The best outbound starts before you automate anything. Founders need to learn who actually has the problem, what gets their attention, and what makes them reply. YC Visiting Partner Christina Gilbert recommends doing at least your first 100 outreaches by hand so you can learn those things yourself.
Drawing from her experience generating and closing millions of dollars through founder-led sales at OneSchema, Christina shares eight ways founders can improve their outbound, from targeting the right people and writing emails worth reading to following up, debugging low reply rates, and using customer language to sharpen your message
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:38 – Start manual before you automate
01:25 – Targeting beats perfect messaging
02:23 – How to find the right job titles
03:07 – Picking the right companies
03:47 – Intent signals
04:25 – Craft a message worth reading
06:00 – A cold email that works
07:19 – Subject lines
07:37 – Improve your LinkedIn profile
08:47 – What your reply rates are telling you
09:47 – Follow up, and reply fast
10:37 – Block out time for outbound
11:25 – Use the messaging from your customers
12:27 – Your slog compounds
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