If you’re a SaaS founder who’s fed up with relying on inbound leads, or hoping for referrals, or burning money on ads with no real guaranteed ROI — let me show you how we helped one SaaS founder stack over $100,000 in new revenue in just a couple of months using cold outreach alone.
No ads. No substantial marketing spend. Just high-quality cold outreach using an effective system.
And before you say, “Yeah, but cold outreach is spammy,” let me stop you right there. It can be spammy if done wrong. But done right, it can be one of the fastest, most scalable ways to grow a SaaS business.
So let’s jump into the step-by-step of how we did it.
The Starting Point: A Bootstrapped SaaS Founder with a Kickass Product — And No Pipeline
The founder approached us with an incredible B2B SaaS product in the HR tech space. His platform enabled mid-sized companies to expedite candidate screening by reducing unnecessary interviews.
But this is what the business looked like when we first spoke:
MRR is still around $5K
A handful of customers, primarily from referrals and his own LinkedIn
No paid ads, no inbound, and no sales team
Great product. Great results. But no predictable sales pipeline.
Already paid 2 freelancers who promised leads and delivered nothing.
What he said to me was:
- “I know people want this product. I just don’t know how to reach the right decision-makers reliably.”
And I’ll be honest, I hear that story A LOT.
So I said to him: “Let’s build a high-converting outbound system from scratch, the right way.”
Step 1: Define the Offer & ICP
We even wrote a single email, we worked on two foundational components:
Reframing the Offer
His old positioning was focused on features: “A candidate screening tool for HR teams.”
It’s not bad. But it isn’t strong either.
We reworked it into:
- “An async hiring co-pilot that helps you cut screening interview time by 40% — and, we don’t sacrifice quality of candidates.”
Now the focus was on the outcome — less time on calls, faster hiring, better candidates.
Ideal Customer Profile
He was originally going for “HR departments.” All he was doing there is tossing darts blindfolded. We whittled it down to:
Mid-sized tech or IT companies (50-300 employees)
Based in North America or the UK
Hiring 5+ roles per quarter
Hiring internally (HR or talent acquisition manager)
Using an ATS or hiring tools (i.e., open to tech adoption)
This clarified everything that followed — leads, messaging, conversion.
Step 2: Build the Right Lead List The Most Underrated Step
You can’t do good outreach with garbage data. Which is where the majority of outreach failures happen.
We used all the following:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters
Job boards to find companies that are hiring
Apollo, Clay, and PhantomBuster for scraping
NeverBounce to verify emails.
Manual verification for LinkedIn URLs.
And we did not load all of this into a list and call it a day.
All leads were screened against our ICP – we were only looking for qualified buyers.
After roughly 4 days of research, we were now ready to go with 1,000+ clean, verified decision-makers.
Step 3: Set up Infra – Domains, Inbox Warm Up & Deliverability
Before sending any emails, we did what most people skip: we did the backend properly.
This meant:
Created 3 new domains similar to the founder’s brand (for example, if the primary domain was “hireflow.com”, we created “hireflowhq.com”, “tryhireflow.com”)
Configured SPF, DKIM,and DMARC properly
Warmed inboxes up with Instantly and Mailwarm for 10-14 days
Installed branded signatures, profile pics, and reply tracking
Rotated sending the emails through multiple inboxes to limit getting flagged
Our backend configuration ensured high deliverability and limited spam complaints.
Step 4:Personalized Cold Email + LinkedIn Outreach Sequences
Cold Emails (Main Channel)
We crafted a 4-step email sequence that covered:
Pain points (ex, “Are first round interviews burning up 20+ hours per week?”)
Social proof (results with clients, case studies)
Personalization (job roles referenced, company updates, & hiring signals)
Clear CTAs (15-min intro calls)
We kept it short, punchy, and human. No frills.
LinkedIn Outreach (Secondary Channel)
At the same time, we also reached out to the same decision-makers on LinkedIn:
Sent soft connection requests (NO pitching upfront)
Personalized icebreakers referencing common contacts or job postings
Sent a short message or Loom video 2-3 days after we connected
Used voice notes for warm leads (underrated)
This double touch point was a huge differentiator – we were showing up in their email AND LinkedIn inbox.
Step 5: Real personalizations at scale
We did not mass blast messages. That never works.
Instead, we developed semi-personalized templates and customized 20-30% of everyone’s email:
Referenced their company name
Mentioned a specific job posting
Referenced a fundraising round or recent event
Commented on their hiring process
Example first line:
- “Looks like you’re hiring 5+ devs – just curious, is async screening something you’ve tried to save on interview hours?”
That depth of insight got us replies like “Hey, the timing is perfect, let’s chat.”
Step 6: Reply Handling & Appointment Setting
Here’s where a lot of founders can hurt themselves.
Getting replies is just Step 1. Converting them to booked calls is the name of the game.
Our appointment setters handled the inboxes each day:
Categorized replies (Interested / Not Now / Not Interested)
Engaged manually with warm leads – rebutting objections, sending case studies
Personalized Calendly links
Followed up with no-shows and ghosters
Kept nurturing any leads not ready yet
The founder didn’t have to do anything until the lead was on his calendar.
We even tracked all of our metrics inside a Notion dashboard:
Open Rate
Reply Rate
Positive Replies
Calls Booked
Trials
Clients Closed
The Results (First 90 Days)
Here’s the simple breakdown of what we accomplished in the first 3 months:
Metric Count
Emails Sent ~9,000
Open Rate 71%
Reply Rate 19%
Positive Replies 10%
Calls Booked 47
Show-Up Rate 75%
Trials Started 26
Clients Closed 18
Average ACV ~$5,200
Revenue Added $93,600
And over the next 2 months, 4 more deals were closed → Total revenue added $105,000+
What Really Worked (And Why A Lot of People Fail)
There was no magic to it. Just execution.
Here’s what worked:
Narrow ICP
We didn’t try to reach everyone – just the right few.
Outcome-Driven Offer
We sold time savings, not “a tool”.
Deep Data Research
Cleaning, verifying, and hand-picking leads = better results.
Personalization
Our opening lines were better than 95% of outreach out there.
Managing Human Replies
We booked calls. Not just replies.
Some common reasons most founders fail are because they:
Buy super low-quality lead lists
Use spammy-looking templates
Don’t warm-up their domains
Never follow up
Don’t manage replies properly
That’s why they think cold outreach doesn’t work. But when done right? It’s a beast.
Real Takeaways You Can Action Today (Even Without An Agency)
Even if you won’t have us do this for you, here is what you can take away:
Stop blasting 10,000 people with a generic email
Get clarity on WHO you’re targeting
Focus on PAIN POINTS not features
Build quality data lists – use job boards, LinkedIn, tools like Clay
Personalize the 1st sentence of every email
Always follow up (minimum of 3-4 times)
Manually manage replies and nurture warm leads
Track your metrics and optimize weekly
Conclusion
Let’s be clear: cold outreach isn’t dead. It’s not spam. And it’s definitely not old school.
Dead is bad cold outreach – the kind blasted out in mass, with no personalization, no thought, and no respect for a person on the other side of the screen.
But when you do cold outreach correctly – with precise targeting and messaging, quality data, good personalisation and follow up – it’s a boon and revenue machine that does not depend on ad algorithms, does not require huge budgets and doesn’t take an ongoing/updated SEO strategy before you start building a pipeline and generating revenue.
That’s what we did with this SaaS founder.
With nothing except a great product and a founder who was willing to trust the process, we got started. No inbound traffic, no paid media, no viral campaigns. Just an offer, and a clear ICP. And of course, an outbound (or cold outreach) system that we built from the ground up.
The result? Over $100,000 in closed revenue, dozens of sales conversations with qualified prospects, and a repeatable & consistent system that keeps on working (even during this post).
So What This Case Study Truly Represents
It’s not merely about the $100K+ we secured.
It’s about the founder’s confidence — confidence that they can scale their business and generate demand for their product rather than always waiting for inbound leads.
It’s about control — establishing a sales pipeline you own as opposed to relying on third parties or paid platforms that can change the rules on a dime.
It’s about clarity of focus — knowing exactly who your ideal clients are and how to effectively reach them in a way that compels them to respond.
And it’s about freedom — because, once you know how to reliably produce qualified sales calls on demand, you are no longer stuck “doing the best you can to survive”, but are free to scale your business intentionally.
The Unpleasant Reality Most Founders Sidestep
Here’s what I’ve learned from working with numerous SaaS startups:
Most founders know that they need more sales.
Most want a scalable sales channel.
But many
Spend months dabbling in DIY cold outreach without anything resembling a system.
Hire cheap freelancers promising to deliver leads, but they do not.
Send mass emails that ruin their domain reputation.
Stop sending follow-ups after 1-2 when that isn’t resulting in sales calls.
This campaign was one of my favorites – not because of the revenue added (though $ 100 K+ doesn’t hurt), but because it showed me why cold outreach still works so well in 2025.
We didn’t have a fancy inbound machine. We didn’t run a single ad.
We just built a system that:
Finds the right people
Sends the right message
Follows up until they book a call
Straightforward. But not easy.
If you’re a SaaS founder, and you want to:
Stop relying on referrals
Stop running underwhelming ad campaigns
Create a predictable sales engine that generates daily leads…
Let’s talk.
Do you want to add $50,000 – 100,000 to your pipeline?
I will show you exactly how we can copy this system for your business, without guessing, hiring VAs, or hiring random freelancers.
Let’s build something that gets real results.
Frequently Asked Question
Q1. Will this work for any SaaS product?
It works best for B2B SaaS with a strong ROI and a specific audience. ToolsHR, MarTech, SalesTech, Productivity, and even AI tools have great performance.
Q2: What is the minimum?
That all depends on how quickly you want to scale and how much of the work you want us to do. We are flexible, from a full done-for-you model to training your internal team.
Q3: Can’t I just hire an SDR?
Absolutely. However, SDRs come with a learning curve, expense, and unreliable output. We provide repeatable results faster, typically at a lower cost than building it in-house.
Q4: How soon will I see results?
Typically, most clients start seeing replies in the first 10-14 days of implementation, and calls and deals likely will start to close in the first 30-45 days.
