SaaStr AI London is Dec 1-2!! See You There!!

Helping, founding, funding, and growing B2B start-ups.  Making it a positive-sum game for everyone involved.  VC checks $500k-$4m @ SaaStrFund.com.  2x founder with nine figures of founder exits.

"Do or do not. There is no try."

Specialties: helping people grow and become their best.  Doing not the impossible, but the unlikely.  Never giving up.

Join 10,000 of us IRL at SaastrAnnual.com May 12-14 in SF Bay!!

FREE Weekly Workshops and Live AMAs, Sign up here -> https://www.saastr.com/workshop-wednesday/

SaaStrFund.com investments include:

- Co-led Series A in Salesloft ($2.3B exit)
- Co-led Seed in Pipedrive ($1.5B exit)
- Led Seed in Algolia ($2.3B)
- First VC in Talkdesk ($10B)
- Led Seed in Gorgias ($800m)
- Led Seed in Owner.com ($1B)
- First Investor in RevenueCat ($500m)
- First VC in Logikcull ($280m exit)
- Proud smaller investor in Greenhouse ($800m exit), Sqreen ($400m exit), Automile ($1B SEK exit), Opus Pro, Higgsfield.ai, and many others!
- and much more

Jason M. Lemkin

Agentforce has delivered pretty darn impressive results for us -- for real. 

The >actual< data and live deep dive in post in comments.

AI agents do take work, but if you put in the time, the ROI can be massive.

SaaStr AI 2026 is May 12-14 in SF Bay!! See You There!!

SaaStr.ai is reaching new heights with #Agentforce. 📈

In just 30 days with our new Agentforce for Sales, the one and only Jason M. Lemkin:

• re-engaged approximately 3,000 ghosted leads
• achieved a remarkable 72% open rate
• closed deals from contacts that had been untouched for six months
• secured the highest response rate of any AI platform they tested

This goes beyond efficiency to driving revenue and reigniting old opportunities. The world of sales is changing, and #Agentforce is leading the charge.

Open article: SaaStr + Agentforce: It’s Early, But the Results Are Really, Really Strong by saastr.com

SaaStr + Agentforce: It’s Early, But the Results Are Really, Really Strong

So far I've watched 3 VC seed deals this year where the founders just decided to keep the money for themselves and not build the product.

All were on SAFEs, and they took the position they owed investors nothing and that in fact they were not even investors. Just SAFE holders.

One eventually returned cash after keeping a large chunk for themselves.

Another hired an attorney who said plainly nothing was owed to the investors and the founders could pay themselves whatever they wanted.

I did not personally invest in these deals but I might have, they had a lot going for them (or so it seemed).

This is going to happen in the Age of AI. It's the flip side of so many things also exploding so quickly and growing at insane rates.

It's just a risk to be more aware of perhaps than in the past.

SaaStr AI Annual ’26 is May 12-14 in SF Bay!! See You There!!

Engineering: sell what we have

Sales: build what I can sell

This, is The Enterprise

You can't scale if you can't recruit 

First, learn to love it

Then, learn to staff it

Alex Olley

Reachdesk

We started Reachdesk because of a problem we were faced with. Rising above the noise and cutting through the digital clutter is becoming harder given digital channels are exploding. We built Reachdesk to help B2B companies create experiences their customers will love, streamline their existing direct mail and gifting efforts and ultimately help achieve desired results in a busy and competitive world.

Co-Founder, Chief Revenue Officer

Ebsta

Board Advisor

Pavilion

Executive Member

Forbes Business Council

Official Member

Screenloop

Strategic Advisor

MOUNTAINS 4 ALL 

I am on the board of trustees for ski2freedom and mountains4all helping disability snow sports and mountain activities become accessible for everyone.

Trustee

Agillic

Launched Agillic's UK office as part of GTM plan pre-IPO in 2017. 

Implemented ABM strategy using Direct Mail, Account Based Advertising, Outreach and Digital Content

Sales and Marketing Director

Clintons

Qualified as a Solicitor. Had the urge to return to tech. Left. Got back into tech. Dodged a massive bullet there....

Lawyer

Yieldify

Led the UK sales team for mid-market
Created strategic agency partnerships to generate a partner channel

Head of Sales

Joined Yieldify as one of the first employees. Got my hands dirty and helped grow the business from scratch. We did whatever it took to get the company up and running. It worked and we all had a ruddy good time.

Closed deals including Holland & Barrett, JD Sports Group, ASOS, DHL, French Connection, Staysure and many more

Sales Director

Demandbase Top 25 Sales Leaders 2023 | ABM | Mail Man | Co-Founder | CRO | Personalization Fiend | Ex Lawyer | Cricket and Rugby Nut

I specialise in SaaS technology and using innovative ways to break through to prospects. I believe in treating customers like humans (rather than leads or opportunities) using ABM strategies, Direct Mail, Personalised Gifting and a human element across every touchpoint.

If you want to get in touch with me, send me something...

You aren't getting hired if you took the next shiny role and hopped around for the past 5 years. At least not by me...

I can excuse the people that got laid off in 2020 when the company reduced its headcount massively because of Covid. But that was nearly 6 years ago...

I can also excuse people impacted by company layoffs in general. That's not their fault

But if you've hopped every 6-18 months and never stuck around, I won't hire you

It's simple. The best people stick around for at least 3 years

They get promoted

They are loyal

They are rewarded for their success

Because they are great

No job is perfect. There's always something that isn't ideal. Deal with it!

There will always be better paid jobs

But you're playing the short term game and potentially committing career suicide if you can't stick it out. 

I speak to friends of mine who are in a hole right now because they didn't steer the course for long enough and aim to progress within the companies they were at

Now they can't get hired

AI isn't coming for your job. It filtered you out before you even hit apply

Think about what YOU can do to progress in the role you are in. Stick it out and keep moving through the ranks.

You'll overtake everyone you know

I’ve been doing this founder / CRO / dad thing for 7 years now. I’ve nailed the daily routine


Lol - what routine…

I used to be a “5.30am wake up, cold plunge, 2 coffees before work, 10k steps before work, high protein / no alcohol, 996” type person

Now I’m a “spend time with my family and relentlessly prioritize so I can get the job done well” person

And I find it easier now

Sounds mad, right…

I used to think I need to work all the time (996)

But I was burning out and often working for the sake of it

Now I start on time, zero procrastination, finish at a decent time 

I say No to way more

I delegate effectively

I don’t work because I have the spare time to do more

If you want your team to get more focused and efficient, maybe give them your kids for a week (ok don’t actually do that. But you get my point)

Teach people to be effective with their time and enjoy life either side of work

They will show up every day feeling great and doing their best work

No alternative text description for this image

It happened a year ago today. I thought someone had shot me

This photo was taken the day before

Everything was fine. Life as normal

Them bam. Searing pain down my left side

From my head to my toe

Like an electric knife searing through my nervous system

Later I found out it was a rare spinal condition that was waiting to blow up

I had been doing everything to trigger it

And they told me I would just have to live with it forever and take painkillers when it got too bad

I could have listened. Instead I went on a mission to find alternatives (ice therapy did the most to heal me btw)

I couldn’t be ar$ed being a burden

I didn’t want pain to be the thing that got in my way

And today things are fine. 12 months later

It will never fully go away

But I feel happy strong and healthy

Sharing this in case some people feel like they are out of options. Keep looking

Here are 5 tools me and my team love using (and I'm not being paid to post this)

Glyphic - call listening and deal insights on steroids. We used to use a product that rhymes with bong. But this is better

GetAccept - digital sales rooms (now connects with Glyphic to write biz cases). Helps close deals without you in the room

Notion - everything in one place (including project mgmt). Love the app. New AI notetaker for 1-1s is gold btw

Reachdesk - obviously. Life without gifting in our world wouldn't work... We'd book fewer meetings without a way to cut through the noice

Nooks - parallel dialling. I was anti this method. but we figured out how to build it into our process and can't live without it

Which tools do you love in your tech stack?

Nate Nasralla is a genius 


I stopped reading sales books years ago

They were all the same

Few managed to actually generate results 

But Nate The Great (guess the reference) has a different angle

It’s all about simplicity and being brief 

Enabling your buyer to sell for you while you’re not in the room 

I’m not being paid for this. Just plugging a damn good read

What’s the best sales book you’ve ever read?

And so it begins… The best time of year. This is when having kids comes into its own. IYKYK

Here's how I'm thinking about Outbound going into 2026


My goal: improve productivity and output per rep (not replace outbound reps)

1️⃣ We need humans
I'm yet to see an "AI SDR" do a better job than a human. The terrible emails, automated LinkedIn commenting/messaging and inability to make calls means it's not an option. 

So we need humans. Don't bother fighting me on this, you'll lose...

The only exception I'd make is if I were leading a transactional sales team e.g. $2k per year TCV. 

2️⃣ Account selection and signals must be easy
Reps can't be spending their time looking for good fit accounts and then looking in disparate places for all their signals. This previously lost our team ~30% of their time doing this. I believe this is the biggest killer for outbound productivity.

Job changes, website activity, previous users/champions, 3rd party intent etc should all be layered on top of good fit ICP accounts and aggregated in one place. 

Reps should be told which ones to prioritize

3️⃣ Calling is a discipline every rep must master
We did a calling power hour last week. Guess what, reps booked meetings on it. It's not dead.

Parallel diallers are a must. You simply can't make enough dials one by one. I was very anti a year ago. I thought quality would drop. But when we restructured it to a Persona > Problem calling method (instead of highly researched 1-1) things changed and we could be relevant at scale. 

Now we are using AI role play agents to practice on AI prospects. I think this is crucial because the reality is you don't get enough "at bats" (I never use that term but it seemed to work). So you need to role play real life scenarios so you're ready when the bleep hits and Nooks connects you

4️⃣ Contact data needs to be enriched
Make it easy for contacts and accounts to be enriched so reps don't have to do this themselves. This is a colossal waste of rep time having to manually do this. 

We haven't mastered this yet but believe we will in 2026. 

5️⃣ Higher impact gifting
I don't know how Mid Market / Enterprise SDRs are meant to create a superior experience without this. We saw a massive response rate improvement when we selected high impact gifts for prospects who were incredibly warm. 

If done right, this can be the different between 75% to goal and >110%. Just don't use it as a bribe. 

6️⃣ Use AI to draft emails
But don't let AI be autonomous here. We are testing ways of training AI to write emails like the rep at the "command centre". It needs to sound like them. 

Once you've done that, AI can draft emails ready for the rep to approve before sending. I've seen too many disasters to know that automating this fully is too high risk.

7️⃣ Social selling needs you to be social
These AI commenting workflows are too easy to see through and erode trust. Train your reps to be active on LinkedIn, know how to engage with prospects and when the go in for the kill. 

What did I miss?

I just got trolled. My reaction was bad



"Look mum, I made it" - this is how I reacted

I couldn't care less what you think of me or what I say

If you're trolling me I'm going in the right direction

Your projections are made clear publicly and will probably just get you bumped up the list on LinkedInLunatics

Keep trolling... It's only helping

"You're wrong. Anyone can work in sales Alex!"


I'm sorry but I disagree. It's not for everyone.

It's not for people who:

Want a 9-5
Hate making money
Take "no" personally
Don't like competition
Need praise every day
Get bored of repetition
Avoid hard conversations
Believe quota is a “guideline”
Want every day to feel predictable
Need someone else to set the pace
Believe top performers are just lucky
Avoid the phone like it’s trying to steal their data
Think “pipeline” is something plumbers deal with

75% of the time your job in sales is about rejection. It's not for everyone.

But! I do think some people can learn what it takes to build the emotional fortitude and self-motivation to be in Sales (alongside other traits)

I was told Sales wasn't for me. I asked why.

They said I didn't have the "mettle"

I was also told I wouldn't make it in the rowing team as I was too small - won a national gold by training harder than everyone...

I was also told I wouldn't qualify as a lawyer as it was too competitive - got 1 of 2 places out of 3000 applicants and qualified 2 years later (I hand wrote my application)

I was also told I wouldn't succeed as a founder as so many fail - 7 years later we are doing better than ever

Don't ignore the people who tell you that you won't succeed at something. Lean in and ask them why. Then turn that into what will allow you to succeed. 

I still believe Sales is NOT for everyone. But I do think some people can learn what it takes to succeed

The moment when Cloudflare comes back online and you can start using ChatGPT to find the answers to the hard questions your boss asks you

If you found £10 on the floor, what do you do with it? Max 4 words 


I found this on the street and was thinking either charity or lottery ticket… 🎫 

What would you do?

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The Battle

Jason M. Lemkin

Alex Olley

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taplio

The Battle

Jason M. Lemkin

Alex Olley

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jason M. Lemkin's LinkedIn Performance

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