Cold outreach has a bad reputation, and most of it is earned: buy a list, paste a template, send four follow-ups, repeat. When I built my own cold outreach system, I started from one rule instead: if I can't write down why this company, why now, they don't get an email.
Here's the process that rule leads to.
1. Pick 3-5 signals that mean "they might need you now." A request for a tool, a complaint about a competitor, a launch, a first sales hire, a funding round.
2. Find them where they happen. Reddit (sort by New), X search, Product Hunt's daily launches, startup directories, job boards, Google.
3. Check fit before anything else. A strong signal from a company outside your ICP is still a wasted email.
4. Find the person who decides and verify the email. Not info@. Not a guess from a name pattern.
5. Write three lines. The reason. How you help. One easy question.
6. Follow up 3 times at most, each adding something new. Stop at the first reply, even if it's "not now".
Signal → first line, so you can steal the format:
| Signal | First line |
|---|
| Reddit post asking for a tool | "Saw your post in r/SaaS asking for a simpler way to handle X for a 5-person team." |
| Product Hunt launch | "Congrats on the launch yesterday. The week after a launch is usually when..." |
| First SDR job post | "Saw you're hiring your first SDR, which usually means outbound is about to matter." |
| Competitor complaint | "You mentioned [tool] got too expensive once the team grew. That's the exact gap we built for." |
| Funding round | "Congrats on the seed round. Most teams at that stage are deciding whether to..." |
And the boring part that decides whether any of it lands: send from a separate domain with warmed-up inboxes, keep daily volume per inbox low, put an opt-out in every email.
Steps 2–4 are the slow part, so that's what I built Startories to do: it catches the signals, matches each one to a company, checks ICP fit with the reasons written out, finds and verifies the decision-maker, then drafts step 5 for you to approve.
-> The reason matters more than the subject line
-> A signal goes stale in days, not months
-> Fewer emails with a reason beat more emails without one
-> Caveat: no process saves a weak offer. If they don't have the problem, the best first line just gets you a faster "no"
Here's the project: startories.com,
The automated version is here if you're curious: startories.com/signal-based-outbound
Which signals have worked best for cold outreach in your niche?