Who we take on
Fix the head, then scale.
Outbound is science at the appointment-booking stage and art at the close. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't run a real experiment.
We've had an unusual volume of inbound over the last couple of weeks from folks who aren't just pre-revenue. They're pre-first-meeting, pre-message-market-fit, with a fuzzy offer.
On one hand, I admire the willingness to invest in your own success and ask for help. That isn't nothing.
On the other, I'd be remiss to take anyone's money without some idea of what's already working.
Here's how I think about it. Outbound is science at the appointment-booking stage and art at the close. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't run a real experiment.
The science part is simple. Enough volume and enough repetitions make it very hard not to succeed. But volume only compounds when the offer is clear.
Point a thousand reps at a fuzzy offer and the only thing you learn is that it was fuzzy.
Outbound runs on three things.
Capital
Enough runway to let the experiment actually run. Outbound compounds. It does not sprint.
Targets
A market you can name. Not a category you're curious about.
Accurate contact data
The part nobody budgets for and everybody bleeds on.
If you can afford it, contact scoring is a godsend. It compresses how long these experiments take. Skip it and you'll burn cycles separating good data from bad.
If you take nothing else from this post: outsourcing solves half your problem at best.
Handed off, it will be maybe 70% as effective as a founder-led process. It amplifies something that already works, it doesn't create it.
A fish rots from the head. Fix the head, then scale (no pun intended).
CR.Corey Leon, founder, Coda