How to do prospecting?
We're at a point in our startup where we need to do cold emails. The problem is, who, who do I send it to? How do I find these people? I want to be quite specific. Yesterday we sat down for hours researching a law firm, figuring out what they do and who to contact that would be most appropriate. We then wrote the email. Had it reviewed again tomorrow, made another edit and then finally sent it.
I've heard YC talks and one of them mentioned only 2% of companies actually willing to work with a startup. I want to get at this number to make it effective.
Currently we are running google ads and started with reddit too. There are reddit communities that would exactly make sense to interact with but building Karma is a full time job. Ads it is there.
I need to post more in Slack and Discord communities. They allow promotion is certain threads. Make it very easy for us to be relevant and respectful.
How do I propel my cold email efforts?
Many thanks.
Replies
Hey @mubashirullahd ! Cold email can definitely be a grind, but it's one of the most effective things you can do when it's set up right.
First, try not to do it manually. Use tools to automate sending and follow-ups. It saves a ton of time and helps you stay consistent without burning out.
Next, don't overinvest in researching each lead one by one. It’s awesome that you’re being thoughtful, but you’ll need to scale faster. Start by defining your ideal customer profile (ICP), then use tools like Apollo, Clay, or LinkedIn to pull in dozens or hundreds of leads that match. Focus on relevance, but keep it repeatable.
Really important part that people overlook: your email setup. If you’re using your main domain or Gmail out of the box, your emails might never get seen. You’ll need custom domains, correctly configured SPF/DKIM/DMARC, and efficient mailboxes to stay out of spam. That’s actually what Mailpool handles for you. It takes care of all the boring but critical infrastructure stuff so your emails actually land where they should.
You're doing the right thing by combining cold email with Reddit, Slack, and Discord. Keep that going. Just be careful not to let perfection slow you down. Better to get good volume out with solid targeting and tweak as you go.
Happy to share some templates or ideas for structuring your outreach if you want!
@hugo_pochet thank you. AWS had advise on email and following that advise, we setup a subdomain for the cold outreach. Each domain has its reputation, we didn't want our transaction emails from disappearing because of our marketing. I think we've done that right.
I'll try to figure out our ICP. I'm guessing this is what narrows it down. I'll share what worked. Hopefully. 🧡
@mubashirullahd Cold email, marketing emails and transactional emails are 3 different things, with different rules and tools to use!
Hope that will work for you :)
@hugo_pochet I like to say yes to some templates if you have them. I'm curious to see how C-Spam rules have been catered to.
@mubashirullahd Sure! Can you contact me on LinkedIn? I'll sent it to you there :)