Jason Lemkin

Who they are

Jason Lemkin is CEO and Founder of SaaStr — co-founded EchoSign (acquired by Adobe) and built an AI advisor persona at delphi.ai/saastr that distills his entire SaaStr knowledge base.

Person

Jason studied at Harvard (B.A.) and later completed Stanford GSB's Executive Management Program — a combination that sits comfortably at the founder-operator-investor crossover he's lived his whole career. His first company, NanoGram Devices Corp, was a nanotechnology startup for implantable medical device power sources, acquired by Greatbatch Inc. for $50 million just 13 months after launch — an early signal of his taste for quick, high-conviction bets. He then co-founded EchoSign, a B2B e-signature and contract automation platform, which Adobe acquired and rebranded Adobe Sign; post-acquisition he stayed as VP, Web Business Services and later VP, Strategic Development. He moved into institutional investing as Managing Director at Storm Ventures before founding SaaStr in September 2013 — at that moment a blank-slate, self-funded community venture with no fund behind it yet. The companies he founded span the full stack: EchoSign (B2B SaaS, acquired), NanoGram Devices (deep tech, acquired), SaaStr Fund ($200M+ early-stage B2B/AI VC), SaaStr (world's largest B2B/SaaS community and events platform), and SaaStr AI (community and events platform for B2B and AI executives). The through-line is operator-turned-evangelist: every move amplifies access to B2B founder knowledge, whether through capital, community, or content. He is one of the most prolific public voices in SaaS — the SaaStr blog at saastr.com covers B2B growth, fundraising, customer success, and AI; he posts constantly on LinkedIn; he has appeared on Lenny's Podcast, 20VC, Exit Five, The Revenue Leadership Podcast, and his own SaaStr Podcast, including a 2024 episode framing 'A Tale of 3 Worlds: Where SaaS, Cloud, and AI are in 2024.' He also maintains a Delphi AI clone at delphi.ai/saastr — an AI advisor built on his accumulated SaaStr content.

Company

The most significant recent development at SaaStr Fund is its wind-down of new investing activity: as of June 2024, Lemkin announced the fund would stop deploying new capital after completing its second fund, pivoting his full-time focus to scaling the SaaStr community and conference business rather than raising a third fund. A notable portfolio milestone from that era: SaaStr Fund's early seed investment in RevenueCat — a $1.52M round — has since grown to a $500M valuation. The fund's overall portfolio stands at 17 companies, with 1 unicorn and 7 acquisitions including SalesLoft, Algolia, and Pipedrive. The active vehicle now is SaaStr AI, which has launched tools for B2B founders including a pitch deck analyzer, VC matchmaking with 400+ investors, a valuation calculator, and an AI mentor. SaaStr's community and events platform — including SaaStr Annual and SaaStr AI Annual — remains the flagship, serving 500,000+ B2B and AI founders and executives.

Market

SaaStr operates in the B2B SaaS community, events, and early-stage venture space — a niche where a handful of founder-centric communities (think YC's alumni network, First Round's content arm) compete for mindshare with operators and investors. Lemkin's public bet, articulated as recently as 2025 on 20VC, is that AI is creating a fear-driven gold rush in B2B software: CMOs are buying AI tools out of anxiety about obsolescence, and VC deal evaluation is shifting toward 'odds of a trillion-dollar outcome' over traditional metrics. SaaStr AI positions itself to capture that moment — a community and tooling layer sitting above the fund, which is no longer actively deploying capital.

Network

No direct edge data is available for Jason Lemkin's immediate network. His publicly named early portfolio companies — Algolia, Pipedrive, SalesLoft, Gorgias, Talkdesk, Greenhouse, and RevenueCat — indicate close working relationships with the founders and leadership teams of those companies. His frequent podcast appearances alongside figures like Lenny Rachitsky (Lenny's Podcast) and Harry Stebbings (20VC) suggest ongoing relationships in the operator-investor media circuit.

Lenny Rachitsky· Host, Lenny's Newsletter / Podcast
Harry Stebbings· Founder, 20VC

How they likely show up

Long tenure running SaaStr since September 2013 (over a decade as founder-CEO) → thinks in multi-year platform arcs, not quarter-to-quarter fund cycles.
Wound down fund investing in June 2024 to focus on community rather than raise a third fund → prioritizes depth and leverage over AUM accumulation; not a traditional fund-builder.
Built four distinct founded companies spanning deep tech, SaaS, VC, and community → high serial-founder energy; likely bored by incremental thinking and drawn to category-creation bets.
Prolific public writing across SaaStr blog, LinkedIn, Medium, and multiple podcast circuits → comfortable as a public intellectual; responds best when interlocutors have read his actual work, not summaries of it.
Early-stage investing thesis requires at least 10 unaffiliated customers and $10k MRR → signal-oriented, pattern-matching operator; he wants traction evidence before conviction, not just narrative.
Built a Delphi AI clone of himself at delphi.ai/saastr → experimentally integrates his own content into products; likely thinks about knowledge systems and founder education as scalable infrastructure.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific SaaStr blog post or podcast episode — he has an enormous public archive and will immediately distinguish someone who read it from someone who Googled him five minutes before the meeting.
→ Come in with a concrete early-stage B2B question: a growth rate, a churn number, a hiring decision — he engages with specifics, not abstractions about 'the SaaS market.'
→ Ask about the decision to wind down the fund in June 2024 — it's a deliberate, unconventional choice and he'll have a clear articulation of why community compounds differently than fund returns.
→ Bring a point of view on AI in B2B software — his 2025 20VC appearance shows he's actively forming opinions on fear-driven AI buying and trillion-dollar-outcome VC logic; agreeing or pushing back intelligently will land better than nodding.
→ Don't treat SaaStr as just a conference brand — he's built it as an operator knowledge platform, and framing it otherwise signals you haven't paid attention.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the RevenueCat story — SaaStr Fund put in $1.52M at a $7M valuation, and the company grew to a $500M valuation by 2025. Ask what he saw at that seed stage that others missed.
Reference the June 2024 fund wind-down — he publicly chose not to raise a third fund and instead double down on the SaaStr community. That's a genuinely unusual call for a VC with a strong track record, and it signals something specific about how he values platform over AUM.
Mention the Delphi AI clone at delphi.ai/saastr — he built an AI advisor from his own content library, which is a specific product bet about how founder knowledge should scale. It's a concrete conversation starter about what he thinks AI is actually good for in the B2B space.

Discovery questions

You've said AI is creating a fear-driven buying cycle for CMOs — where do you see that breaking, and which portfolio companies are built for the gold rush versus the hangover?
After winding down new fund investing in June 2024, how has your day-to-day changed — and what does scaling the SaaStr community look like now that the fund isn't the primary vehicle?
Your investing criteria required at least 10 unaffiliated customers and $10k MRR — in a world where AI companies can fake traction faster than ever, how would you update that signal?

Avoid

Don't come in with a generic 'SaaS is hard right now' framing — he's been diagnosing B2B SaaS dynamics publicly for over a decade and will expect you to have a specific, informed position, not a conversation opener.

Make it yours