Why I Always Tell My Customers To Try My Competitors First | Maryam Salehijam | Founder: Andarzi

Maryam Salehijam walked out of a Stanford Law visiting research position into LegalTech sales, with no legal background, no network, and a PhD in something completely different. That outsider perspective is exactly why she sees things most people in this market miss.

In this episode Maryam breaks down the full picture: why the objection has shifted from "we don't trust AI" to "we're building our own," why she deliberately wants to be last in every evaluation cycle, why she tells buyers exactly where her competitors are better, and why you cannot sell AI to a burning out team.

She also makes the most counterintuitive commercial argument in the episode, she actively recommends smaller subscriptions when a larger one would benefit her, tells customers not to buy when buying isn't right for them, and says the moment you stop doing that is the moment you stop building a referral engine.

Maryam is ex CRO at Junior, an AI patent drafting platform. She ran the entire revenue function, lean, AI-enabled, with processes that run themselves.

If you're selling into legal right now, hiring for a GTM role, or building a CRO function from scratch, this is the most honest account of what that actually looks like in 2026.

Timestamps:
00:00 — PhD to LegalTech CRO: the Stanford Law corridor moment
04:41 — Why lawyers are miserable and why that matters to GTM
05:08 — Junior's ICP: patent prosecutors, in-house IP, trademark teams
06:28 — The best channel to reach your ICP in 2026
06:55 — Why email and cold calling are both dead
08:03 — Organic word of mouth as the primary growth engine
13:13 — The objection shift: from "we don't trust AI" to "we're building our own"
17:24 — Be last in the evaluation cycle, not first
19:07 — Why Maryam tells buyers who her competitors are and where they're better
20:55 — You cannot sell AI to a burning out team
21:47 — Three-year contracts before proving value: that's just selfish
22:53 — What Maryam looks for when hiring for GTM
23:36 — Why immigrants make great startup hires
24:55 — How AI has replaced RevOps, sales ops, EAs, and most BDRs
25:41 — The two automations that changed her sales process
26:42 — What success looks like for Junior in the next 12 months

🎙️ Taking LegalTech to Market is hosted by Paul Church, LegalTech recruiter, talent advisor, and one of the most listened-to voices in the space.

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