce monthly sales cycles
“The reason, one of the reasons we have 14 day trials on the internet is in the old days, the Salesforce sales team, when they were S and B focused one to close deals that month. So they forced Salesforce to move from 30 to 40 days. There was no evidence it was…”
Feb 18, 2024 neutral
Feb 18, 2024
Lemkin: Traditional B2B sales reps frequently fail when selling to developers
“Too many B, say, B to B type reps melt in B to D. They just melt. They just, selling to VP Avenged is a different, it's the same beast, but they don't suffer fools, do they? Not the VP of engineers. I'm close. They don't suffer fools.”
Feb 18, 2024 neutral
Feb 18, 2024 positive
Feb 18, 2024 negative
Feb 18, 2024
Lemkin: Successful reps from the number-four market player make great hires
“What really works Lenny is if you hire someone from the number four in a space and they did well. You take someone that was number four in the space and then you're number two in the space. You think number two is really hard because number one's crushing you,…”
Jan 1, 2026 positive
Jan 1, 2026 neutral
Jan 1, 2026 bearish
Jan 1, 2026 positive
Jan 1, 2026 bullish
Jan 1, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: AI agents modeled on top reps beat mid-pack human salespeople
“The bar for good enough for AI GTM, it's not as high as we think. It's just like you know, a facsimile of your best person reproduced as best we can. It's going to beat your mid pack person. It's going to beat the person that literally knows nothing about your…”
Jan 1, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Prospects do not care if sales emails are AI-generated
“And what we learned from sending hundreds of thousands is it doesn't matter. People, we're in an age where people don't really care as long as the email adds value and they know they're going to get an instant response. We've tried both. We've tried to say, He…”
Jan 1, 2026 positive
Jan 1, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: AI agents increase human workload rather than decreasing it
“We do more work with AI.
I'm working the hardest I've ever worked.
That's with all these agents and all the output they create and Amelia does a lot of it, but even I am working the hardest, but it's better, but it's not less work.
It's the, it's more work.
Th…”
Jan 1, 2026 positive