The Sell-Me-This-App Interview
Make every sales candidate demo your actual product before you hire them — no exceptions.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 93%
The classic 'sell me this pen' is the wrong test; Lemkin's version is 'sell me this app'. Before hiring any rep or VP of Sales, you make them do a real pitch of your product, with advance notice and time to prepare. Because every product now has explainer videos, webinars and customer testimonials on YouTube, the exercise is a pure test of effort plus product fluency — and it operationalises the 'would I buy from them?' criterion instead of leaving it to gut feel.
Origin
Standard practice across sales hiring pre-2020, which Lemkin says collapsed during the late-2020 hiring frenzy when companies dropped demos and reference checks to grab warm bodies. He argues hiring processes never reverted, and reinstating the demo is the single highest-leverage fix available to founders.
Core principles
- 01Preparation is the test. In 2024 the material is all public, so failing to watch a single explainer video is a decision, not an accident.
- 02Do not spring it as a trap — give notice, give time, treat them how you would want to be treated.
- 03A salesperson who refuses to demo your product is not a salesperson.
- 04Selling in B2B is problem-solving, not pen-hawking. Judge whether they framed the customer's problem, not their polish.
How to run it
- 1
Schedule the demo for the second interview, not as a surprise
Tell the candidate explicitly: this is not a trick. Ask them to prepare a real demo/pitch of your product for the next conversation, and give them extra time if they ask.
Pro tip Frame it honestly: 'I'm not that great at selling my own product — I need to know you'll be happy and successful here.'
Watch out Springing it cold spooks good candidates and tests nerves rather than craft.
- 2
Check the effort floor first
Before judging the pitch, establish whether they did the freely-available homework: the explainer video, the homepage, the recorded webinars, the customer testimonials on YouTube.
Pro tip They don't need to know how your webhooks work or how to provision an API key — they need to know the product as well as the webinar that is already public.
Watch out Lemkin sees candidates in the fifth or eighth interview round who still have not watched a single explainer video. 98 out of 100 will not bother.
- 3
Have them pitch you, live, for real
In person or on Zoom, let them run the full demo. They will make mistakes — that is fine. You are looking for enough command of the core problem to be solved that they can hold a real buyer conversation.
Pro tip Watch for whether they position you as a buyer being helped through a decision rather than a mark being closed.
- 4
Score against 'would I buy my product from them?'
The demo exists to convert a gut criterion into evidence. If after the pitch you would not have bought, do not hire — regardless of resume.
Watch out If they refuse to do the demo at all, that is a complete answer. They are not a salesperson.
- 5
Re-add reference checks
Reinstate the reference check that the industry abandoned in the 2020-21 frenzy. You are about to spend months of your time and hand over irreplaceable leads; a few calls is cheap.
Pro tip Consider being the last interview yourself and using it to de-risk, not to sell: tell the candidate they already have the job, then create a safe space to surface the doubts that would make them quit in three months.
Watch out If you hire someone and they fail, it is your fault, not theirs — they could never have done enough diligence on you.
In the wild
Lemkin, interviewing on behalf of portfolio companies, routinely reaches the fifth or eighth interview in a process and finds the candidate still does not know how the product works — they never searched YouTube, never watched the homepage explainer, and opened with 'I recently stumbled upon…' boilerplate from the ATS.
→ Instant disqualification, and a demonstration that the effort filter alone screens out the overwhelming majority of applicants.
As an investor, Lemkin asks to be the final interview after the candidate has already been chosen. He tells them the job is theirs, then slows down and works through their real concerns so they do not bounce in three months. Founders sometimes get angry because candidates occasionally self-select out.
→ A candidate lost at the offer stage costs far less than a VP who quits at month three having burned two of the four million raised.
Common mistakes
Skipping the demo because the candidate has other offers
The 2020-21 talent panic ('this SDR has 50 offers, we must decide today') killed the demo and the reference check. Hiring a warm body who cannot sell is far more expensive than losing them to a competitor.
Using 'sell me this pen' instead of 'sell me this app'
Generic sales-theatre tests measure improv, not the thing you're buying: whether this person can explain YOUR product's 10x feature and the problem it solves.
Blaming the hire when they flame out
Lemkin is blunt that any failed hire is 100% the hirer's fault — you should have seen it during the process. The demo is the mechanism that lets you see it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and hiring managers interviewing sales reps, SDRs, or a first VP of Sales in B2B/SaaS
Not ideal for
High-velocity transactional orgs hiring 20-30 reps a week, where the demo has to be compressed to a fast early-funnel filter
From the transcript
“one way another Lenny it's got to be sell me this pen but it's not sell me this pen it's sell me this app”
“so do a demo for me and if they won't do it they're not a salesperson”
“they're just going to click on apply on the on the ATS and tell you hey I recently stumbled upon whatever it looks like you…”
“if you hire someone and they fail it's all your fault”
From the episode
Building a world-class sales org
Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)