by Jason Lemkin | May 24, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Marketing, Metrics, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: As a Startup, What Are Some Effective Ways For an Underdog to Take Down Their Competition? It depends on the gap. In B2B historically, I’d argue if your competitor is larger than you, at $8M-$10M+ in ARR and growing quickly, with even reasonably...
by Jason Lemkin | May 23, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: A Big Tech Co Launched a Competitive Product. How Can I Tell How Serious They Are About It? In B2B at least, I’ll give you a few metrics that are fairly reliable. The classic one still works, but in 2026 you need to layer in some new signals too....
by Jason Lemkin | May 22, 2026 | Blog Posts, Growth, Marketing, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: Should Your Ask a Prospect What Competitors They Are Looking At? Yes. And in 2026, more than ever. You’ll find 90% of the time you’ll want to not just tell a prospect who you are competing with, but do so aggressively. And box the competition...
by Jason Lemkin | May 17, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: How do I Convince My CEO that Marketing is Important? A lot of CEOs these days do seem to be late to truly invest in B2B marketing, and most especially, to hiring a true VP of Marketing. In the Age of AI, so many CEOs hack it to $5m, $8m, $20m+ in ARR...
by Jason Lemkin | May 12, 2026 | Blog Posts, Growth, Marketing |
When a new head of marketing joins a start-up and the first thing they want to do is “refresh the marketing site”, I always quietly groan a bit. Look, a marketing site is important. But don’t leads matter more? Shouldn’t improving the funnel...
by Jason Lemkin | May 7, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Leadership, Marketing |
Dear SaaStr: How Big Should The Addressable Market Be to Go into Vertical SaaS? To win in Vertical SaaS: – Can you charge at least $10k a year?– Can you add enough value to hit 110%+ NRR?– Can you get to 60% market share? If so, in many markets,...
by Jason Lemkin | May 5, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: When Do You Start to Develop a Brand in SaaS? In my experience, probably as early as $2m worth of happy customers. At least the beginnings of a “mini brand”. At that point, you don’t have a world-famous brand or anything. But you do start to have a...
by Jason Lemkin | Apr 20, 2026 | Blog Posts, Early, Marketing, Marketing, Q&A, Sales |
Dear SaaStr: Should We Over-Charge or Under-Charge our First Customers? My general rules: Overcharge if the customer is big, i.e., >$50k-$100k a year o nor so in ACV. Undercharge if the customer is smaller by revenue. There’s a method to the seeming madness...
by Jason Lemkin | Apr 14, 2026 | Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Early, Leadership, Marketing, Sales |
What I see CEOs at struggling start-ups do: – Go dark– Hide– Lash out– Tweet about lots of things non-work– Invest time on tiny expenses– Argue internally What should do: – Be Present– Be Honest– Be the Rock–...
by Jason Lemkin | Mar 17, 2026 | Marketing, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: How Should I Present The Competition Slide of My Pitch Deck if I Have Too Many Competitors? Simple Answer: Just pick the Top 5 competitors, that’s enough. Not just by revenue, but also, by significance. Longer Answer: The competitor slide is a chance to:...
by Jason Lemkin | Feb 17, 2026 | Blog Posts, Career Growth & Advice, Growth, Leadership, Marketing, Q&A, Sales |
Dear SaaStr: Is There Any “Con” In Giving Our Sales Tool For Free to Early-Stage Startups? Free can absolutely work. Done right, it’s built some of the biggest companies in B2B + AI: ChatGPT. Claude. Cursor. Slack. Zoom. Canva. Notion. Figma. Almost...
by Jason Lemkin | Feb 16, 2026 | Blog Posts, Marketing
It’s bigger than GEO. Bigger than SEO. This is about being the #1 answer when 700 million people ask AI what to buy. Replit says use @HubSpot. (Right or wrong) These are the battles you just have to win in 2026+ AI Agents Have Favorites. You Need To Be One Of...
by Jason Lemkin | Jan 28, 2026 | Blog Posts, Customer Success, Growth, Marketing, Q&A, Sales, Sales |
Dear SaaStr: What are some best practices for selling a new product/service to your existing SaaS clients? First, make sure your NPS is high. And drive it even higher. Here’s the bottom line: if your NPS is say > 40 or so, a significant portion of your customers...
by Jason Lemkin | Jan 25, 2026 | Blog Posts, Customer Success, Marketing, Marketing, Q&A |
Dear SaaStr: My Customer Missed the Deadline for AutoRenewal. How Do I Handle This Situation? You can ask them to pay, for sure. But if they don’t want to, just turn the product off if they don’t pay. Then, Let it go and Move On. At a practical level, it is...
by Jason Lemkin | Jan 23, 2026 | Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blog Posts, Marketing, SaaStr.Ai, Sales
We’ve been running AI GTM agents for almost a year now. We use Artisan for outbound, Qualified (now Salesforce) for inbound, Agentforce for Salesforce-native outreach, Delphi for Digital Jason. We’ve sent 20,000+ AI messages and generated over $2M in...