u/GildedGazePart

Got an email 2 weeks ago from the CEO of the company I compete with most directly.

Assumed it was a fishing expedition but I took the call anyway.

They wanted to acquire us, and after speaking for a bit they offered $400K. Not retire tomorrow money but enough to take seriously.

I passed. But going through the process of actually considering it was one of the most clarifying things I've done as a founder.

They asked questions I'd never sat down and answered honestly.

What percentage of your users actually use the core feature? Where is your real moat? How dependent is this business on you personally? What breaks if you disappear tomorrow? What transfers in an acquisition versus what's just locked in your head?

I had to go find the answers and it was pretty damn uncomfortable.

The moat I thought we had basically didn't exist. A funded competitor could rebuild the core product in a few weeks with AI coding tools. What I thought was defensible was really just good distribution and systems.

I was also more central to the business than I'd admitted to myself. Key customer relationships, product knowledge, reputation in the space. Strip me out and the valuation drops significantly.

But I found some things I'd been underselling too.

Retention was stronger than I realized. A customer segment I'd written off as small was actually our fastest growing. Word of mouth in a specific niche was outperforming everything we were doing intentionally.

I also was able to hear about some of their numbers and while I thought their churn was probably a lot better than ours, turns out it was almost the same and they're 10x the size of us!

The deal didn't close. But the clarity was worth more than the number they put on the table.

Seriously consider doing this exercise even if no one comes knocking. Pretend someone wants to buy you and answer the hard questions honestly.

You'll find out where you're weaker than you think and stronger than you've given yourself credit for.

bootstrapped, two-person team. $500/mo total budget. here's where it goes:

outbound: ~$300 ProspectZero + Apollo + Instantly. we're not blasting lists. we're targeting people who've engaged with competitors or key influencers in our space within the last 24 hours. so when the message lands, it's actually relevant to something they just did.

getting 32% reply rate on LinkedIn and 3.5% on cold email. industry average cold email reply rate is like 1-2%. the timing is everything. high intent signals make the difference between "who is this" and "wait, how did you know."

ai agents: ~$20 Claude. running agents that find conversations happening on Quora, X, and LinkedIn where my buyers are already talking. drop in, add value, don't pitch. works better than most things i've tried.

everything else: $0 reddit comments, build in public content, organic LinkedIn. time-expensive but compound over time.

the outbound ROI is genuinely good right now so i'm hesitant to shift budget away from it. but $500 is a ceiling and i'm aware i'm pretty concentrated in one channel. I need to figure out other channels I can invest in and ideally automate - what has worked for everyone else? B2B SaaS btw.

Launched our B2B SaaS in February. Slow start, which we expected, but it still stung a bit.

March started to show signs of life. April clicked. $1,532 to $3,364 MRR in 30 days, 119% growth. Here's every channel that contributed and the intent strategy we used to more than double our revenue. Can provide proof via TrustMRR.

Outbound (LinkedIn + Cold Email)

This drove the majority of new revenue and it comes down to one decision we made early. No volume game.

We don't pull lists and blast them. We only contact people who have shown buying signals in the last 72 hours. Liking a competitor's post, commenting on relevant content in our niche, posting about a problem we solve. Those are the only people who get a message.

When we reach out, the message is built around the signal. Not "hey saw you work in marketing" but "saw you commented on X's post about pipeline efficiency, here's how we think about that." Specific, relevant, and it doesn't feel like cold outreach because it isn't really.

LinkedIn: 762 DMs, 36% reply rate.

Cold email: 3,000 sends, 3.2% reply rate.

The LinkedIn number is the one worth paying attention to. Intent-based outreach at the right moment changes everything about how people respond.

Boosted X Posts

Put a small budget behind our best performing organic posts. Low spend, just enough to reach people outside our existing audience. Generated a bunch of inbound leads we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Reddit

Still early but contributing steadily. Commenting on relevant threads, answering questions in niche subreddits, showing up in conversations our ICP is already having. Starting to see consistent traffic and occasional signups come through.

AEO and SEO

Slowest burn but starting to compound. Structured blog posts, FAQ content, comparison pages. A few things are ranking and sending low volume traffic consistently. This one is a long game but worth building early.

The stack

ProspectZero: surfaced high-intent leads and handled LinkedIn outreach. This is what made the 72 hour signal monitoring and the 36% reply rate possible.

Instantly: mailboxes and email sending. Kept deliverability clean across all 3,000 sends.

Apollo: email verification before anything went out. Non-negotiable for sender reputation.

Claude Routines: content creation and repurposing across channels. One idea becomes a week of content without adding much time.

ChatGPT: creatives for social posts.

What's next

Same playbook, more channels. Looking at affiliate and YouTube as the next two to layer in.

Happy to go deep on any of this, especially the intent-based outbound setup if that's relevant to what you're working on.

We launched in February. It was slow. Kinda expected it but still a bit of a bummer.

March picked up a little. Started to feel like something was actually working. April was our best month yet, 119% MRR growth in 30 days.

Here's exactly what drove it.

The channels

Three things contributed in a meaningful way this month. Boosted posts on X, LinkedIn outreach, and cold email. Reddit and SEO/AEO are starting to contribute too but I'll get to those.

Outbound (LinkedIn + Cold Email)

This is where the majority of new revenue came from.

We made a decision early on not to play the volume game. No massive lists, no spray and pray. We only reach out to people who have shown buying signals in the last 72 hours. Liking a competitor's post, commenting on an influencer in our niche, posting about a problem we solve. Those are the people we contact.

When we do reach out, the message references the exact signal. Not "hey saw you work in SaaS" but "saw you commented on X's post about outbound, here's how we think about that." Relevant, specific, human.

LinkedIn: 762 DMs sent, 36% reply rate.

Cold email: 3,000 emails sent, 3.2% reply rate.

The LinkedIn number speaks for itself. When you reach out to someone already in-market with a message that references why you're reaching out, it stops feeling like cold outreach. That's the whole unlock.

Boosted X Posts

Started putting a small budget behind our best organic posts. Nothing crazy. Just enough to get the content in front of people outside our existing audience. A few of those turned into inbound leads which was a nice surprise.

Reddit

Not a huge driver yet but it's contributing. Commenting on relevant posts, replying to questions in niche subreddits, showing up where our ICP is already having conversations. Starting to see traffic and the occasional signup come through from it.

AEO and SEO

This one is early but starting to show up. Structured content, FAQ posts, comparison pages. A few things are ranking and sending consistent low volume traffic. Compounding slowly which is all you can ask for at this stage.

The Growth Stack:

ProspectZero: found the high-intent leads and handled LinkedIn outreach. This is what surfaced people showing buying signals in the last 72 hours.

Instantly: mailboxes and email sending. Kept deliverability clean across 3,000 sends, really solid sending platform.

Apollo: verified email addresses before anything went out. Non-negotiable for protecting sender reputation.

Claude Routines: created and repurposed content across channels. One piece of content became multiple without adding hours to the week.

ChatGPT: generated creatives for social media content.

What's next

Keep doing what worked in April and layer in a few more channels like affiliate and YouTube.

Happy to answer questions on any of it, especially the outbound setup if that's useful.

Been running LinkedIn outreach for our agency for a few years. It used to work. Somewhere around 2022 it stopped working and I just kept doing the same thing expecting different results.

Finally got frustrated enough to rethink it from scratch.

Three changes made all the difference.

1. Stop reaching out to cold lists entirely
2. Score every lead with AI before touching them
3. Every message references a specific signal

Here's the problem with how most people do LinkedIn outreach. You build a list based on title, industry, company size. Maybe 500 people. You load them into a tool and start sending. Looks good on paper.

But a huge chunk of those people are essentially inactive. Haven't posted, haven't engaged, haven't logged in recently. You're optimizing for list size instead of list quality.

What I switched to is monitoring engagement in real time on a 72 hour rolling window.

Competitor puts out a post, I pull every person who engaged with it. Industry influencer posts something relevant, same thing. Someone interacts with my own content, they go straight into the list.

Last month that gave me roughly 17,000 potential leads. I contacted maybe 900 of them. Every single one got fed through an AI scoring model, checked against our ICP, and rated 1-100. Cutoff is 70. Below that, no message gets sent. We used ProspectZero for this.

The outreach itself is dead simple. One recent example:

"Hey Marcus, noticed you commented on Dave's post about pipeline efficiency. We help teams prioritize outreach based on who's actually in-market right now. Worth sending over a quick breakdown?"

Reference the signal. Make it relevant. Offer something useful, not a pitch.

Whatever you send as a follow up resource needs to actually deliver value. A real breakdown, a short video, something that helps them even if they never buy. The call to action lives inside that resource, not in the cold message.

Calls started coming in without people feeling sold to. That's the whole game.

Took me longer than it should have to figure this out but here we are.

Happy to go deeper on any part of this if it's useful.

Been using LinkedIn to grow our agency for years. Worked well back in 2020-2021 but the last few years it's been rough. Reply rates sitting at 5-10%, feeling like I was wasting time.

Then I changed my approach completely. Three things specifically.

1. Only targeting high-intent leads
2. Every lead scored and qualified with AI before reaching out
3. Every message is trigger-based

Most people run outreach like this. Pull a list of 500 leads that match your ICP, plug them into a LinkedIn tool, start sending. The problem is half those people haven't logged into LinkedIn in the last 30 days. You're dead in the water before you even start.

What I do now is track relevant engagement on a rolling 72 hour window.

If a competitor posts, I pull everyone who interacted. If an influencer in my niche posts, same thing. If someone engages with my content, they go in the list.

That generated close to 18,000 leads last month. But I only reached out to the top 5%. Every lead gets fed into AI, checked for ICP fit, and scored 1-100. Nobody below a 70 gets a message.

When it's time to reach out, the message is already built around the signal. Here's a recent example:

"Hey Sarah, saw your comment on James's post about outbound sequencing. We've been using real-time intent signals to prioritize who to reach out to and when, and it's made a big difference. Can I send over a quick breakdown of how it works?"

That's it. Acknowledge the interaction, connect it to a relevant value prop, offer something useful.

The resource you send needs to actually be helpful. A real playbook or breakdown with a natural call to action at the end. I include a short 2 minute video. People start booking calls because they don't feel like they're being pitched.

Simple playbook. Wish I'd done it sooner.

Happy to answer questions if anyone wants to go deeper on any part of it.

I wanted to share what's actually working for us as a B2B startup using AI to basically run our marketing.

what i'm NOT going to tell you to do

• generate AI content and blast it everywhere. the output is recognizable. people are trained to spot it now.
• set up some SaaS "AI social media manager" that posts on your behalf. you'll get engagement from other bots and zero real humans.
• replace your marketing team with it. doesn't work. you need a human in the loop or it goes sideways in ways that are hard to explain until it happens to you.

what works is using it as a leverage tool for distribution tasks your team is already doing but slowly. that's the whole insight.

the actual use cases (with prompts)

1. Quora answers agent

Quora is an AEO play more than a traffic play at this point. AI answer engines pull from Quora constantly. if you have a well-structured answer on a relevant question, it shows up in AI overviews. that's the bet.

we built a Claude Routine for this. Claude Routines are basically scheduled automation inside Claude. you write the instructions once, set a timer, it runs without you. ours checks for new relevant Quora questions every hour, scores them by relevance and intent, and drafts an answer for the best fits only.

prompt we use:

You are helping me answer Quora questions to build visibility for [your business].

I run [describe your business in one sentence]. My buyers are [ICP].

Search for new Quora questions about [your topic/niche] posted in the last hour.

Score each question 1-10 on:
- Relevance to the problem we solve
- Intent (are they actually looking for a solution or just curious)
- Answer quality of existing answers (low quality = more opportunity)

Only draft answers for questions scoring 7 or higher.

For each answer:
1. Answer the actual question directly in the first 2 sentences. don't bury the lead.
2. Give 3-5 specific, concrete points with real detail. not vague advice.
3. Mention [your product] once if it's genuinely relevant. naturally, not as a pitch.
4. End with one useful takeaway that makes the whole answer memorable.
5. Write in first person, from experience. not "here are some tips."

Do NOT write a numbered list if a paragraph answer is more natural. match the format to the question.

the "answer directly in the first 2 sentences" rule matters because Quora shows a preview before the read more cutoff. if you don't hook them there, the answer doesn't exist.

human reviews the drafts before anything goes live. the Routine surfaces the opportunities and does the writing. the review takes about 5 minutes a day.

2. YouTube comments agent

YouTube comments are one of the most underrated distribution channels right now. if you can find videos where your buyers are hanging out and leave something genuinely useful, you get traffic, AEO value, and a presence in conversations that already have momentum.

same setup as the Quora agent. Claude Routine running hourly, scanning for new videos and comment sections in our niche.

prompt:

You are helping me leave useful comments on YouTube videos to build visibility for [your business].

I run [describe your business in one sentence]. My buyers are [ICP].

Search for YouTube videos about [your topic/niche] published or updated in the last hour. Also scan comment sections on relevant videos for unanswered questions.

Score each opportunity 1-10 on:
- Relevance to the problem we solve
- Whether the video/comment has an obvious gap we can actually fill
- Recency (newer = better)

Only draft comments for opportunities scoring 7 or higher.

For each comment:
1. Respond to something specific in the video or comment. not vague engagement.
2. Add something the video didn't cover, from real experience.
3. Mention [your product] only if it's genuinely relevant. if it's forced, leave it out entirely.
4. Max 4 sentences. sounds like a practitioner, not a marketer.

Then tell me in one line: what specific thing you're responding to and why.

the "tell me in one line" part is quality control. if the reasoning is weak, the comment will be too.

we never post verbatim. the human pass takes 90 seconds per comment. that's what makes it not feel like spam.

3. X replies agent

X is the one where you have to be careful. full automation is a bad idea. your account is actually at risk if you're too aggressive, and generic AI replies get reported fast.

our setup: Claude Routine runs hourly, surfaces 10-15 relevant tweets based on keywords and accounts we care about, drafts a reply option for each. we spend 15 minutes in the morning picking the 3-5 worth posting and rewriting them in our actual voice before hitting send.

the agent does the prospecting. the human does the posting.

prompt:

You are helping me find and draft replies to relevant tweets to build visibility for [your business].

I run [describe your business in one sentence]. My buyers are [ICP].

Search for tweets posted in the last hour about [your topic/niche/keywords].

Score each tweet 1-10 on:
- Relevance to the problem we solve
- Whether there's something genuinely worth adding to the conversation
- Account quality (real person with real followers, not a bot or lurker account)

Only draft replies for tweets scoring 7 or higher. surface max 15 per run.

For each reply, write 3 options:
- Agree/Add: builds on their point with something concrete
- Disagree/Reframe: a counterpoint or alternative framing
- Question: a genuine question that moves the thread forward

Each option must:
- Be under 240 characters
- Add something real to the conversation. not "great point" energy.
- NOT pitch anything. not even subtly.
- Sound like a real person typed it in 45 seconds.

the three-option format pushes you to consider angles you'd never write yourself. the disagree/reframe is usually the most interesting one and the hardest to write from scratch.

no-pitch rule is the whole game on X. the follows and profile clicks come from being genuinely interesting. the second it reads like marketing it's dead.

4. LinkedIn comments agent

LinkedIn is where this has the highest ROI for us specifically because our buyers are there and comments show up in feeds.

same Claude Routine structure. runs hourly, finds relevant posts, scores them, drafts comments for the best fits.

prompt:

You are helping me leave LinkedIn comments that build my presence in [your niche].

I run [describe your business in one sentence]. My buyers are [ICP].

Search for LinkedIn posts published in the last hour about [your topic/niche].

Score each post 1-10 on:
- Relevance to the problem we solve
- Engagement potential (is this a post people are actually discussing)
- Whether there's a genuine gap or angle we can add value to

Only draft comments for posts scoring 7 or higher.

For each comment:
1. Engage with the specific argument or claim in the post. not "great post."
2. Add a concrete counterpoint, example, or nuance from real experience.
3. Ask one genuine question at the end if appropriate. a real question, not rhetorical.
4. 3-5 sentences.
5. Sounds like a practitioner talking to peers. not a vendor trying to seem smart.

Do NOT mention my product unless the post is directly about the problem it solves. even then, keep it incidental.

we track which comment styles drive profile visits. short punchy ones outperform on viral posts. long thoughtful ones outperform on niche technical threads. adjust accordingly.

5. Outbound agent (ProspectZero)

this one's different from the content plays above. instead of going to where the conversation is happening, this is about identifying people who are already signaling they need what we sell and reaching out directly on LinkedIn.

we use ProspectZero for this. it monitors LinkedIn for real-time intent signals - competitor engagement, job changes, influencer follows, profile visits - scores them, and automatically starts outreach based on the specific signal that triggered it. intent-based LinkedIn outreach using real-time signals.

the difference between this and regular cold outreach is the signal. you're not guessing at intent. someone who just followed three of your competitors and liked a post about a problem you solve is not a cold lead. the conversation is already halfway started.

That's it. Pretty simple once you actually get all of these things set up. Happy to answer any questions in the comments, not going to try and sell you anything or DM you with a pitch.

We just hit $10k MRR this morning, and I figured it would be a good time to share some of the sauce. The same question keeps coming up in this community. "How do I actually get customers?" Well we have about 82 paid customers right now so I think I'm qualified to answer this question.

Going to share what's worked for us so far this year in 2026. Lean, scalable, mostly automated is the goal.

A few things worth keeping in mind before we get into it:

Rule 1: Outbound before inbound. Inbound takes time. Outbound gets you customers this week.

Rule 2: Intent beats volume every time. 500 high-intent leads will always outperform 5,000 random ones.

Rule 3: Channels only work if they work together. Running them in silos is why most people don't see results.

Alright, going to break this down for you.

Outbound

This is where our first customers came from and it's still our highest converting channel.

The shift that changed everything was going from list-based outreach to intent-based outreach. Instead of targeting a persona, we started targeting behavior. People actively engaging with competitors, posting about problems we solve, asking for tool recommendations. Those people are already in-market. You're not convincing them they have a problem, you're just showing up at the right time.

Reply rates went from around 5% to 30%+ for LinkedIn and from 0.7% to around 2% with cold email once we made that switch. Volume matters a lot less when the timing is right.

Inbound

Pick 3 content pillars. One long-form piece per pillar per week. Newsletter, blog, LinkedIn, whatever fits you. Write it yourself, your real perspective is the whole point.

From each piece we pull LinkedIn posts, Reddit posts, a lead magnet when it makes sense, and a repurposed article. Claude Projects handles most of the repurposing. A couple hours of real thinking becomes a week of content.

SEO and AEO

Play both sides. Traditional SEO: listicles, comparison posts, directory backlinks. AEO: content that directly answers what your ICP is searching for in AI tools. Structured blog posts, FAQ pages, Reddit threads. This is indexing well and most people aren't doing it yet. Consistency wins here more than anything.

Partnerships

Three plays worth your time. Affiliates who already talk to your ICP. Micro-influencers over big names every time in B2B. Product integrations where you can get them. Getting inside tools your customers already trust is underrated distribution.

Paid

Don't touch it until inbound and outbound are converting. Paid is a volume knob, not a shortcut. Get the fundamentals working first then pour fuel on what's already working.

Our stack:

Instantly: email sending and inbox management

FindyMail: verified emails only

ProspectZero: intent-based LinkedIn outreach using real-time signals

Claude: content, repurposing, routines (agents)

None of this works in isolation. Outbound converts better when people have seen your content. SEO pulls in leads already searching. Inbound feeds everything else over time.

Start with outbound and inbound. Layer in SEO or affiliates once those are moving. That's the fastest path to first customers.

Happy to answer questions on any of it.

Three years ago I was cold emailing 500 people a day and closing maybe 1 or 2 a month. By the time we sold, we were running lean, and had a repeatable system anyone could pick up and run.

The thing that made the business sellable wasn't the revenue. It was the system. Documented, automated, and not dependent on me showing up every day to make it work.

We sold for 2.5x EBITDA, and were doing around 40k MRR at the time. Here's the stack that got us there.

Clay

This is where list building lives. We used Clay to enrich leads with data points beyond just name and title. Job changes, funding rounds, tech stack, hiring signals. The enrichment layer is what separates a generic list from a high-intent one.

Apollo

Prospecting and contact data layer. We used Apollo to build the initial universe of leads before enriching in Clay and filtering by intent signals. Apollo is just a solid, cheap database that anyone can get started with.

Claude

The content and ops brain behind everything. Writing outreach copy, building SOPs, repurposing content, drafting client reports. We used Claude Projects to store context on each client so nothing had to be re-explained session to session. Probably saved us 10 hours a week across the team.

ProspectZero

Intent-based LinkedIn outreach using real-time signals. While Clay handled enrichment, ProspectZero handled the live signal monitoring on LinkedIn. People posting about problems, engaging with competitors, asking for recommendations. We prioritized anyone showing active buying signals and reached out with context. This and Clay together is what moved our conversion rates.

Instantly

Email sending and inbox management. We ran 5 to 8 inboxes per campaign. Instantly kept deliverability clean and sequences running without us babysitting it. Hands down the best email sequencer on the market in my opinion, and we bought our domains / inboxes directly from them. Done-for you DNS is amazing. Never want to see another DNS record again.

FindyMail

Verified emails only. No bounces killing our sender reputation. Simple but non-negotiable, they have the best data on the market IMO.

HubSpot

CRM and pipeline management. Every lead that replied went into HubSpot. Deals, stages, follow up tasks, all tracked. Kept the team aligned without long internal threads.

Slack

Customer support and internal comms. Fast response time was a big part of our retention. Slack kept us close to clients without email chains going cold. This was surprisingly underrated because every customer interaction was just a text away. I highly recommend creating slack channels with your customers, it takes CS to the next level.

Notion

Where everything lived. SOPs, onboarding docs, campaign templates, reporting. When it came time to sell, handing over a Notion workspace with everything documented made the due diligence process way smoother than it had any right to be.

The honest takeaway: the signals were the edge. Everyone is blasting cold email and LinkedIn DMs. The difference was using intent signals to know who was actually in-market before reaching out. That's what pushed conversions from okay to solid.

Build the system. Document everything. The exit takes care of itself.

Happy to answer questions on any part of this, including any questions you guys have around how to set up these tools.

Hey guys, ran an experiment over the last few weeks. I tried to grow my Agency by handing off the repetitive marketing work to agents.

Results were pretty solid.

Website traffic: 100-150/day to 250-300/day in about 2 weeks. Nothing magical, just replaced the stuff that needs to happen every day but never actually did.

1. Quora Agent (Claude Routines)

Runs daily, finds questions in my niche, and scores them by relevance and intent. Only targets the best fits instead of answering everything. Writes responses that are actually useful. Most Quora answers are shallow so there's real room to stand out. Traffic from this one is slow and steady. You'll get clicks from answers you forgot you wrote.

Claude Routines is basically scheduled automation inside Claude. You set the instructions once, it runs on a timer, and you never have to think about it again. Perfect for anything that needs to happen consistently but doesn't need you involved.

2. YouTube Comments Agent (Claude Routines)

Scans videos in my space and looks through the comments for people asking questions or comparing tools. Drafts replies that help rather than pitch. The interesting thing here is you're catching people mid-research, not just passively scrolling. Lower volume, higher intent.

Same setup as the Quora agent. One Routine, runs daily, no manual effort after the initial build.

3. Content Agent (Claude Projects)

This one made the whole content side feel sustainable for the first time. I feed it one idea, usually something from my newsletter or something I'm already thinking about, and it expands into blog posts, LinkedIn posts, tweets, lead magnets, whatever. Instead of constantly generating new ideas, you're just getting more out of what already exists.

Claude Projects lets you give Claude persistent context, instructions, and even custom Skills so it already knows your brand voice, your ICP, your content format preferences. You're not re-explaining yourself every session. The Skills feature is underrated here. You can build reusable instructions for specific tasks like "write a LinkedIn post in my voice" or "turn this into a Reddit post" and just call them whenever you need them. Huge time saver.

4. Outbound Agent (ProspectZero)

This is the one that actually drives signups. It monitors LinkedIn for real-time intent signals, people engaging with competitors, posting about pain points, asking for tool recommendations, scores them, and starts conversations. Intent-based LinkedIn outreach using real-time signals, so instead of cold outreach into the void, you're showing up when someone is already in-market. Big difference.

The individual pieces aren't complicated. The hard part is doing them every single day. Agents remove that bottleneck.

Still early but doubling traffic in 2 weeks without changing my offer or positioning was enough to keep going. Planning to test agents for X and review sites next. Will report back.

Been documenting my startup journey for a while now and wanted to share what's actually moved the needle over the last 18 months. A lot of founders here ask about getting first customers so here's the full breakdown lean, scalable, and as automated as possible.

A few ground rules first:

Rule 1: Action beats precision every time. Momentum is everything, stay in motion.

Rule 2: Ignore playbooks from 2020-2024. AI has changed the game completely.

Rule 3: You signed up for competition. Embrace it.

Here's how I break it down across 5 channels:

1. Inbound

Pick 3 content pillars. One long-form piece per pillar each week: blog post, newsletter, YouTube, whatever fits you. Write these yourself, your human voice is the point. Then repurpose each into 2 social posts, a LinkedIn article, a YouTube short, a newsletter, and a Reddit post.

Use Claude Projects to handle the repurposing. Spend 2-3 hours on the core content and let AI do the rest. One good idea, 10+ pieces of content.

2. Outbound

Fastest path to your first paying customers. No spray and pray, reach out to people already showing intent in your niche.

Cold email + LinkedIn DMs. Build high-intent lead lists. 500 strong leads beats 5,000 weak ones every time. Start with 5 email inboxes and your LinkedIn account. 100 emails per day, 30-40 LinkedIn DMs.

If you're reaching out to someone who just visited your site or matched a buying signal, reply rates will genuinely surprise you. Commit to this channel alone for 30 days and you will have paying customers.

3. SEO / AEO

Play both sides. Traditional SEO: listicles, comparison posts, YouTube, backlinks from directories and communities. AEO: write content that directly answers what your ICP is searching for.

Reddit threads, structured blog posts, FAQ-style content. Consistency beats everything here. Show up long enough and it compounds.

4. Partnerships

Three plays worth your time: affiliates (find people already talking to your ICP and give them a reason to mention you), micro-influencers (niche voices outperform big names in B2B almost every time), and product integrations (get into the tools your customers already use -- distribution through trust).

5. Paid

Don't turn it on until inbound and outbound are converting. Paid is a volume knob, not a shortcut. If your messaging and offer aren't dialed in yet, you're just paying to find out faster that something isn't working. Get the other channels working first, then pour fuel on it.

Our current growth stack:

ProspectZero: intent-based LinkedIn outreach

Instantly: email sending and inboxes

FindyMail: verified emails

Claude: blogs, content repurposing, a few internal social media agents

The key thing I've learned: don't run these channels independently. Inbound builds trust and makes outbound easier because people have already seen your name. SEO brings in leads already searching for what you do. Partnerships put you in front of audiences you don't own yet. Paid amplifies whatever is already working.

The goal is a flywheel. Content feeds SEO. SEO feeds inbound. Inbound warms outbound. Partnerships add fuel.

Start with inbound + outbound, then layer in affiliate or SEO. That's the quickest path to first customers.

Happy to answer any questions, drop them below. Always down to talk shop with other founders in the trenches.

I was doing the classic early stage founder stuff. Posting in founder communities, building in public on X, prepping for Product Hunt. Zero traction. And I eventually realized why.

I was talking to other founders building the same thing, not the actual people frustrated enough to pay.

So I spent a week just lurking. Specific subreddits, Slack communities, niche forums. People complaining about the exact problem my tool solves, using language I'd never heard before. It was kind of humbling honestly because I thought I knew my customer pretty well at that point.

I was wrong.

The terminology they used, the way they described their frustrations, the specific reasons they'd abandoned other tools. All of it was different from what I had in my head.

Around this same time I started using ProspectZero to track intent signals on LinkedIn. People actively posting about the problems my tool solves, people engaging with relevant content in our space. Seeing what real buyers were saying in real time on LinkedIn, combined with all the Reddit lurking, completely changed how I talked about the product. It's basically like having a live feed of your customers telling you exactly what they care about.

Here's what I actually changed:

Stopped posting about the product entirely for a while. Just asked genuine questions in communities. Not as a sales tactic, I actually needed to understand. When someone answered I'd engage, ask follow ups, not mention what I was building for weeks.

When I did start sharing, I led with my own struggle. "I was so frustrated with this that I spent months building something" lands completely differently than "check out my SaaS." People can feel the difference.

When someone asked what I was working on I just shared the link. No pitch. No special offer. Just here it is.

I replied to every single comment for the first 30 days. Not on my terms, on theirs, in their language.

The results shifted fast. By week 3 we had paying users coming in through direct conversation, not funnels. By week 6 we were over 200. Most of them felt like they'd discovered it themselves because honestly they had.

The product didn't change at all. The audience and the language changed everything.

If you're early stage and still talking mostly to other founders I'd really encourage you to go spend a week just listening where your actual customers are. Reddit, LinkedIn, wherever they hang out. ProspectZero is genuinely useful for the LinkedIn side of that if you want a structured way to track what your buyers are actually saying and doing. You'll be surprised what you find.

I've been in the GTM space going on eight years now, and when I tell you I've tried every GTM tool over the moon I'm serious. I've been an AE, SDR Manager, GTME, and currently am running a GTM consulting biz for B2B startups. Here's my take on modern tooling and how they rank.

Tier 1

Apollo ($49-$119/user/mo): The default starting point for most startups and honestly for good reason. Massive database, solid sequencer, free tier to get started. Data quality has slipped though, bounce rates of 8-15% are pretty common and per user pricing adds up fast. Best for solo founders or tiny teams who just need a cheap entry point to get moving.

Instantly ($30-$97/mo): My favorite cold email tool full stop. Unlimited sending accounts, huge warm-up network, and deliverability is genuinely excellent. We've run a ton of cold email through it and reply rates went up noticeably after switching. No lead database so you need to source contacts separately, but as a pure sender it's hard to beat. Best for teams who already have a data source and just need something reliable to send through.

Tier 2

Clay ($134-$350/mo): Incredible if you know what you're doing. Waterfall enrichment, fully custom workflows, pulls from basically every data source you can think of. Total overkill for most people though. Most teams spend weeks configuring it before sending a single message. Best for teams with a dedicated GTM or RevOps person who can actually build in it.

ZoomInfo ($15K-$50K/year): Best in class data coverage, no question. But the staleness problem is real and the price is completely absurd for early stage teams. Most startups treat it as the safe procurement choice rather than running the actual ROI math. Best for 50+ rep orgs with serious budgets.

ProspectZero ($99/mo): Stumbled across this one recently and it's a different animal entirely. Not a database tool. It tracks intent signals on LinkedIn, who's posting about relevant keywords, who's engaging with specific influencers in your space, filters by title, and reaches out automatically. We used it to close a handful of clients through cold DMs a few months back. If LinkedIn is a primary channel for you it's worth checking out.

Tier 3

Cognism ($1K-$3K/mo): Best data platform if you're selling into Europe. GDPR compliant, verified phone numbers, solid coverage in EMEA. If your ICP is US only there are cheaper options.

Lemlist ($55-$79/user/mo): Best in class email personalization including image personalization. Per user pricing gets expensive fast but if you're doing precision outreach to small high value lists it's genuinely great.

Outreach ($100-$140/user/mo): Enterprise sales engagement, best in class Salesforce integration. Way too complex and expensive for startups. Best for 25+ rep orgs already running Salesforce.

One thing I'd add that has nothing to do with tools: define your ICP before you buy anything. Accuracy over volume every time. No tool fixes a bad target list and most teams skip this step entirely then wonder why nothing converts.

Hi everyone. I started a GTM Consulting biz in February and managed to land my first 3 clients in 60 days.

Instead of operating like a normal agency on a monthly retainer, I just set this up as a 2-3 month consulting gig, where the goal is to build automated, semi-atonomous systems that can easily be managed internally. Here's what this looks like in practice:

Phase 1: Targeting/Foundation

• ICP + targeting per client type
• Messaging frameworks
• Tool setup

Phase 2: Launch

• Campaigns live (LinkedIn / email depending on fit)
• First leads + replies

Phase 3: Systemization

• SOPs for his team
• Light training
• Hand-off

The goal here is to eliminate the need for businesses to hold onto $2,000-$5,000/mo agency fees for work that can be done in a handful of hours each week internally.

In terms of how I actually landed these clients, one came from a warm connection and two came from outbound.

Client 1: This was a guy who I actually interviewed with 6 months ago for a GTME role. I sent him an email, turns out he didn't ever make the hire but could still use some help. So we decided on $7,500 for 3 months.

Client 2/3: I ran outbound campaigns on LinkedIn targeting people who interacted with lead-gen agencies on the platform and matched titles like "Owner" or "Founder". Once I had these leads I sent them LinkedIn DMs. I used ProspectZero to automate this whole process from lead detection -> outreach. Each of these guys are paying me $6,000 for 2 months of work.

So overall, it's a pretty solid start for a new business. I think my goal is to get really solid reviews / testimonials from these guys and increase pricing and packaging.

Happy to answer any questions around lead-gen or finding clients.

Okay so I want to preface this by saying I am not a marketer. At all. I'm a founder, two person team, and we're both heads down building every single day. Neither of us have the time to be consistently posting on X, replying to LinkedIn comments, writing blog posts, AND doing outbound. It's just not realistic.

Hiring someone wasn't happening yet either. So about two weeks ago I just kind of said screw it and went all in on AI agents to see what would happen.

I set up a bunch of Claude routines, pointed them at our marketing channels, and let them run. Fully expected it to be a bit of a mess honestly. Thought I'd end up spending more time fixing things than if I'd just done it myself.

That's not what happened. Traffic doubled and we're booking more calls. So here's what we actually built.

We have an X reply agent that just monitors relevant conversations and jumps in automatically. Stays on brand, adds something useful, drives people back to our profile. I genuinely barely touch X anymore.

Same thing on LinkedIn. There's a reply agent that engages with posts in our space and keeps up with comments on our own content. If you've tried to stay consistent on LinkedIn you know what a grind that is. This just handles it.

We also have a blog comments agent that finds relevant posts in our niche and drops comments. Slow burn visibility play but when it's running every day it adds up.

The content generation agent is probably the one that saves us the most mental energy. Every week it spits out 5 LinkedIn posts, 5 X posts, and 3 blog posts all written in our brand voice. I do a quick pass and clean things up but the heavy lifting is done. If you've ever tried to write content after a full day of building you know how brutal that blank page is. I don't really deal with that anymore.

And then we have ProspectZero running outbound. It monitors LinkedIn for intent signals, builds lists based on who's engaging with relevant content, and sends outreach automatically.

That's genuinely it. Two weeks, no hire, no agency, traffic doubled. AI search even started ticking up.

I see founders say all the time that they can't do content or outbound at their stage because they don't have the bandwidth. I understand that feeling. But the tooling is at a point now where you really don't need a team for this stuff anymore.

Happy to answer questions on any of it if you want to get into the weeds.

We're building a B2B SaaS. Two-person team, early stage, no VC network, no warm intros.

We hit some strong traction right out of the gate and decided to try and raise a small round to invest back into growth. Our strategy? We went straight to cold outreach.

Three weeks of DMs later, we closed $75K.

Here's what we did differently, and why I think it worked.

Signal 1: Keyword tracking on LinkedIn

Tracked everyone posting about "angel investing" in real time. These people are actively broadcasting that they're in buy mode. That's a lead.

This one generated some solid results. The bonus is it gives you a built-in icebreaker. You can reference their post directly in the DM and it doesn't feel cold at all. More on that below.

Signal 2: Influencer engagement scraping

Picked 5 accounts in the VC/fundraising space who post consistently. Grabbed everyone who engaged with their posts. Filtered by title (angels, partners, founders with exits).

Now I had a list of people who were already warm to the idea of investing, not random names pulled from a database.

The DM that actually worked:

"Hey [name], saw you commented on Peter's post about new opportunities for angel investment in March. We're building in AI and hit $4K MRR in our first 40 days. Would you be open to a chat?"

Why it worked:

• Referenced a specific action they took (the comment)
• Led with traction, not vision
• One ask. No fluff.

We used ProspectZero to monitor the signals and handle the outreach.

$75K closed in 3 weeks from cold DMs.

If you're raising and you're not using engagement data as a signal, you're pitching blind.

Little background: I've been stuck bouncing between $500 and $1,000 MRR for most of April. It's so frustrating, but I think I've finally figured out how to grow my B2B SaaS.

A few weeks ago I stopped trying to figure out growth by spinning my wheels every day and just started replacing manual marketing tasks with simple AI agents. Wasn't some big strategic pivot, more just got tired of doing the same stuff over and over and wanted to see how far I could push automation with Claude running in the background.

Didn't expect much. But after 14 days the results were hard to ignore:

• Traffic up ~2.6x
• Signups up ~41%
• AI search traffic (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) adding 40-60 visitors/day
• $0 on ads / paid media

Two-person team here, and even with the both of us, having AI work for us 24/7 has been the unlock.

Here's what's actually running:

YouTube comments agent

Every hour it pulls newly published videos in our niche, looks at recent comments, scores each one 1-10 on intent, and replies to anything 7+. Replies are genuinely helpful first, we only mention our product if it fits naturally. What surprised me: a single good comment on a trending video can send traffic for days and often gets pulled into AI search answers too.

Content agent

I write one newsletter per week. Claude turns it into LinkedIn posts, tweets, a blog post, a lead magnet, and a YouTube script using channel-specific prompts inside a Claude Project. One input, everything branches off it.

Outbound agent

This is where most conversions are coming from. Instead of static lead lists, we watch for signals, people engaging with competitor posts, job changes, hiring activity, people posting about problems we solve. We monitor all of these signals and we reach out same day using ProspectZero. Catching someone right when something happens is completely different than a cold message. Timing is the whole thing.

Quora agent

Same idea as YouTube but for questions. It runs hourly, finds new questions by keyword, scores them, and writes structured answers to anything 7+. Quora is boring on the surface but those answers rank on Google for months and show up constantly in AI responses. Low competition because most answers there are garbage.

The MRR bounce in April was real and it was demoralizing. This playbook is what finally started moving it the right direction.

People are already out there asking questions, commenting, signaling intent. These agents just help us show up faster than we could manually, and they keep running while we sleep.

Still early. Going to keep building and see where it goes.

Hoping I can get to $5K MRR this month, wish me luck!

Cheers,

I spent 4 years at a lead-gen agency doing north of $6M/year. Watched hundreds of thousands of dollars get wasted on stuff that didn't work. Last month I walked out and started building my own thing.

Here's what I've learned in 4 months.

Pieter and Marc built audiences for years before anyone cared. Most of their products flopped. The ones that worked worked because distribution was already there. You're not them. You don't have their audience, their runway, or their track record of public failures.

Copying their playbook is the wrong move.

Here's what actually worked for me:

Step 1: Pick a tight ICP and stop guessing.

B2B founders and lead-gen agencies. That's it. Not "anyone who does outbound." Not "SMBs." Specific people with a specific problem I already understood from 4 years of watching agencies burn client money.

Step 2: Build a stack that runs without you.

→ ProspectZero for LinkedIn intent signals and outreach ($100/mo) → Apollo + Findymail + Instantly for cold email ($250-$300/mo) → Claude for all content ($20/mo)

Total: under $400/month. That's it. No agency. No team of 12.

Step 3: Let it compound.

ProspectZero alone is driving 10-15 signups per week. Not from a cold list. From people already showing buying signals on LinkedIn. The content engine running through Claude is adding another 10-20 per week on top of that.

4 months of running that loop consistently got us to $4,600 MRR.

Not $40K/month dashboard screenshots. Not a viral indie hacker tweet. Just a system that runs every day while I'm doing other things.

Pieter and Marc are great follows. Horrible people to emulate if you're building B2B SaaS with a niche ICP and no existing audience.

Build the system. Run it for 90 days. Don't touch it.

That's the actual playbook.

Hey guys, I ran a little experiment where I tried to grow my SaaS by delegating tasks to agents.

The results were solid.

website traffic went from 100–150/day -> 250–300/day

nothing magical going on, just replaced the repetitive parts of marketing with systems that actually run every day

1. quora agent (Claude Routines)

runs daily, finds questions in my niche, and scores them based on relevance + intent

it only answers the top fits instead of spraying answers everywhere

then writes a full response that’s actually useful (most quora answers are pretty surface level so there’s room to stand out)

traffic here is slow but steady, you’ll get clicks days or weeks later from answers you forgot about

2. youtube comments agent (Claude Routines)

goes through videos in my space and scans the comments

looks for people asking questions or comparing tools, then drafts replies that help instead of pitching

this one is interesting because you’re catching people mid-research, not just passively consuming content

lower volume, higher intent

3. content agent (Claude Projects & Skills)

this made everything feel way more sustainable

i take one idea (usually from a newsletter or something i’m already thinking about) and it turns into:
blog posts, tweets, linkedin posts, lead magnets, etc

so instead of constantly coming up with new content, it just expands what already exists

4. outbound agent (ProspectZero)

this one actually drives signups

it monitors linkedin for intent signals (people engaging with competitors, posting about problems, etc), scores them, then starts conversations

so instead of cold outreach, it’s more like showing up when someone is already in-market

all of this stuff is obvious in isolation, but doing it every day is where most people fall off. I found that with agents, this just removes that bottleneck

still early, but doubling traffic in 2 weeks without changing much else has been enough for me to keep pushing on it

Going to see if I can test a few more agents for X / Review Sites / etc... Will report back

Hey guys, I ran a little experiment where I tried to grow my SaaS by delegating tasks to agents.

The results were solid.

website traffic went from 100–150/day -> 250–300/day

nothing magical going on, just replaced the repetitive parts of marketing with systems that actually run every day

1. quora agent (Claude Routines)

runs daily, finds questions in my niche, and scores them based on relevance + intent

it only answers the top fits instead of spraying answers everywhere

then writes a full response that’s actually useful (most quora answers are pretty surface level so there’s room to stand out)

traffic here is slow but steady, you’ll get clicks days or weeks later from answers you forgot about

2. youtube comments agent (Claude Routines)

goes through videos in my space and scans the comments

looks for people asking questions or comparing tools, then drafts replies that help instead of pitching

this one is interesting because you’re catching people mid-research, not just passively consuming content

lower volume, higher intent

3. content agent (Claude Projects & Skills)

this made everything feel way more sustainable

i take one idea (usually from a newsletter or something i’m already thinking about) and it turns into:
blog posts, tweets, linkedin posts, lead magnets, etc

so instead of constantly coming up with new content, it just expands what already exists

4. outbound agent (ProspectZero)

this one actually drives signups

it monitors linkedin for intent signals (people engaging with competitors, posting about problems, etc), scores them, then starts conversations

so instead of cold outreach, it’s more like showing up when someone is already in-market

all of this stuff is obvious in isolation, but doing it every day is where most people fall off. I found that with agents, this just removes that bottleneck

still early, but doubling traffic in 2 weeks without changing much else has been enough for me to keep pushing on it

Going to see if I can test a few more agents for X / Review Sites / etc... Will report back