Article · ~10 min read
Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don't Forget the 20 Interview Rule
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr Free Beginner
Lemkin lays out a specific, staged interview count for B2B SaaS founders: the first five to map the space, the next five to confirm patterns, and interviews eleven through twenty to sharpen your pitch and thesis. It is opinionated and specific in a way that is genuinely useful as a starting benchmark, while still leaving room for your own judgment about when patterns repeat. Use it as a concrete checkpoint if you are building for business buyers.
- Your first five interviews are mostly about understanding the white space, not validating a solution.
- By interview ten, real patterns in customer pain should start repeating across conversations.
- Interviews eleven through twenty are for sharpening your pitch and thesis, not discovering new problems.
