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I'm in the position of needing to do a lot of outreach to find our first customers. If this is actually what I have to do, I refuse. I'm sure there's some good

by a_t48 2y ago

I'm in the position of needing to do a lot of outreach to find our first customers. If this is actually what I have to do, I refuse. I'm sure there's some good advice in here, but most of it seems gross. I don't want to send "Personalized Outbound at Scale".

bko 2y ago
You're just communicating your offering directly to people that may be interested. I don't see why that's gross. It's not deceptive or manipulative. There's a cost to search and sometimes targeted offerings that come directly can be very helpful. Direct outreach is pretty much the only way to get your initial customers. If you have warm connections, use those, sure. But those can be a false signal as warm connections tend to talk to you or feign interest just to be nice. A cold contact owes you nothing, so if they do take the meeting or engage in your product, that's a lot stronger signal. Anyone have a business they built without using direct cold outreach? Would love to hear alternatives
- MrVandemar 2y ago
  > You're just communicating your offering directly to people that may be interested. I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are “just communicating their offering directly to people who may be interested.” Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or alzheimers sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability to distinguish spam from official sources, and are easily exploitable. I imagine the worthless specimens sending these emails have intricately woven strands of faecal material in their cell nuclei instead of DNA.
  - handfuloflight 2y ago
    > Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or alzheimers sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability to distinguish spam from official sources, and are easily exploitable. Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit this group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit?
    - MrVandemar 2y ago
      > Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit this group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit? Clearly not. That is why the sentence begins with "Sometimes".
  - gwd 2y ago
    > I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are “just communicating their offering directly to people who may be interested.” Right, but the people who sent those mails -- what reason do they have to think that you're interested in <checks spam folder> orthapedic multizone mattresses, Microsoft teams room equipment, or a talk about Amber Engebreston's transition from Supply Chain Manager at Chipotle to her current role? (OK, that last one was a weird.) If, on the other hand, you've posted a job opening for someone to do direct marketing, there's a good chance your company sends cold emails; in which case, maybe you'd like to outsource some of that work to make it more effective. The thing I dislike about spam is the offloading of filtering from them to me. But if someone has actually put in effort to figure out what I personally might actually want, I'm a lot more willing to take a look.
- a_t48 2y ago
  I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty, though without much success. I'm opposed at the scale where I need to have "warming tools" for my email address. It's very possible that it makes me a bad founder, though.
  - handfuloflight 2y ago
    > I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty, though without much success. What kind of campaign messaging? How did you define success? Were you getting no replies at all?
    - a_t48 2y ago
      Just cold emailing for companies that might be interested in us. No replies. My cofounder did some research on what best to do for cold outreach and did end up getting some replies, after. I have better luck talking to people in person at networking/industry events (or messaging relevant people via HN connections). We'll go back to emailing at some point.
  - gwd 2y ago
    Yeah, "Try to make sure the person you're emailing is experiencing pain that your service relieves" is good, and if every cold email I got was that targeted I wouldn't mind at all. "Use a VPN and inbox warming techniques to hide from Gmail the fact that you're doing bulk emailing" is pretty scummy.
    - a_t48 2y ago
      Precisely.
- makerdiety 2y ago
  Someone (a mark?) getting through the filtering (sales?) funnel's first stage is a strong signal for what? That someone period is interested in your product/service you're offering? Or that this particular person, the one who reaches the second stage of the funnel, is a possible lead (or exactly a lead)? Likely the latter. Because you can skip the scientific/investigative validation of the hypothesis that there is someone that wants what you offer/sell/provide. That is, you should assume that there is someone out there (a small number of people at least, really) that wants to pay you for what you provide. I know this goes against common startup wisdom. But there's a massive cold outreach campaign type that needs to function and it needs to function with some confident assumptions within its technological engineering implementation. I guess. I'm just speculating on some theoretical startup founding that doesn't suck.
- deleted 2y ago
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by a_t48 2y ago

bko 2y ago

You're just communicating your offering directly to people that may be interested. I don't see why that's gross. It's not deceptive or manipulative. There's a cost to search and sometimes targeted offerings that come directly can be very helpful. Direct outreach is pretty much the only way to get your initial customers. If you have warm connections, use those, sure. But those can be a false signal as warm connections tend to talk to you or feign interest just to be nice. A cold contact owes you nothing, so if they do take the meeting or engage in your product, that's a lot stronger signal. Anyone have a business they built without using direct cold outreach? Would love to hear alternatives

MrVandemar 2y ago
> You're just communicating your offering directly to people that may be interested. I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are “just communicating their offering directly to people who may be interested.” Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or alzheimers sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability to distinguish spam from official sources, and are easily exploitable. I imagine the worthless specimens sending these emails have intricately woven strands of faecal material in their cell nuclei instead of DNA.
- handfuloflight 2y ago
  > Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or alzheimers sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability to distinguish spam from official sources, and are easily exploitable. Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit this group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit?
  - MrVandemar 2y ago
    > Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit this group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit? Clearly not. That is why the sentence begins with "Sometimes".
- gwd 2y ago
  > I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are “just communicating their offering directly to people who may be interested.” Right, but the people who sent those mails -- what reason do they have to think that you're interested in <checks spam folder> orthapedic multizone mattresses, Microsoft teams room equipment, or a talk about Amber Engebreston's transition from Supply Chain Manager at Chipotle to her current role? (OK, that last one was a weird.) If, on the other hand, you've posted a job opening for someone to do direct marketing, there's a good chance your company sends cold emails; in which case, maybe you'd like to outsource some of that work to make it more effective. The thing I dislike about spam is the offloading of filtering from them to me. But if someone has actually put in effort to figure out what I personally might actually want, I'm a lot more willing to take a look.
a_t48 2y ago
I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty, though without much success. I'm opposed at the scale where I need to have "warming tools" for my email address. It's very possible that it makes me a bad founder, though.
- handfuloflight 2y ago
  > I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty, though without much success. What kind of campaign messaging? How did you define success? Were you getting no replies at all?
  - a_t48 2y ago
    Just cold emailing for companies that might be interested in us. No replies. My cofounder did some research on what best to do for cold outreach and did end up getting some replies, after. I have better luck talking to people in person at networking/industry events (or messaging relevant people via HN connections). We'll go back to emailing at some point.
- gwd 2y ago
  Yeah, "Try to make sure the person you're emailing is experiencing pain that your service relieves" is good, and if every cold email I got was that targeted I wouldn't mind at all. "Use a VPN and inbox warming techniques to hide from Gmail the fact that you're doing bulk emailing" is pretty scummy.
  - a_t48 2y ago
    Precisely.
makerdiety 2y ago
Someone (a mark?) getting through the filtering (sales?) funnel's first stage is a strong signal for what? That someone period is interested in your product/service you're offering? Or that this particular person, the one who reaches the second stage of the funnel, is a possible lead (or exactly a lead)? Likely the latter. Because you can skip the scientific/investigative validation of the hypothesis that there is someone that wants what you offer/sell/provide. That is, you should assume that there is someone out there (a small number of people at least, really) that wants to pay you for what you provide. I know this goes against common startup wisdom. But there's a massive cold outreach campaign type that needs to function and it needs to function with some confident assumptions within its technological engineering implementation. I guess. I'm just speculating on some theoretical startup founding that doesn't suck.
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