A short video transcript of Jason M. Lemkin and Lenny discussing why founders should often stay at and build on their current startups rather than quitting to join hot AI opportunities. They argue that existing customer momentum and revenue (examples cited: $1–10M revenue, hundreds of happy customers) are valuable, AI markets are still early, and it’s often better to add AI features and scale the current business.
Chapters
I'll just tell you one in the.
Weird time we're at, this is probably your best startup.
Just talking yesterday with a friend of.
Mine, startup just raised 20 million from a top 2 or 3 VC founder just quit the next day.
Just on the call the other day.
Yesterday, CEO of a company at 250 million. Just, just, just, just quit. No success or no anyone to join a hot AI startup?
Maybe, maybe, maybe most of the time there are, there are times and places.
To just quit when you have customers, when you have a million or 2 million or 5 or 10 million in revenue.
But we often think it's easier to.
Get back to get back to that 10 million of revenue, to get back to 100 happy customers or 200.
It might seem easier to quit in the age of AI, but I'd rather take those 500 happy customers, build that.
Badass AI product and sell it to 500 happy customers and go out to find them from scratch, go off to find that 10 or 20 million.
So that's, I literally had a third.
Conversation with the founder just crossing 100 million that wanted to leave and do a robotic startup after 10 years. I'm like, I get it man.
But like this is, you know, you.
Have nine figures of equity in this company, maybe go to the next level.
So there's so much going on they're decelerating, accelerating. I just usually think the best startup as fat for founders, not necessarily for everybody else, is the one you're already working at. And if you're not happy, turn that.
Into your a hot AI startup.
It's not, here's the thing, it's not too late, Lenny. Sometimes it feels like it's too late on social media. Maybe it's too late to build the next ChatGPT on the cheap, okay? But for most stuff, it's not too late. It's so. It's still so early. We don't even have great AI marketing tools. We're really early on these AI SDRs. The markets have not hardened. The LLMs are getting so much better. It is, dude, if you want it.
It'S not too late.
So the best startup you're ever going.
To have probably is the one you're working at today. Don't quit. Don't quit if you have happy customers. Maybe that's how. Don't quit if you have happy customers, they'll buy more from you.
