What should we fix first in our outbound: the list, the message, or the channel?

ABS T. · 2026-10-05T17:52:51.607Z

Hey all, need some honest outside eyes. We’re a small dev studio, and outbound just isn’t landing. About 400 cold emails in the last month, 3 replies, none of them interested. Signal-based lead finding hasn’t given us a single real lead either. LinkedIn’s been quiet too. So I’m stuck on what to fix first. Is it the list, the message, or the channel? And would tools or an automated workflow actually help at this stage, or would it just send more of the same to the wrong people faster? Happy to share a sample email if anyone’s up for tearing it apart. Not looking to hire anyone or buy a service here. I’d just love to hear from founders and operators who’ve been through this and what actually worked for you. (*Real founder helpful discussion & exchanging experience only)

11 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Amber A.
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Hey ABS T. I'm going to send you a DM. Happy to take a look
👍1
katie.marr
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(edited)·
Hey ABS T. I’ve seen this problem time and again, happy to take a look. Check out my creds at signalfoundry.ca (not self-promoting, just for a taste of how I think) and hit me up if you want to chat.
👎1
andremazzo29
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Hey ABS T. Happy to take a look
ABS T.
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andremazzo29, thanks, Andre! I’ll drop one of our cold emails here in the thread. Would love your honest take on it. Here’s the style we’ve been sending (names swapped for placeholders): “[First name], congrats on the [$X raise] and the move from [old company] to [new company]. [One line on what they’re building] is a serious engineering load to keep extending. My studio builds AI products on fixed-price, 6-week cycles, with senior people working next to your own engineers. Want the details?” That’s the whole email/same way use it for LinkedIn DM. Tear it apart 🙏
katie.marr
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Hi Tamal, a single email interrogation isn’t likely to solve the problem unfortunately. The question has to start upstream from that:
What is your audience/ICP
what’s your messaging cadence and across what channels
how are you building up your brand
what are you offering in exchange for your ask.
What are your engagement metrics on the emails you do send to know if it’s a subject line, conversion or positioning issue, and can you break that down by segment or cohort?
Where are you linking them to from the email - your home page or a specific landing page.
Where are you getting the leads you are emailing, and how natural is the outreach to the recipient.
I know it’s a lot of questions, but that’ the best and fastest way to optimize your outbound.
❤️1
ABS T.
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Thanks, katie.marr, that’s really helpful. Honest answers: - ICP: US founders, 1 to 50 people, who need an AI feature built or a vibe-coded MVP made production-ready - Cadence: email plus LinkedIn, [one email and 2/3 follow-ups] per person - Brand: founder posts on LinkedIn and X a couple of times a week, case studies on our site, one open-source project - Offer: “want the details?” Pretty much no offer, now that I look at it - Metrics: none. No open or click tracking, just replies - Link: no link in the email at all - Leads: Sales Navigator plus news signals like funding rounds. Researched one by one, but the founder has never heard of us Looking at that list, the offer and the lack of any tracking jump out. Would you start there?
katie.marr
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ok, so your first and biggest issue is just a volume game. it takes 12-20 touches to get a response from cold outreach, 8-14 from warm outreach, and that’s before AI slop came in and ruined peoples trust in cold outreach. Linked in has even worse response rates. Do you have access to a CRM or sequencing platform that you can schedule messages out and make them multi channel and across a few weeks, building up to your offer. You also need to define and offer, and your hook. The message you haven’t isn’t bad, it’s just further down funnel than your audience is on a first touch. Here is a great article (not by me) that helps break down how to sequence for results. 30mpc.com/newsletter/the-perfect-outbound-sequence-template An offer doesn’t need to be a discount, but it needs to be meaningful and timely and solve a problem the are having at the moment (that’s the numbers game of volume of contacts matters). Does that help?
🙌1
andremazzo29
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My order of fixes: offer first, list second, channel last. Your ICP line is sharper than your email. "Vibe-coded MVP that needs to be production-ready" is a specific pain. The email opens with a congrats on the raise (which everyone sends now) and never names that pain. It also buries your best differentiator: fixed price, 6 weeks, seniors next to their engineers. "Want the details?" asks permission instead of giving them a reason. A stronger version would be something like: "[First name], saw [specific thing they shipped]. Most small teams hit the same wall: the prototype works, production doesn't (auth, reliability, cost). We take it to production in a fixed 6 weeks, fixed price, seniors working beside your engineers. [Whatever risk reversal you can really offer.] Want a 5-bullet list of what I'd expect to break first in [product]?" That last line only works if you're willing to do the small piece of work up front. It's the "give before you ask" move. On the list: funding news alone is mostly noise. Pick signals tied to the pain (a public demo with obvious gaps, a hiring post for the exact role, a launch that's wobbling). On tools: I wouldn't automate yet. Automation scales a message you haven't proven. Send 20 to 30 hand-researched ones first, then decide. And with 400 sends and 3 replies, the sample is too small to blame list vs. message vs. channel. I'd change one thing at a time.
ABS T.
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katie.marr Yes, that helps a lot, thank you. We have Zoho CRM but no sequencing set up yet, so most people got one or two touches at most. That alone probably explains a big part of it. Going to read the article and rebuild this as a multi-channel sequence over a few weeks, with a real offer earlier on. One last question if you don’t mind: for a dev studio, what kind of first-touch offer have you seen land? Something like a free audit, or more like a useful resource?
ABS T.
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andremazzo29 This is gold, Andre, thank you. You’re right, the email never names the pain, and “want the details?” gives them no reason to reply. Plan: rewrite around the production pain, offer the “what I’d expect to break first” list for real, switch signals to demos and hiring posts instead of funding news, and send 20 to 30 by hand before touching any tool. One change at a time. Will report back with numbers.
katie.marr
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(edited)·
exactly ABS T. a free audit is a great offer, or in your case because your value prop is “Vibe-coded MVP that needs to be production-ready” you could maybe make a quiz type input that then quickly vibe-codes a POC. Lock it behind a meeting so they can’t get access to it unless they actually talk to you. Something like that would definitely help your conversion factor, used in line with Andre’s recos as well.

Amber A.
·
·
Hey ABS T. I'm going to send you a DM. Happy to take a look
👍1
katie.marr
·
(edited)·
Hey ABS T. I’ve seen this problem time and again, happy to take a look. Check out my creds at signalfoundry.ca (not self-promoting, just for a taste of how I think) and hit me up if you want to chat.
👎1
andremazzo29
·
·
Hey ABS T. Happy to take a look
ABS T.
·
·
andremazzo29, thanks, Andre! I’ll drop one of our cold emails here in the thread. Would love your honest take on it. Here’s the style we’ve been sending (names swapped for placeholders): “[First name], congrats on the [$X raise] and the move from [old company] to [new company]. [One line on what they’re building] is a serious engineering load to keep extending. My studio builds AI products on fixed-price, 6-week cycles, with senior people working next to your own engineers. Want the details?” That’s the whole email/same way use it for LinkedIn DM. Tear it apart 🙏
katie.marr
·
·
Hi Tamal, a single email interrogation isn’t likely to solve the problem unfortunately. The question has to start upstream from that:
What is your audience/ICP
what’s your messaging cadence and across what channels
how are you building up your brand
what are you offering in exchange for your ask.
What are your engagement metrics on the emails you do send to know if it’s a subject line, conversion or positioning issue, and can you break that down by segment or cohort?
Where are you linking them to from the email - your home page or a specific landing page.
Where are you getting the leads you are emailing, and how natural is the outreach to the recipient.
I know it’s a lot of questions, but that’ the best and fastest way to optimize your outbound.
❤️1
ABS T.
·
·
Thanks, katie.marr, that’s really helpful. Honest answers: - ICP: US founders, 1 to 50 people, who need an AI feature built or a vibe-coded MVP made production-ready - Cadence: email plus LinkedIn, [one email and 2/3 follow-ups] per person - Brand: founder posts on LinkedIn and X a couple of times a week, case studies on our site, one open-source project - Offer: “want the details?” Pretty much no offer, now that I look at it - Metrics: none. No open or click tracking, just replies - Link: no link in the email at all - Leads: Sales Navigator plus news signals like funding rounds. Researched one by one, but the founder has never heard of us Looking at that list, the offer and the lack of any tracking jump out. Would you start there?
katie.marr
·
·
ok, so your first and biggest issue is just a volume game. it takes 12-20 touches to get a response from cold outreach, 8-14 from warm outreach, and that’s before AI slop came in and ruined peoples trust in cold outreach. Linked in has even worse response rates. Do you have access to a CRM or sequencing platform that you can schedule messages out and make them multi channel and across a few weeks, building up to your offer. You also need to define and offer, and your hook. The message you haven’t isn’t bad, it’s just further down funnel than your audience is on a first touch. Here is a great article (not by me) that helps break down how to sequence for results. 30mpc.com/newsletter/the-perfect-outbound-sequence-template An offer doesn’t need to be a discount, but it needs to be meaningful and timely and solve a problem the are having at the moment (that’s the numbers game of volume of contacts matters). Does that help?
🙌1
andremazzo29
·
·
My order of fixes: offer first, list second, channel last. Your ICP line is sharper than your email. "Vibe-coded MVP that needs to be production-ready" is a specific pain. The email opens with a congrats on the raise (which everyone sends now) and never names that pain. It also buries your best differentiator: fixed price, 6 weeks, seniors next to their engineers. "Want the details?" asks permission instead of giving them a reason. A stronger version would be something like: "[First name], saw [specific thing they shipped]. Most small teams hit the same wall: the prototype works, production doesn't (auth, reliability, cost). We take it to production in a fixed 6 weeks, fixed price, seniors working beside your engineers. [Whatever risk reversal you can really offer.] Want a 5-bullet list of what I'd expect to break first in [product]?" That last line only works if you're willing to do the small piece of work up front. It's the "give before you ask" move. On the list: funding news alone is mostly noise. Pick signals tied to the pain (a public demo with obvious gaps, a hiring post for the exact role, a launch that's wobbling). On tools: I wouldn't automate yet. Automation scales a message you haven't proven. Send 20 to 30 hand-researched ones first, then decide. And with 400 sends and 3 replies, the sample is too small to blame list vs. message vs. channel. I'd change one thing at a time.
ABS T.
·
·
katie.marr Yes, that helps a lot, thank you. We have Zoho CRM but no sequencing set up yet, so most people got one or two touches at most. That alone probably explains a big part of it. Going to read the article and rebuild this as a multi-channel sequence over a few weeks, with a real offer earlier on. One last question if you don’t mind: for a dev studio, what kind of first-touch offer have you seen land? Something like a free audit, or more like a useful resource?
ABS T.
·
·
andremazzo29 This is gold, Andre, thank you. You’re right, the email never names the pain, and “want the details?” gives them no reason to reply. Plan: rewrite around the production pain, offer the “what I’d expect to break first” list for real, switch signals to demos and hiring posts instead of funding news, and send 20 to 30 by hand before touching any tool. One change at a time. Will report back with numbers.
katie.marr
·
(edited)·
exactly ABS T. a free audit is a great offer, or in your case because your value prop is “Vibe-coded MVP that needs to be production-ready” you could maybe make a quiz type input that then quickly vibe-codes a POC. Lock it behind a meeting so they can’t get access to it unless they actually talk to you. Something like that would definitely help your conversion factor, used in line with Andre’s recos as well.