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JG Jayson Gaignard On The Nathan Barry Show

“Even like the notion of almost gospel around relationships that you should ask people, like, how can I help you? And to me, I think that's incredibly problematic because you're putting the onus on the other person to come up with ways that you can be helpful. And they don't have full inventory of your experiences, your expertise, all that kind of stuff.”

The Nathan Barry Show · Bootstrapped & Indie SaaS · October 2026

“Even like the notion of almost gospel around relationships that you should ask people, like, how can I help you? And to me, I think that's incredibly problematic because you're putting the onus on the other person to come up with ways that you can be helpful. And they don't have full inventory of your experiences, your expertise, all that kind of stuff.” — Jayson Gaignard, The Nathan Barry Show

Gaignard is talking about service as a way to build relationships, after telling the story of Warren Buffett offering to work for Benjamin Graham for free. He says it works better to come with a specific offer, as he did when he cold-pitched an author on helping launch his book.

Transcript

The Nathan Barry Show Around 27:09 into the episode
Jayson Gaignard

…Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. One of the books. Yeah. It's a brilliant story where Warren Buffett wanted to work with Benjamin Graham, who was his professor at the time and had his own investment kind of arm. And he's like, I'll volunteer for you. I'll do whatever you want. And Benjamin.

Nathan Barry

I'll work for free. Yeah, he's like,

Jayson Gaignard

I'll work for free. And he's like, it's not free to me because like I have to take you on. I have to train you and all those kind of things. And Warren was persistent and eventually ended up kind of working with Benjamin. But I think that's the thing that a lot of people forget, which is even like the notion of almost gospel around relationships that you should ask people, like, how can I help you? And to me, I think that's incredibly problematic because you're putting the onus on the other person to come up with ways that you can be helpful. And they don't have full inventory of your experiences, your expertise, all that kind of stuff. So coming from a place of service, if you are going to reach out to somebody, again, it's a fantastic way to forge relationships. As I forged a relationship with a guy named Shep Hordon, I had nothing to offer him but support him to launch his book. And I promised him I'd do all the heavy lifting. And that became a beautiful kind of relationship. But I reached out to him cold and said, hey, I…

Nathan Barry

I want to focus on this idea of the line specifically that Benjamin Graham said to Warren Buffett. Warren's like, I'll work for you for free and all that. And Benjamin Graham says, you're overpriced.

Jayson Gaignard

That's the line. Yeah, you're over good. Good memory.

Nathan Barry

It's in the book. But and I just think that's so important because it was like, how could free be overpriced? Because you have to put in this work. And so when someone says like, you know, Jason, I'll help you with anything. Like, what do you need? And all that. The response that I want to have is…

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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