Jason M. Lemkin explains why B2B SaaS founders need to know where customer budgets actually come from. Salespeople should ask champions directly, since customers are reallocating money for AI and other new priorities.
And I think for classic B2B SaaS, it's stressful. Like, we, for the last, you know, I would say until 18 months ago, we never fully had to figure out where this budget was coming from because SaaS kept growing 20% a year like clockwork. And it went into the same stuff. It went into ERP and CRM and the same tools, and we kept buying more and more and our stacks got bigger and bigger and arguably bloated and bloated her. Now, every founder needs to actually, for real, know where budget's coming from. You've got to know, right? And I, and I. It's sad when I talk to some founders or even listen to some portfolio companies where very happy customers are churning to create AI Budget to free up a budget.
If you actually.
Happy customers.
If you advise me as a founder that I'm in your portfolio.
Yeah, okay.
I have to know where budget's coming from. Do I say to my champion, Jason, just out of interest, where am I coming from in your budget line?
All the best salespeople ask that question.
