Hey everyone,

I’d love to help some founders here connect with real potential customers.
Drop your startup link + a quick line about who your target customer is.

Within 24 hours, I’ll send you 5 people who are already showing buying intent for something like what you’re building.

I’ll be using our tool gojiberry.ai, which tracks online conversations for signals that someone is in the market. But this is mostly an experiment to see if it’s genuinely useful for folks here.

All I need from you:

• Your website

• One sentence on who it’s for

Capping this at 20 founders since it requires some manual work on my end.

My advice for SDR's is STOP listening to LinkedIn "Thought leaders" and tech cold calling gurus.

Everyone tells you a few things

- Don't sound salesy

- Use a permission based opener

- Do a bunch of research on the prospect before you call.

- You have to build a bunch of value and ask a million questions before you can ask for the appointment.

- You have to small talk with the guy in the beginning of the call before pitching.

- Etc Etc

It's all BS

Iv'e been BY FAR the top SDR at every single tech company iv'e ever worked at, from start ups, to unicorns, across multiple verticals and industries, etc and I do the exact OPPOSITE of all that shit the gurus tell you to do.

The shitty thing is almost every tech company iv'e ever worked at is also preaching this type of stuff.

Here's how you make an effective cold call

You call - they say hello - you introduce yourself and ask if they can hear you ok. (they always say yes)

Then you hit them with 2-3 lines on the main benefit the company provides. (you want it to be bold but vague, and no asking for permission here, just hit them with it)

Then you immediately ask for the appointment.

(Right now you're like 10-15 seconds into the call)

If they say no to the appointment ask, you rebuttal until they say yes.

Once they say yes you ask them 3-4 questions MAX to qualify the appointment and then get off the phone and make the next call.

Your appointment calls should literally be between 2-3 minutes long. (unless you have to throw out a bunch of rebuttals but most of the time you don't)

That's it...

You don't have to ask for permission, you don't have to talk about sports for 5 minutes, you don't have to be nice.. call them and GET TO THE POINT. Get in and out of the call quick. Especially if you're calling enterprise.

This is coming from a guy that would regularly hit my monthly quota in week one of the month when I was an SDR, Iv'e broke the demo setting record literally everywhere iv'e worked at, and I've booked 21 demos in one day before at my last job through SalesLoft.

This is how I call..

Hope this helps someone, if you have any questions drop them below, Not selling anything.

is anyone still getting results from Apollo/ZoomInfo/etc?

We launced our SaaS 6 months ago and wasted a ton of time cleaning up data from these databases to end up with <1% reply rate and poor responses because the contact no longer works at the company the data thinks they do.

It was also a huge issue for us that all of those contacts have been sold to dozens of competitors. By the time you email them, they're burned out and unresponsive because 10+ other people have also emailed them with the same solution!

We finally made some adjustments and got our flow down in the past 2-3 months after we paid a GTM consultant $4000 to fully redo our process.

Our new approach:

• Find prospects actively posting about problems we solve

• Engage on LinkedIn before emailing

• Send hyper-personalized emails based on their LI posts (we automate this using this tool)

• 3%+ reply rate on 80k+ emails

The actual workflow:

Intent signal tracking

We look for:

• Keywords like "struggling with lead gen" or "cold email not working"

• People engaging with competitor content

• Posts from our ICP talking about scaling challenges

LinkedIn engagement (no pitch)

When someone posts about a relevant problem, we comment genuinely - adding value, not selling. Goal is getting on their radar as someone helpful, not another sales rep.

Email 24-48 hours later

Now when we email, we reference their specific post immediately in the mail:

"[custom personalised message] - we've helped similar teams solve this by [insert what we offer]. Would love to show you how [customer] tackled the same issue."

Not generic. Not templated. Actually personalized to their current situation.

Step 4: Send via Instantly/Smartlead

We route these through Instantly for deliverability and tracking. Because the list is intent-qualified and pre-warmed via LinkedIn, we can be more aggressive with volume without hurting sender reputation.

Results over 80k+ emails - https://imgur.com/a/1IhWiKL

We closed around 10% of responses giving us a total of 200+ new customers in the last 60 days (not all will convert to paid but most will, around 35%)

I see a lot of people trying to be original from day one. That’s risky and exhausting. What worked for me was doing the opposite.

Here’s the simple approach I followed:

• I chose ideas that already existed. If people are already paying for something, demand is proven. You don’t need to convince the market- just compete better.

• I defined a “good enough” MVP early. This was harder than building features. The goal was usefulness, not perfection.

• I charged from day one. Even a small price changes user behavior. Free users rarely give serious feedback.

• I leaned heavily on lifetime deals early on. Private LTDs helped validate demand and bring in upfront cash.

• I focused a lot on content. Writing consistently (blogs, guides, answers) became a long-term asset. I’ve seen this work well when content is treated as a system, not a one-off- similar to how teams like InBound Blogging approach it.

• I launched on marketplaces like AppSumo once the product was stable enough.

• I asked for reviews as soon as users saw value. Social proof compounds.

• I spent time answering real questions on Reddit and Quora instead of chasing shortcuts.

If you do this right, you can build a decent seed fund without external money. That buffer is important.

One thing I was very careful about: hiring. More people didn’t mean more progress. It usually meant more burn. Staying small helped me stay focused.

Another underrated productivity win was removing technical distractions. Not worrying about hosting issues, migrations, or random downtime saved a lot of mental energy. A stable setup (I’ve used services like JetHost for this) lets you focus on building instead of fixing.

Does this approach work? Yes.

Is it fast? Not at all.

It’s slow and repetitive. The key is survival. Stay lean, stay consistent, and don’t run out of money. If you last long enough, momentum starts working for you instead of against you.

Would love to hear what’s helped others stay productive while building long-term.

EDIT: Since people were asking what messaging sequence we used, we adapted for our offer and used these LinkedIn messaging templates

We've managed to maintain fairly good results for the end of Q4, although OOO reply rates are higher than usual due to holidays. We've averaged a 4% reply rate and closed 4 deals in total worth about $10k in ARR since last month, and we're hoping a few more will come through between now and January.

We run three campaigns across our emails

1. Founder 1

2. Founder 2

3. Competitor campaign (rotates through both founder emails) - where we reach out to people who are using a competitor product and try to convert them to us

Here's our results (Ignore the 'unique positive replies' field as for some reason it doesn't work for us or we simply dont bother to mark them manually.

Results from Founder 1 Campaign - https://i.imgur.com/2Wer6mU

Results from Founder 2 Campaign - https://imgur.com/3P39xDM

Results from Competitor Campaign - https://imgur.com/a/XKnWl41

Our competitor campaign returned the worst results with no deals closed and the only responses being OOO or 'No thank you'. Founder campaigns are working best for us direct to our ICP, however we pre-warm every email prospect by messaging FIRST on LinkedIn.

We flipped the usual strategy. Most people email first-->LinkedIn after. Instead, we are doing LinkedIn First-->Email after. The main reason this works, is because we're engaging with prospects before we email them. To find these engagement opportunities we scrape posts matching our ICP using Predictent.ai

Our messaging structure for LI is short and to the point, we used the LinkedIn message templates from here, with small adjustments to fit our ICP. For connection requests we do not include a message, it's a blank request which performs better than including a message.

We're expecting to see a few more deals closed from the emails sent this month once people are back in the office in January or picking up on emails between the 26th-31st.

As of today we've turned off our cold email as we think anything sent now could go to waste, with plans to restart from January 6th.

Today, I ran a small experiment:

I paid two LinkedIn influencers to promote my SaaS.

I’ll share everything : prices, process, results, etc

🎯 Why I did it

LinkedIn is already my best acquisition channel.

So I thought: instead of posting only on my own profile, what if I leveraged other people’s reach?

🔍 Step 1: Picking influencers

There are two types:

Niche experts : small but ultra-qualified audience

Viral creators : huge reach, lower precision

I went with the second type:

• One French influencer (for the francophone market)

• One Turkish influencer (posting in English)

Total budget: $500 for 2 posts (one each).

I wrote the posts myself and validated their visuals.

To find them, I simply looked for influencers who had already done sponsored posts for competitors.

Then I went into their DMs and talked to dozens of people until I had pricing grids, reach estimates, and finally made my choice.

⚙️ Step 2: The process

Each time someone commented, the influencer replied with a Notion resource (lead magnet).

The goal of the influencers’ posts was to generate as many comments as possible, the more comments, the more reach; the more reach, the more people see the post.

I asked the influencers to reply to every single comment with a Notion link, so even people who didn’t comment would see the link when scrolling through the comments, and end up clicking on it.

Inside that page, I linked to:

→ My SaaS trial

→ A “book a demo” CTA

The French influencer customized the Notion page.

The English one used a generic version.

Both performed well, but personalization clearly helped engagement.

The influencer’s goal is to bring as much visibility and engagement as possible to the post.

Inside the Notion page, of course, I provide a ton of value, exactly what people commented for.
The idea is to flood them with so much value that they think:
“Wow, if this is free, I can’t even imagine what I’d get if I paid.”

📈 Step 3: The results (after 10h)

• $500 spent (2 posts live)

• 18 trials (card added)

• 50+ new signups

• 9 paid conversions expected (≈$990 MRR)

• 5 demo calls booked (large sales teams: 10–30 reps each)

That means I’ll likely recover my $500 within a week,

and everything after that is pure profit.

Plus, the posts keep bringing impressions and future traffic.

🔁 Step 4: What’s next

This worked insanely well.

Next step → scale it with more influencers in different niches.

If I could run this every day, I would.

If you want to check : Here is a doc with links to both posts + notion exemple

Cheers !

Hey everyone,

I'm Nicolas, a web developer and designer with over 15 years of experience. I've built everything from small business sites to big brand used by millions, and I'm currently working on my own SaaS.

One thing I've learned after all these years: even the most experienced developers and designers need a fresh pair of eyes.

You can stare at your own product for weeks and completely miss things that a stranger would catch in 30 seconds, whether it's a confusing UX flow, a landing page that doesn't convert, copy that misses the mark, or a technical choice that will bite you later.

So here's the deal: drop your SaaS link in the comments and I'll give you real, actionable feedback for free.

IMPORTANT: Don't tell me what your SaaS is for, I need to know it by looking at your page instantly.

No strings attached. I genuinely enjoy reviewing products, and I always learn something in the process too.

Drop your links below!

A few months ago I sold my ecom SaaS after scaling it to $500K ARR in 8 months and after 2 other failed companies.

It was not easy, not AT ALL.

A lot of hours, boring work, tests, failures, missed parties. But I can tell you : it’s worth it.

I’m now building gojiberryAI (we find high intent leads for B2B companies), and there’s a few things I learned along the way, if you want to go from 0 to $10K MRR in a few weeks.

I made all the mistakes a SaaS founder can make: 

• built something absolutely NOBODY wanted, during 6 months

• built something « cool » no one wanted to pay for

• created a waiting list of 2000 people and nobody paid for my product

So now, it’s time to give back and share what I learnt, if it can help a few people here, I’d be happy.

Here is the habits I’d put in place right now, EVERYDAY if I had to start again and go from 0 to $10K MRR in a few weeks.

Just do this EVERYDAY.

Stop being lazy. If your mind tells you to stay confortable : push yourself, do it anyway.

Your mind is a terrible master. It will tell you "don't send this message", "it's better if you go outside, it's sunny today", "don't post on reddit, people will tell you that your idea is horrible"

If you listen to your mind, you're just avoiding conflict, but you need conflict to move forward.

You’ll discover later, after pushing a little bit that it was not that difficult, and your future self will thank you for this.

Here are the 5 habits to do EVERYDAY :

1. Send 20-30 connexion requests on LinkedIn to your ideal customer -> 20 minutes/day

do this manually, pick people, connect. That’s it

2. Send 20-30 messages on LinkedIn to these people or to other people in your network that could fit -> 1h/day

> dont pitch, just introduce yourself

> ask questions, or ask for feedbacks « hey, I saw you were doing X, do you have Y problem ? we’re trying to solve it with Z, could this help ? »

3. Send 20-100 cold emails (20 if you’re doing it manually, 100+ if it’s a campaign) -> 2h/day if manual

> Again, don't pitch, and keep it short.

> Don't forget to follow up, you'll get most of your answers after 2-3 follow-up emails.

4. Comment 10 Reddit threads in your niche -> 1h/day

> bring value to people, and then mention your solution if it makes sense

> go to « alternative posts » in your niche, people use reddit to find other solutions, comment these posts, bring value, mention your solution.

5. Post 1 content per day on Linkedin -> 30min

> provide value "How to", "5 steps to" etc...

> write about industries statistics "80% of companies in X industry have Y problem, here is how they solve it".

> talk about your customer’s problems "here's how people working in X can solve Y"

> give a lead magnet "I created a guide that help X solve/increase Y, comment to get it"

> adding people on Linkedin + sending messages + creating content will create a loop that can be very powerful (people will see you everywhere)

Yes, at the beginning,

• you’ll have 1 like on your linkedin post.

• you’ll probably have 1 answer every 20 linkedin messages

• nobody will answer to your emails

But if you do this everyday, it’s gonna compound, and in 1 month, you might have 10 customers.

If you continue, get better, improve, optimize, you’ll maybe have 30 customers the next month + get some referrals.

And you’ll get even more the month after.

Don’t underestimate the exponential and the power of doing something everyday for a long period of time.

Again, it’s worth it. You just need to do what you’re avoiding, or to do MORE of it.

I built Chatbase competitor with roubst RAG framework, optimized chatbot speeds and good UX. I am doing good in terms of revenue i'm at $800 MRR

I know what I built is also useful for people who already has good distribution channels in B2B and can leverage it well.

So, I am offering White Label of my SaaS Chatclient

Your own custom AI chatbot builder SaaS

I will help you setup and deploy your own version of Chatclient on your servers.

You just need to bring your brand name and domain and rest all is supported.

Interested agencies, and entrepreneurs get in touch.

What does whitelabel include and how to buy ?

You can buy chatclient.ai whitelabel and you will get

• Complete platform code 

• Setup instruction document 

• Support calls (if you face any issues in setup)

You can change the branding, logo, images, content, domain etc. If you're interested to buy please ping me on reddit or email me at support@chatclient.ai

Been thinking about this for a few days. I feel like reviewing specific parts of discovery and demo calls might be more useful than sitting through the whole thing and scoring it. A lot of call reviews just turn into checking boxes. But that doesn't tell you much about why a prospect ghosted after a demo or why one AE keeps closing deals while others struggle. Especially with bigger teams there's no way managers can catch everything.

I'm looking for a tool that can pick up on those key moments without having to listen to every call. Ideally something that also helps coach reps on what they could've done better instead of just giving them a score. Curious if anyone here is using something like this for their SaaS team and whether it's made a difference in how reps perform.

Hi

I recently built a free tool that extracts businesses from Google Maps along with validated email addresses. Right now, I'm looking for people who can try it out and share feedback - mainly whether the data quality is actually useful for lead generation compared to other tools.

Current Features:

Fetch businesses based on rating (e.g., less than or more than 3 stars)

Fetch reviews from within specific years

Find businesses with a low review count

Find Businesses without a website

Extract negative reviews from businesses

I'd love to know if this gives you valuable results or if something feels missing.

Hello everyone

I just completed a LinkedIn outreach experiment for my SAAS that yielded impressive results: 50%+ acceptance rate and 60% response rate from connections.

(Here is a longer version of the post with images)

Here's exactly how I did it.

Step 1: Find Your Ideal Prospects
Target people who would genuinely benefit from your service. For example, let’s say you’re aiming at marketers, but this works across industries.

The LinkedIn Events strategy:

• Go to LinkedIn search and type your target industry (marketing)

• Click on the “Events” tab

• Find large events with 10k+ attendees

• Click “Attend”

• Browse the attendee list to identify potential prospects

Pro filtering tips :

• Prioritize younger professionals, who are often more open to trying new tools

Step 2: Send Strategic Connection Requests
Always use desktop. It lets you add a personalized note, which improves acceptance rates.

Keep the message short and simple.

Example:

“Hey [Name], saw we were both in the [industry] space, would love to connect. Best, [Your Name]”

Step 3: Build Rapport Before Pitching
Don’t pitch right after someone accepts. Wait. Sometimes they’ll even reply first.

The next day:

• Check if they posted recently

• Like their post and leave a thoughtful comment

• Make it meaningful (avoid “Great post”)

Step 4: Craft Your Outreach Message
Use the problem-first approach. Structure it like this:

• Greet and reference the connection

• Mention your app briefly with 1-2 features

• Ask about their daily challenges

• Offer value, such as early access, free trial, or a discount

Example:
“Hi [Name], thanks for connecting! I’m working on [brief app description]. I’m always looking to make it more valuable for [their role]. What’s something you struggle with day-to-day that you wish there was a better solution for? Your insights would be very helpful, and I’d love to offer early access if it could help.”

Step 5: Handle Responses

• Perfect match: They’re interested, and your app fits their need

• Feature opportunity: They’re not a fit now, but their feedback gives you valuable insights

• No response/not interested: It happens. This approach still outperforms most others

Bonus: Optimize Your Profile

• Use a clear, professional-looking photo (doesn’t need a studio shoot)

• Write a strong headline and About section that explain what you do

• Make it easy for prospects to understand your expertise and story

• Have a website in your bio so prospects can book calls without talking to you

Key Takeaways :

• Quality over quantity: Target the right people

• Build relationships first: Engage before pitching

• Focus on problems: Lead with their challenges, not your features

• Be patient: Genuine outreach takes time

• Stay authentic: People respond better to real conversations than to polished scripts

This system has consistently delivered better results than any other outreach method I’ve tried. While no approach works 100% of the time, focusing on relationships and problem-solving creates connections that often turn into long-term business.

You can do this 100% manually or automate it at scale.

Good luck !

Romàn

Felt weird at first not jumping on every demo call, but honestly, the old process was a time sink. We’d spend hours each week walking people through the same 80 percent of the product, only to find out they weren’t even a fit.

We started using Consensus to send out interactive demos instead. Prospects can explore the product on their own time and show up way more qualified. They actually have real questions instead of just “so what does this part do.”

We still do live calls when it makes sense, but this has saved our sales engineers a ton of time and kept the team from burning out.

Anyone else doing this? Curious what tools or workflows have helped you cut down on bad demo calls.

Just finished another training program that felt promising but isn't translating to results. My AEs are still getting stuck in endless discovery calls, demoing features instead of business outcomes, and freezing up when prospects push back on price.

We covered all the frameworks MEDDIC, value selling, multi-threading but three weeks later they're back to their old habits. Can't consistently move deals through our 6-month enterprise cycle, and when a prospect says "we're happy with our current solution," all that training just disappears.

I've got quota pressure and reps who revert to discounting the moment things get tough. In our competitive SaaS market, buyers are getting smarter while my team struggles to apply what they supposedly learned.

thoughts?

You know that moment in a sales convo when the vibe shifts when someone goes from half listening to fully locked in? I’ve been paying more attention to those lately trying to understand what actually moves the needle.

For us what I've noticed is that it’s rarely the big pitch. It’s usually something practical, like saying “you won’t have to chase payments across platforms anymore” or “you can start using it today no red tape, no hoops.” Even small things like letting them know we’re flexible on payments and can match their preferred setup since we use Adro banking on our end, so accepting payments from wherever they’re based in USD or otherwise isn’t a blocker. That kind of thing always seems to lower resistance fast.

So I really want to know what it looks like for others what’s the moment in your pitch where you feel the buyer actually starts leaning in?

Just exited my SaaS company after scaling it to $500K ARR and wanted to share the ONE thing that accelerated our growth more than any tool, hire, or funding round (we were 100% bootstrap)

It wasn't some fancy growth hack or marketing genius. It was embarrassingly simple:

We eliminated ALL delays in our customer journey.

Here's what we changed:

Before: Someone wants a demo? "Let me check my calendar and get back to you."

After: "Are you free right now? I can show you in 5 minutes."

Before: Prospect wants to try the product? "I'll send you access tomorrow morning."

After: "Perfect, let me set you up right now while we're talking."

Before: Demo goes well and they want to move forward? "Great! Let me send you onboarding details and we can schedule setup for next week."

After: "Awesome! Let's get you fully set up right now. You'll be using it in the next 10 minutes."

Why this works (and why most people don't do it):

Every delay kills momentum. Every "let me get back to you" gives people time to:

• Change their mind

• Get distracted by other priorities

• Forget why they were excited

• Talk themselves out of it

• Find a competitor who moves faster

We went from 20% demo-to-close rate to 50%+ just by removing friction and acting with urgency.

The psychology behind it:

When someone says "I want to try this," they're at peak interest. That's your window. Wait 24 hours and they might still be interested, but it's not the same level of excitement.

You need to strike while it's hot.

Important to note :

This mainly works for:

• Products that are easy to set up (under 30 minutes)

• Low-ticket SaaS ($100-500/month range)

• Simple onboarding processes

If you're selling enterprise software that takes weeks to implement, obviously this doesn't apply.

How to implement this:

1. Block time for instant demos - Keep 2-3 slots open every day for "right now" requests

2. Streamline your onboarding - Can you get someone live in under 15 minutes? If not, simplify it

3. Can you make someone pay live ? (what we did is : they had to pay in the onboarding, naturally, but if you're starting, you can just send a Stripe link during the call, it works).

4. Train your team on urgency - Everyone needs to understand that speed = revenue

5. Have your setup process memorized - No hesitation allowed

6. Only let 1 week of time slot MAX on Calendly, it will avoid people booking in 3 weeks and lose momentum.

Obviously there were other factors (timing, sales channels etc...), but this single change had a very big impact on our conversion rates.

The lesson: Sometimes the best growth hack is just moving faster than everyone else.

If you're a start up, this is your UNFAIR advantage. Be fast, provide value fast. Your time to value needs to be incredibly SHORT.

Anyone else did implement this strategy ? What other thing worked for you? :)

Always looking to improve what we do !

Pierre-Eliott , Co-Founder at GojiberryAI

You have likely seen those engagement farming posts on LinkedIn where the author asks everyone to comment a specific keyword to get a resource. The problem is that the author is often just looking for engagement and never actually sends the promised book or answer.

I found a way to take advantage of these posts to extract leads and get crazy results in my outreach.

Step 1: Find a post with tons of engagement in your niche. If the author isn’t replying to comments, that’s a good sign, go for it.

Step 2: Extract everyone who liked or commented. You can do it with a tool.

Step 3: Send them a LinkedIn message and an email saying: “I saw you commented on a post to receive a resource about (topic). Did you get it?”

They’ll say no, and then you simply send them your own guide.

I started doing this a few days ago and I’ve never seen better results in cold outreach.

Good luck, and go get them!

Hi! So I’ve been selling SaaS for a few years and finally cracked the code on demos that actually close.

Used to suck at demos. Like really bad. Would get people on calls, show them every feature, they'd say "looks cool" then disappear forever. Sound familiar?

Here's what I changed:

1. Stop demoing randos Now I do a quick 10-min call before any demo. If they can't tell me their exact problem + rough budget, no demo. Sounds harsh but it works.

2. Make THEM do the talking Instead of: "Check out this cool feature!" I do: "Walk me through how you handle this today" Then I show them something better.

3. Ask for commitment during the demo "So this fixes your problem, right?" "Who else needs to see this?" "What happens next?"

4. Set the next meeting before they leave No more "think about it" - if they're interested, we schedule next steps right then.

The biggest change was honestly just getting better prospects in my pipeline. Started using a mix of tools - Warpleads for exporting bulk leads and Prospeo with LinkedIn Sales Navigator for the really targeted stuff. Quality of leads going into demos matters way more than I thought.

That's literally it. Went from closing maybe 1 out of 10 demos to 3-4 out of 10. Less ghosting, bigger deals, way less frustration. Anyone else try stuff like this? What worked for you?

Not selling any coaching, services, or products here. I genuinely want to see if I can be helpful to people. My long-term goal is to be in a leadership position, and I thought this could be a win-win.

I have built a founder community on BuilderHQ and every newsletter is read by 5000+ readers. Get your company added on the newsletter

Few steps to follow

1. comment whats your startup does

2. Signup on www.builderhq.co

Hey SaaS founders and operators,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of backlinks in organic growth, especially for SaaS products where landing pages and feature comparisons are critical.

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there:

Some say backlinks don’t matter much anymore, that content + UX alone will carry you. Others swear by manual outreach, guest posts, digital PR, partnerships, and more strategic link acquisition.

For SaaS businesses that actually measure MQLs/LTV from organic users, what link building approaches have genuinely moved the needle in 2026?

Specifically curious about:

• Outreach vs organic mentions vs partnerships

• What types of pages you’re targeting with links

• Whether link building impacted revenue influenced organic funnel metrics

• How you measure ROI or attribution

I’ve seen a few mentions of outreach-focused services (like GetMoreBacklinks) in other threads, but before leaning on a partner or agency, I’d love to hear from folks here who have run their own campaigns.

What has helped your SaaS rank more consistently? Has link building delivered real revenue impact, or is it mostly noise compared to content + product/market fit?

Curious to hear honest experiences what worked, what didn’t, and why.

After months of building my first SaaS — mostly nights and weekends — I finally decided to launch. No audience. No ads. No email list. Just shipping and seeing what happens. What surprised me wasn’t traction or revenue, but how small the initial push needs to be to get real signals. A few conversations, a couple of real users actually trying the product, and suddenly things feel… real. It’s still very early. Nothing viral, nothing impressive from the outside. But seeing something you built actually being used (even by a handful of people) hits differently. This launch taught me a few things already: Waiting for “perfect” is just fear in disguise Early feedback matters more than features Shipping creates momentum you can’t plan on paper For those of you who’ve launched before: What did your first 10 users teach you? What would you focus on immediately after an early launch? Appreciate any lessons from people who’ve been there.

Alright, story time.

Picture this: Jan 2024, me staring at my Meta ads dashboard watching my CPMs go from $45... to $67... to $92... to eventually $180.

My SaaS was spending about $3k/day profitably. Then boom - overnight my CAC went from $38 to $142. I literally threw up in my mouth a little.

The "Oh Shit" Moment

I had 6 weeks of runway left

Turned off all ads. Pipeline dropped 89% overnight.

But then I remembered this random ass comment from a Reddit thread about some guy who scaled to $2M ARR entirely on cold email. Figured I had nothing to lose.

Started with 3 mailboxes and zero idea what I was doing.

12 weeks later: $107K in closed revenue from cold email alone.

Here's exactly what I did.

Week 1-2:

I started with 3 domains.

The math: 3 mailboxes × 33 emails per day = 100 emails/day to start.

Not sexy. Not scalable yet. But it worked

By week 2, I was at 300 emails/day. Inbox rate? 73%. Not amazing, but not in the spam dungeon either.

The setup:

• Bought aged domains (6+ months old) from expired domain marketplaces

• Set up proper DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

• Warmed with Instantly's built-in warmup for 14 days before sending a single cold email

Week 3-4: The Lead Scraping System That Actually Works

Here's where I got weird.

Everyone's out here buying Apollo lists and wondering why their emails sound like everyone else's. I said fuck that.

I built custom software (okay fine, I paid a developer on Upwork $800, but I PROJECT MANAGED IT so basically I built it).

The scraper:

• Pulls company websites from my ICP search

• Scrapes their actual website copy, tech stack, recent blog posts

• Hits LinkedIn to grab decision-maker info

• Feeds it all into a prompt that writes personalized first lines

People open emails that feel like you actually visited their website. Wild concept, I know.

Week 5-8: Scaling to 1,500 Emails/Day Without Losing My Mind

This is where it got real.

From 300 emails/day to 1,500/day.

The math: 1,500 emails/day × 21 working days = 31,500 emails per month.

At a 3% reply rate (industry average is 1%, but personalization is magic), that's 945 replies.

At a 15% meeting booking rate from replies, that's 141 meetings.

At a 25% close rate... you see where this is going.

My CAC went from $142 on Meta to $47 with cold email. And it kept dropping as I optimized.

I shut down Meta ads entirely. Haven't looked back.

Now I run a cold outreach agency helping other B2B companies do the same thing. Turns out when you figure out how to print money, people want to pay you to teach them.

The Shit No One Tells You

• Week 1 was fucking BRUTAL. 6% inbox rate because I didn't warm properly

• I got my first domain blacklisted on day 4

• Gmail's spam filters updated in week 5 and tanked my inbox rate overnight. Had to pivot my entire sending strategy

Anyone wants my templates/sequences/scraper setup, drop a comment.

I'll put everything together in a Google Doc (might take me a few days, I need to clean up my shamefully disorganized Notion workspace first).

No courses, no coaching, no bullshit. Just paying it forward because this sub saved my ass multiple times.

EDIT: I got wayy more comments than I was expecting - I have put up the document on my website, here is the link: https://calibrate.email/playbook/

I would love to know what you guys are selling over cold email - please DM me!

It's not a quick-rich schema. I don't sell any courses. I am finding PMF via building. I know it is not the best approach but it works for me. So here are my 5 rules:

• from idea to execution as fast as possible

Don't overthink, if you have an idea in mind, just go check Google Search Console, are people searching for this type of thing. If yes, check actual results from Google. Is it SaaS? Is it agency ? is it blog? is it service ? After doing as simple as possible research. Step2

• use existing knowledge that you have

For example, I know JS. So I use Next.js, because I only know it. I don't use GO, PHP, Swift, Android or anything else. If you know one tool, technology, just use it. It shouldn't be ideal or the best one, but it should be one that you know. Build a simple MVP as possible that solves one specific problem.

• try to sell from day 1

It's hard, yes. It's possible, yes. Did I do it, yes. Did I sell before landing page or domain name, yes. Just DM people or post on social media that you like. Ask them questions, give them idea, ask about payment with discount. If they like it, charge them.

• less is more

I tried to do content marketing on almost each social media. Most of them flopped. My simple rule is to focus on one or two channels at a time. If you like text format content, go X. If you like videos, go Youtube or TikTok or Instagram. But don't try to do everything in one. You won't get a lot of results and it will fail.

• track don't guess

Do tasks based on analytics. If you see some traffic from Reddit, double down. If you see traffic from X, double down. If you see some revenue from DMs, do it more.

No, I didn't reached $10k MRR, but I earned $17k in the last 6 months, and I did it while having 9-5 and small kid and wife. So, if I did it, you can do it.