We plan to bring eChai across 100 cities in India. The next eChai Startup Demo Day is on 29 August in Bengaluru and Pune. The next after that is on 26 September, all in person. 11 cities confirmed, 333 founders registered. Any city that reaches 20 interested founders is on too. See your city
Breaking into GTM

I have never sent a cold email in my life. Where do I even start?

Start with twenty companies, not two thousand. Pick people you can describe precisely (job title, company size, the specific problem you think they have) and write each of the first twenty emails by hand so you learn what makes someone reply. Keep it to four or five sentences: why you are writing to them specifically, the problem in their words, one line of proof, and a small ask like fifteen minutes. Your reply rate on the first batch will be embarrassing and that is the point, you are collecting evidence about your message, not building a machine yet. Only once a message reliably gets replies should you think about tools, sequences or volume.

Go deeper

4 resources, 1 India-specific, 4 link-checked.

📰 Newsletter
✓ Link checked Freemium Beginner

It orders the seven ways early customers actually arrive (network, cold outbound, investors, community, content, press, launch) by how much trust each one starts with, which is the missing map for a first-time seller. Built from interviews with founders at Figma, Notion, Databricks and Slack rather than theory.

How to find and win your first 10 B2B customers

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky long read

  • Work outward in concentric circles from the founder, each ring one step further from personal trust.
  • Retool filtered Crunchbase by recent fundraise and pitched CTOs and VPs of ops, landing DoorDash and Brex.
  • Amplitude's Spenser Skates: other YC companies are not real customers, they have no money to spend.
  • Canva took two years to build a 10,000 person waitlist, and a TechCrunch feature brought only a couple thousand signups.
Open lennysnewsletter.com
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

This is where the SDR and AE split came from, and the summary gives you the whole model without the book. The rule that no AE prospects and no SDR closes explains why GTM org charts look the way they do.

15-Minute Summary of Predictable Revenue

From Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross ~15 min read

  • Split the role into three: SDRs on cold accounts, market response reps on inbound, AEs as the only quota carriers who close.
  • Start SDRs at 50 to 100 prospecting emails a day, aiming for a 10 percent response rate.
  • The core myth it attacks: selling more does not mean hiring more salespeople, it means building lead generation.
  • Hire for talent and initiative over experience, since technique can be taught.
Open predictablerevenue.com
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Kapil built one of India's few listed SaaS companies, so when he takes apart the myths (Indians will not pay for software, they demand endless customisation, they want enterprise support at SMB prices) he is arguing from a P&L. Essential if you are deciding whether India is a real market for you.

7 Myths About Selling B2B SaaS In India ft Unicommerce Founder Kapil Makhija

On The Neon Show by Siddhartha Ahluwalia with Kapil Makhija 80 min listen

Watch on YouTube neon.fund

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The same ground, at another level

How outbound that works reads from a different seat.

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Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Get your first customers, our Starting Up track.

Also in D2C

The same ground, over in Grow organically & retain, our D2C track.

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