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

A quick summary of what you can and can’t replace with AI today:

- Outbound SDRs: you can replace most SDRs with AI today, possibly 100% … but you still need humans managing it and training it. Every day.

IF you truly go deep, train a platform, and orchestrate it >daily< you can replace most classic human email based SDRs with AI today. But you can’t just push a button. 

- Inbound BDRs: you can replace almost all of them with AI. If it’s well trained.

An AI should be able to qualify a lead faster and better than 95% of BDRs can. Today.

- Customer Support: you can replace 50% of your support team with AI today IF you invest. And deflect even more issues if the AI agent is well trained.

But again, only if you go deep, train a platform, orchestrate it >daily< AND create a very responsive human-in-the loop escalation strategy. 

- Marketing Managers: you probably don’t need half of them today at all.

Claude and ChatGPT as is can do a ton of marketing ops, and visual tools can create incredible collateral. Gamma can arm your team with better sales collateral than ever before. But again, you need a >lot< of orchestration.

- Customer Success. We need better AI platforms today, but we don’t need 60%+ of the CSMs we have today.

CSMs that don’t solve problems and just do QBRs without adding true value are not necessary in the age of AI. You can probably move on from them today.

- Account Execs: You still need 70% of them.

This should change in the next 24 months for in-bound, but we're not there yet. Field and in-person sales? Who knows.  

- Engineering: I’m not seeing that AI lets you reduce net headcount here at all. 

Instead, what I see overall is a 20%-40% productivity boost, net net. And far more for prototypes and proof-of-concept production.  

But it becomes an arms race. Everyone is more productive, software is shipping faster, so you need more great engineers than ever. It’s a cracked arms race in product development today.

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

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 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

Journey

Director, ABM & Demand Generation

Publicis Sapient

Senior Manager, Account-Based Marketing

Notable

DRI for the success of all demand generating channels, including syndication, digital advertising (social, search, display, out of home, direct mail). Launched industry- leading direct mail program for net-new acquisition, with a 17% opportunity to closed-won conversion rate (single highest converting channel). Owned ABM strategy for all enterprise & strategic accounts, using predictive tools like 6Sense to identify, engage & accelerate orgs through the customer journey.

Head of Demand Generation/ ABM 

Paro.io

Oversaw campaign planning across all promotional channels. Directly responsible for all paid marketing strategy and agency oversight. Managed over $1 million in annual budget, which drove 81% of total company lead volume. Oversaw SEO-focused site redesign, resulting in a 340% increase in MoM interaction. Collaborated with sales to launch dedicated ABM motion.

Digital Marketing Lead 

Sprint

Acted as Marketing Manager at U.S. arm of Home Credit International, one of the largest privately held investment management firms in Europe. Spearheaded digital co-branding efforts for Sprint Credit Card at a national scale. Responsible for launching all paid search, display and social efforts, utilizing RLSA
for precise customer retargeting. Led SEO-based restructuring of website.

Senior Marketing Manager

AdParlor

Diversified marketing mix by launching paid search, display and direct mail programs promoting Adknowledge to fortune 500 brands. Consulted on creative social strategy for some of the organization’s largest clients, including Starbucks, Wingstop and Hermès. Planned and executed highly targeted, omni-channel campaigns that drove new business for Adknowledge’s social agency subsidiary,  AdParlor. 

Clients included Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart, Wing Stop, Bath & Body Works, LG, Timberland, QVC, Greyhound, Amtrak and Rogers.

Marketing Manager

Developed and maintained the social media content strategy/ execution for AdParlor. Handled all remarketing efforts through Google Display, Google Search, and paid social media advertising. Collaborated on, edited and approved all outgoing campaign content, including one-sheets, emails, proposals, sales decks, and news releases (strong B2B focus). Worked as liaison between platform partners (i.e. Snapchat, Pinterest, Facebook) for new initiatives and product launches.

Senior Marketing Strategist

DEG Digital

Acted as main point of contact for more than a dozen companies’ marketing teams to manage paid media efforts as a part of overall campaign strategy. Assisted in the preparation and presentation of multiple service pitches to fortune 500 companies. Created and optimized ad campaigns for a range of clients, including consumer brands, B2B, and non-profit organizations. 

Clients included Hallmark, Lee Jeans, Waddell & Reed, Nebraska Furniture Mart, Helzberg Diamonds, Essense of Australia

Digital Marketing Coordinator

Highly creative, award-winning, multi-disciplined marketer. I'm uniquely experienced in bridging the digital & tangible worlds and crafting unforgettable customer journeys. In my current role, I've focused on highly bespoke account-based initiatives that combine hyper-targeted digital touchpoints with experiential mailers— driving unprecedented conversion rates for the company.

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