Honest answers, before the first call.

Usually we operate before there is one. Most clients work with us specifically because they're not ready to hire SDRs — they want to prove the motion first. For teams that already have SDRs, we often run alongside them on a defined segment, then transfer the playbook. We don't try to be a permanent replacement; we try to leave a system you can run without us.

Rarely. Pre-seed teams usually need to be doing outbound themselves — the founder talking to their first 50 buyers is where the most important learning happens, and outsourcing it is premature. We start being useful at Seed and most engagements are Series A. If you're pre-seed and feel certain you need this, we'll happily tell you whether we agree on a 20-minute call.

Heavy in week one (ICP, positioning, qualification bar — the things only you know), light from week three onwards. Expect to spend ~3–4 hours in the first two weeks aligning on segments and messaging, then about 30 minutes a week on the operating review. We don't need you to take meetings — your AE or first sales hire can do that.

Pilots are 6–8 weeks, fixed scope. After a pilot, managed engagements run month-to-month with a 30-day notice. We don't sell long annual contracts. If we're not adding value in any given month, you should be able to leave.

Yes, in almost every case. We work in HubSpot or Salesforce, and across Salesloft, Apollo, Instantly, Smartlead, and Clay. If your stack is unusual, we'll tell you what would need to change. We don't insist on our own tools.

No. Guaranteed meetings is one of the loudest signals that an agency doesn't take qualification seriously — anyone can hit a meeting count by booking unqualified buyers. We measure ourselves on meeting-to-opportunity rate, positive reply quality, and segment-level learning. Pipeline is the right metric. Meetings are an input.

CRM access (read at minimum, write for the segments we're working), a sending domain or subdomain we can warm and run from, sales engagement tool access, access to Clay if you own a license, and a recorded call or two so we can hear how you talk about the product. We'll send a checklist in the first week.

We start with your existing customer base and CRM data, then look for the patterns that aren't obvious — what your best customers have in common beyond firmographics. That usually surfaces two or three segments worth committing to, each with a written hypothesis. We don't run 'B2B SaaS 50–500' as a segment; we run things like 'Series A data infra teams who shipped a public API in the last 6 months.'

Both, but the way most teams describe 'automated personalization' is what we'd call 'fluent-sounding spam.' We use Clay to enrich and to generate research inputs — but the resulting line is QA'd by a human before it goes live. Roughly 15–25% of generated personalization gets rejected or rewritten. If a human wouldn't credibly believe a sentence is about them specifically, we don't send it.

Mostly for selection, not for mass-personalization. Clay's superpower is being able to filter a 2,000-account list down to the 250 accounts where a trigger is actually present. We build workflows around hiring signals, tech changes, funding, and category-specific triggers — and then personalize the short list, not the whole thing. There's a longer write-up on this in our field notes.

Yes. Email is usually the primary channel and LinkedIn the support channel — connection requests, voice notes, and selective DMs on accounts that have already engaged. We don't run scaled spam connection campaigns; the platform punishes it and the buyers notice.

Three things. One: list quality — verified emails, hard exclusion rules, low volume per account, deliberate domain reputation management. Two: messaging that earns the inbox — a personalization line that's actually personal, a problem statement that's actually specific, and short emails. Three: aggressive segment cutting. The fastest way to look spammy is to keep sending to a segment that's not responding. If a segment is silent for three weeks, we cut it.

We tag every meeting against fit, timing, and post-meeting outcome. The headline metric is meeting-to-opportunity rate. Below 15% means we're booking the wrong meetings — usually a qualification bar problem, sometimes a targeting problem. We share the tagging spreadsheet weekly; you'll always see why a given meeting was booked.

One of three things, in our experience. About a third of clients transition to a managed engagement so we keep running outbound while they build internally. About a third take the playbook and run it themselves with a new SDR hire (this is usually our preferred outcome — it means the pilot worked and the team is ready). About a third pause outbound for a quarter or two because the pilot revealed a different priority. We don't push for the option that pays us more.

Yes. After a pilot or managed engagement, we'll help write the job spec, screen candidates, run a working interview based on the actual playbook, and onboard the rep into the operating cadence. We don't charge for this — it's part of leaving a system that works without us.