Thread · 5 min read

The untapped power of cold email, your secret weapon

Indie Hackers community · Indie Hackers Free Beginner

A solo founder documents exactly how cold email grew their product to real revenue over six months, including what changed in their message along the way. It is a useful counterweight to the more polished, agency style advice elsewhere on this list, since it shows what it actually looks like when one person does this consistently.

  • Consistency over months matters more than any single clever template
  • Iterate your message based on what actually gets replies
  • Cold email can carry a product a long way before you need a sales team
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The question it answers

  1. What tools should I use to send and track cold outreach without spamming?

Read with it

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  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. A YC partner and ex-Airbnb growth lead gives a tactical, no-fluff talk on landing early customers for both B2B and B2C. It's... YC Startup Library Video · ~30 min video How to Get Your First Customers Gustaf Alstromer (Y Combinator)
  4. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky
  5. A step-by-step, modern YC walkthrough of identifying buyers, starting conversations, and converting them into your first... YC Startup Library Video · ~20 min How to Get Your First 10 Customers Max Kolysh (Y Combinator)
  6. This is the book most modern cold outbound advice quietly borrows from, so reading the source is worth it. Its "Cold Calling... Amazon Book · ~208 pages Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
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