Digital Jason Agent Sold $70k Sponsorship
by Jason Lemkin on January 1, 2026
SaaStr's AI Agent Revolution: Transforming Sales with 20 Agents and 1.2 Humans
Jason Lemkin's journey with AI agents at SaaStr began with a simple experiment that yielded surprising results. After creating a general-purpose digital clone of himself called Delphi (similar to LennyBot), something unexpected happened that validated the potential of agent-led sales.
"Going into annual this general agent this digital Jason closed a 70K sponsorship on its own," Lemkin explains. This wasn't a specialized sales agent - it was a horizontal agent not specifically trained for sales or go-to-market functions. Yet it successfully closed a significant deal independently.
This early success became the catalyst for a complete transformation of SaaStr's sales organization. When two salespeople quit during SaaStr's annual event, Lemkin made a bold decision: "We're done with hiring humans in sales. We're going to push the limits with agents."
The implementation process wasn't immediate or automatic. It required careful training and orchestration. Lemkin's team started by selecting vendors who would actively help them implement the technology, not just sell it. They began with outbound email campaigns using Artisan AI, then added Qualified for inbound lead qualification, and eventually incorporated Salesforce's AgentForce for reactivating leads that human salespeople had deemed not worth their time.
The results have been remarkable. SaaStr went from 8-9 full-time go-to-market people to just 1.2 humans (one full-time AE plus 20% of their Chief AI Officer's time) managing 20 AI agents. The business performance has remained consistent despite this dramatic reduction in human headcount.
The key to success was training the agents with their best-performing content and processes. "Take your best person on your sales team, the best marketer you have, take their email copy and use that as the template for your AI," Lemkin advises. The agents can then iterate and A/B test variations of this content, personalizing messages based on available data.
What makes this approach particularly powerful is that AI agents work 24/7, including weekends and holidays. They respond instantly to inquiries, qualifying leads and setting up meetings with the human AE when appropriate. One agent reactivating previously abandoned leads achieved a 70% response rate - these were potential customers eager to engage that humans had simply deemed not worth their time.
For organizations looking to implement similar systems, Lemkin emphasizes the importance of hands-on involvement: "Pick a tool, an agent, an agentic tool to solve one of your problems... pick a leading vendor that treats you well that you like and do it yourself - train the agent, ingest the data, do the iterations, understand how this damn thing works."
This transformation represents a fundamental shift in go-to-market strategy - not eliminating the need for humans entirely, but dramatically changing which human roles remain essential and how they operate. As Lemkin puts it: "We should have $250,000 a year SDRs but they'd be like at Vercel they'd be managing 10 agents not 10 people."