Scale revenue with AI & tech

I decided to skip the traditional corporate path & start building in the AI x Sales space at 27. 
Here's the journey so far:

Age 18-21: Business school in Brussels, realized I needed practical experience
Age 22: Coding bootcamp + lucky Bitcoin exit gave me 50K to fund a world trip
Age 23: 12-country world tour learning new skills every month in a new country.
Age 24-26: Growth hacker roles at German startups, learned systems but felt unfulfilled 
Age 27: Co-founded ColdIQ with Mich
Age 28: Hit our first major milestones learning everything the hard way 
Age 29: Scaled to $6M ARR and became Clay's #1 global partner. Running a business that does $477K/month with 30+ team members across 4 continents.

It's been wild. Today through ColdIQ, we help B2B companies build AI-powered sales systems that work. 

We've run outbound for 300+ organizations and generated millions in pipeline.

The best part? We built this entirely remote with people I genuinely enjoy working with. 

Turns out you can have rapid growth AND life quality - you just need the right systems.

If you want to build your own AI sales agency, I teach everything in our ColdIQ Agency Accelerator, the exact playbook we used to hit $6M ARR in 2 years. 

From Clay workflows to hiring A-players to scaling without burning out.

If you're already doing $1M+ ARR and want help scaling your existing business, let's talk about our done-for-you services.

https://coldiq.com/

If you're not there yet, I share everything for free on LinkedIn and in our 7-day email course (in the featured section).

The AI x Sales opportunity is the biggest wealth creation event of our generation. The market is so massive that there's room for everyone to win.

Ready to start your agency? Join 130+ founders in our accelerator.

https://coldiq.com/accelerator-program

Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️

R.I.P. LinkedIn "experts".

↳ For 2026, I built this step-by-step guide + agents so you can get clients on LinkedIn.

Most LinkedIn "experts" only do two things:

Post generic motivational content.
Send cold DMs that smell like a pitch from the first second.

We decided to do something different.

We created a real system that combines AI + strategic positioning + intentional content:

- Generates consistent visibility without chasing anyone.
- Converts strangers into prospects.
- Works without a team.

What we achieved in 30 days:

→ +14,338,471 organic impressions without spending on ads.
→ +500 inbound leads without sending a single message.
→ +110 calls booked.
→ All using a guide that's already optimized for what's coming in 2026.

What's inside the guide?

→ How to use AI with specific prompts to build authority without burning out.
→ How to structure your content so it sells.
→ How to make LinkedIn work for you 24/7.
→ The exact execution system we use (and how you can replicate it).

Want access to the full guide to dominate LinkedIn in 2026?

Comment "2026" and I'll send it to you.

Co-Founder @ ColdIQ ($6M ARR) | Helped 300+ companies scale revenue with AI & Tech | #1 AI Sales Agency

If your outbound isn't working, it's probably not your copy.

It's your data. Here is how to find the best one.

Most sales teams are sourcing leads from the exact same places.

LinkedIn. ZoomInfo. Apollo.

Your competitor builds a list Monday morning.
You build the same list Monday afternoon.

Now you're both chasing the same person who's already drowning in pitches.

This is why outbound feels broken.

It's not your messaging.
It's that you're fishing in the same pond as everyone else.

We stopped doing that.

Instead, we started hunting in places nobody's paying attention to:

→ Product Hunt launches where founders list their email publicly
→ G2 reviews where buyers complain about your competitor
→ Job boards where hiring signals reveal budget and growth
→ GitHub repos where technical buyers reveal themselves
→ Reddit threads where people ask for alternatives
…and 57 other data sources.

All accessible and ignored by 95% of sales teams.

We built a breakdown of every underused data source for outbound.
What you can scrape from each.
The sales signal it reveals.

Drop "LIST" in the comments and I'll send it over in full resolution.

We scaled to $6M ARR without funnels.

This is why 90% of funnels don’t work anymore 👇

This is how most companies run their GTM:
 
Awareness → Decision → Conversion → Start over.

The problem with that is that every time you close a deal (or lose one), you start all over again.

Plus, you have 3 teams running 3 separate motions

→ Every hand-off creates friction
→ You learn things after it's too late to fix them
→ Your tools live in silos and never connect
→ Each team is optimizing for something different

We replaced all of it with a flywheel.

One system where Content, Ads & Outbound work as one.

Here's how it works:

Motion 1: Value-led outbound

We don't send pitches. We send value.

Every cold email offers something worth consuming:

- A personalized video breakdown
- An industry-specific strategy doc
- A downloadable Notion template
- A teardown of their current approach

The goal is bring qualified traffic into our ecosystem.

Motion 2: Multi-channel retargeting

Every interaction gets captured and scored:

→ LinkedIn profile viewers identified via Sales Nav + PhantomBuster
→ Post engagers tracked through Trigify.io and Common Room
→ Website visitors enriched via RB2B (US) and Snitcher (EU)
→ All touchpoints routed through Clay for lead scoring

One click or a reply to our cold email triggers:

→ LinkedIn + Google retargeting for 30 days
→ Automated email nurture sequence
→ CRM tags them based on intent
→ Sales gets instant notification
→ We track every profile view and post engagement

Motion 3: Tier conversion system

Not everyone converts the same way. So we built multiple paths:

→ High-intent leads book appointments by chat (email, LI DMs)
→ MQLs go into automated nurture sequences
→ Warm accounts get ad retargeting plus personalized campaigns

We use outbound to fuel the flywheel.

Cold email isn't dead. It's just no longer the full strategy.

It's the trigger for the real GTM engine behind the scenes.

Here's why this compounds:

Outbound creates curiosity → drives traffic to the ColdIQ ecosystem
Content builds authority → warms future outbound responses
Ads retarget engaged accounts → move them through the buying cycle
Great delivery → Better case studies → Better prospects → Better clients → Higher prices.

Everything strengthens everything else.

When your GTM engine runs in sync, growth becomes inevitable.

P.S. If you run an agency/B2B business and want to engineer the system that connects all three channels and add $10K-$100K to your MRR, comment "GTM".

Most cold emails get <1% reply rates.

Ours get 10%.

If I had to teach someone cold email from scratch, here's what I'd tell them:

For getting replies, focus on:

1. Real triggers
2. Specific pain
3. Proof that's actually believable

Too many people here just blast templates. But that's not enough anymore.

You need triggers to be relevant.
You need pain that connects to their actual situation.

Two examples you can steal:

"Saw you're hiring 10 SDRs. Usually means ramp time is killing quota."

vs.

"I noticed you work in sales."

One gets replies. One gets deleted.

For the ask, I'd focus on:

1. Giving value before asking for time
2. Making the next step super easy

"Do you have 15 minutes?" doesn't work anymore.

"Mind if I send over the 3-step process we used?" does.

Here's my actual template:

"Hi [Name],

Saw you're [trigger].

Usually that means [pain].

We helped [Company] go from [before] to [after].

They saw [result] in [timeframe].

Mind if I share how?"

That's it.

Everyone overthinks this.

Perfect subject lines. AI personalization. Fancy tools.

But if you nail trigger + pain + value, nothing else matters.

One more thing that works better than anything:

Free work.

"Mind if I build you a custom lead list for your new SDR team?"

That gets replies every time. You're solving their problem before they ask.

It's simple, I know... but it works.

What's your go-to cold email approach? Drop it below 👇

Most lists get 1-2% reply rates.

Ours get 5-15%.

Same frameworks. Different lists.

If I had to teach someone list building from scratch, here's what I'd tell them:

For coverage, focus on:

1. Multiple data sources (one source = missing 40% of your market)
2. Cross-referencing to fill gaps
3. Never trusting a single data provider

Too many people here just pull a list from Apollo and start blasting.

That's not a strategy.

For enrichment, I'd focus on:

1. Validating every email before sending
2. Adding context that makes it relevant
3. Scoring leads so you know who to prioritize

The difference is the work you do before you send.

For precision, I'd focus on:

1. Tiering your list (not all leads are equal)
2. Matching message to segment
3. Spending more time on fewer, better leads

Everyone wants the perfect cold email template.

But if you're sending to the wrong people, no template saves you.

The list is the strategy. Everything else is execution.

We put together a free masterclass on this:

→ Full guide (8 phases)
→ 15+ video lessons
→ 2 AI agents that build lists for you

Comment "LIST" and I'll send it over.

list building masterclass

Andrew Carnegie sold his company for $480 million and became the richest man in America.

Thanks to a decision his partners called "the worst mistake of his life."

In 1870, steel was about to change everything.

Hundreds of entrepreneurs saw the opportunity.

"We need the mines. The railroads. The production. The distribution."

Carnegie made a different choice.

"What if instead of doing 12 things poorly, I dominate ONE?"

He picked production.

Every dollar. Every engineer. One single metric: cost per ton.

1875: Steel cost $100 per ton.
1900: Carnegie was producing it at $12 per ton.

Nobody could compete.

1901: J.P. Morgan bought everything for $480 million.

The "worst mistake" made him the richest man in America.

I'm watching the same mistake happen in AI right now.

Every week someone DMs me:

"I'm starting an AI agency. We do lead gen, AI workflows, chatbots, automation, and consulting."

That's five businesses. Not one.

In 2026, thousands of people will launch AI service businesses.

Everyone will have access to the same tools. Claude. GPT. Make. n8n. Clay.

The tools won't be your edge.

Expertise will.

One niche. One problem. One service. Done better than anyone else.

At ColdIQ, we spent 3 years going deep on GTM.

Not AI broadly. Not "automation." GTM for B2B tech companies.

That focus is the reason we're at $6M ARR.

Carnegie didn't win by doing more.

He won by doing one thing better than anyone else in the world.

Same playbook works in 2026.

Pick your one thing. Go deeper than everyone else.

That's how you win when everyone has the same tools.

the 480 million mistake 

Cold outreach stops feeling cold when you catch people at the right time.

The difference between "not interested" and "let's talk" usually comes down to timing.

We've tested dozens of signals over the past year.

These 5 actually tell you when someone's ready to have a conversation:

1️⃣ They visited your website

Someone from a target company just looked at your pricing page.

They read a case study. Clicked around your features.

They're not sold yet. But they're curious.

→ That's your window. Hit them before they forget you exist.

2️⃣ They just got funding

Fresh capital means spending mode. New hires, new tools, new infrastructure.

That window only lasts about 90 days.

→ Reach out before their growth stack is finalized.

3️⃣ They're hiring for a specific role

A company adding 5 SDRs needs a better sales stack.

A company hiring engineers needs dev tools.

Growth creates gaps. Gaps create budgets.

→ Position yourself before they've already picked someone else.

4️⃣ They're engaging with certain LinkedIn profiles

They're liking posts from thought leaders in your space.

Leaving comments. Saving content about problems you fix.

That's not scrolling. That's someone doing research.

→ Reference the topic. Start with value. Skip the pitch.

5️⃣ They're consuming content about a specific topic

Same idea, but broader.

They're reading about challenges you solve.

Watching videos. Joining conversations.

They know they have a problem. They just haven't found the answer yet.

→ Show up where they're already looking.

Stack two or three of these together and you're reaching out to people already in motion.

lemlist's intent signals tracks all 5 automatically and pings you when it’s time to reach out.

No manual tracking. No spreadsheets. Just real time signals.

Which one would move the needle most for you?

5 intent signals telling you who is ready to buy

He went from $10K to $80K/month with just one extra hire.

No ads and no big sales team. 

Samuel is one of our students inside our Agency Accelerator.

He runs a recruiting agency in Germany serving IT and construction companies.

Before joining, his client acquisition was 100% cold calling.
Dialing gatekeepers. Hoping to reach the CEO. 

It worked, but it didn't scale.

He wanted to grow revenue without growing headcount.

Here's what he built:

→ Scraped job platforms like Indeed to find companies actively hiring
→ Reached out 1-2 days after they posted (perfect timing)
→ Automated his Clay workflows to run evergreen
→ Personalized LinkedIn outreach to candidates with Clay


He went from $10K to $80K/month in less than a year.
Team went from 2 people to 3.
His employee's calendar is now booked with 40-50 candidate appointments per week.

I sat down with Samuel to break down how he achieved this.

You can check the full case study on Youtube.

We are working 1:1 with 5 agencies this month.

If you'd like to add $20-100K MRR in the next 90 days, send the word "Accelerator".

Cold outreach: 8% reply rate.

Warm outbound: 47% reply rate.

Same effort. 5x the responses.

The difference happens because you are reaching people who already know you exist.

Think about it:

-> Someone viewed your profile.
-> Someone engaged your post.
-> Someone followed your company page.

They already recognize your name.

But most B2B teams ignore these people and blast 10,000 cold emails to strangers instead.

Why?

Because capturing warm leads used to be a nightmare:

Sales Nav -> Clay enrichment -> ICP scoring formulas -> Claude for Copy -> Automation setup -> Daily manual work.

6+ tools just to reach people who were already interested.

Valley does all of it.

It captures:
→ Profile viewers
→ Post engagers
→ Competitor post engagers
→ Company page followers

Then it scores them, filters out bad fits, writes personalized outreach, and sends it.

Every day without the manual work.

The people who already know you convert better than strangers.

Now you can actually reach them.

What's your best strategy to convert leads on LinkedIn?

If you are in Cape Town 🇿🇦 and want to succeed in GTM.

This is for you.

On January 29th, ask us anything about building GTM systems with Clay.

If you've seen ColdIQ's posts, followed the work we do, or wondered how top teams actually use Clay to grow their businesses, you might want to join us.

This is your chance to ask real questions, get real answers, and learn how to apply Clay to your own business.

You’ll Learn:

- How ColdIQ uses Clay to power real-world GTM systems
- Signal-based outbound strategies and when to use them
- How to think about Clay if you’re just getting started
- Common mistakes teams make and how to avoid them
- How AI fits into modern outbound and GTM workflows

Stefan 🦁 Kollenberg (Head of Data Partnership) and I will answer the questions from Louis Van Wyk.

I'll be there to share how we've scaled into a multimillion-dollar agency building GTM systems for 300+ companies + sharing our plans for 2026.

We'll kick things off with welcome drinks at 6 PM, then move into a live AMA-style discussion.

Spots are limited.

Link to register ↓

He left Goldman Sachs to start an agency from scratch.

8 weeks later he hit $40K/month with zero ads and no sales team.

Daniel Salzner is one of our students inside our Agency Accelerator

He spent 1 year at Goldman Sachs 

He knew cold outreach worked.
It got him his first customers and his first investors for his previous startup

But this time he wanted to build something different.
An agency with an acquisition system that runs without a sales team.

Here's what he achieved:

→ Started on Upwork to nail his ICP
→ First 4 clients in 4 weeks ($15K MRR)
→ Switched to targeted outbound once he knew who to reach
→ Automated 40-50% of fulfillment
→ One LinkedIn post brought 130K impressions and 30 booked calls

The result?

$0 to $40K MRR in 8 weeks.
$80K collected in 10 weeks.

Still no sales team. Still no ads.

I sat down with Daniel to break down how he achieved this.

You can watch the full case study on my Youtube channel. 

We are working 1:1 with 5 agencies this month. 

If you'd like to add $20-50K MRR in the next 90 days, send the word "Accelerator".

364K to 1.7M impressions in 6 months.

Here's what I changed.

Most people blame the algorithm when LinkedIn doesn't work for them.

But the problem is almost never the algorithm.

It's your profile and content not being optimized to show up in the feed.

Here's the breakdown:

1. My headline

Your headline should scream exactly what you specialize in.

When someone lands on your profile, there's zero confusion about what you help with.

I use the formula: "I help X achieve Y through Z"

So your ideal client knows instantly you’re the right person for that.

Mine is: “Helped 300+ companies scale revenue with AI & Tech”

If your headline is vague, no one remembers you.

2. My content

I stopped posting what I wanted to talk about.

I started answering the burning questions my ideal clients already have.

If they struggle with lead generation, I break that down in detail.

How do you find those questions?

Ask yourself: What are they struggling with right now?

In my case, my ideal client was me 2 years ago.

So I spend time thinking: What kept me up at night when I was at that stage?

That's your content goldmine.

For me, those questions became my content pillars:

→ Workflows and automations
→ Tech stack breakdowns
→ GTM strategies (outbound, content, ads)
→ Operations and systems
→ Lessons from my founder journey

Every piece of content I create is focused on helping B2B business owners and teams increase revenue through technology.

The goal is giving away so much tactical value that people see you as their trusted advisor, before they ever talk to you.

3. My proof

It's not enough to say what you do.

You have to prove you can actually deliver.

- Testimonials
- Achievements
- Case studies
- Screenshots
- Real data

If you claim you get X results, show data. Show client wins.

People need evidence before they trust and invest in you.

Which of these 3 do you think moves the needle the most?

9 Truths I’ve Learned by 30 

(That I wish I’d known at 20)

1) Do > Consume

In 2020, I read 59 books in one year. I made 0$

In 2025, I read 2 books and our business generated multiple 7 figures.

In my early twenties, I was always the guy who knew everything about self-improvement and business.

I was reading books for CEOs when I hadn't even started a side project.

Consuming feels like progress. It's not.

You can spend a lifetime reading and never actually move forward.

2) You can't lose if you don't stop

I've spent 3 years in GTM now.

My goal: be known as one of the top people worldwide helping businesses grow with technology.

That takes years and there's no shortcut.

Businesses come and go.

But the authority you build in an industry? That stays with you.

It only disappears if you restart something new every 3 months.

3) You can only connect the dots looking backward

So many decisions didn't make sense when I made them.

But 10 years later, you look back and see how everything connects.

But for the dots to connect, you have to make decisions first.

4) Posting content is a luck mutiplier

Content has been the biggest hack in my life.

You just become a magnet for interesting people and interesting opportunities.

5) No one is coming to save you

People complain about the system. About AI. About their boss. About their upbringing. Their traumas because it feels comforting to have people feeling bad you.

Everyone got different cards dealt.

But no one will ever care about your life more than you.

You have to save yourself because no one else will.

6) Find your infinite games and your infinite people

For me the ultimate happines is finding great people to build great things with.

That is a game that is fun to play and that has no end.

That's what I'm optimizing for now.

7) Your growth is measured by the uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have

I've seen people stay stuck for years because they're avoiding one conversation.

The conversation they know they need to have but keep putting off.

The people who move fast in life have the hard talk today, not next month.

8) Micro Speed - Macro Patience

Most people are extremely impatient but have zero long-term vision.

Flip it.

Have a 10-year vision. But act fast today.

9) The world is changed by your action not by your opinion

Everyone wants to have impact and change things.

It's easy to comment and easy to have opinions.

But what really matters is what you do.

Not what you say.

—

Which one do you agree/disagree with?

Proconsul | 🇨🇦 | Visionary Strategic Growth | Fractional CSO | Author | European Movement Canada | Bylines Scotland | Business and Economic Development

I design the environments where ambition survives contact with reality.

There's a difference between a business that makes money and a business that holds value.

Most founders are living in "renovated" companies—fresh paint over rotting beams. They mistake activity for structural integrity. They hustle to cover up the drift.

I don't do renovations. I do restorations.

I look at the bones of what you're building—your energy, your capital, your biology, your logic—and I strip away everything that isn't load-bearing.

THE PHILOSOPHY
Whether it's a hypersaline ecosystem in Saskatchewan, a geothermal network, net-zero data centres, phytomining and bioremediation, or a founder’s operating system, the rule is the same: If it requires constant force to maintain, it's designed wrong.

I build self-sustaining leverage.

THE WORK
My portfolio is a collection of systems designed to outlive the noise.

Engineered a supercritical geothermal-to-compute district; cascading baseload power into AI clusters, industrial production, and greenhouse food security.
Executing a "biological resource claim" on a unique hypersaline ecosystem to secure first-mover genomic IP and taxonomic priority.
Architecting the deployment of hyperaccumulator plants to convert industrial nickel tailings from environmental liabilities into battery-grade assets.
Scaling AI-driven vertical farming infrastructure to eliminate supply chain leakage through hyper-local produce production.

HOW I ENGAGE
I act as a Strategic Architect.

I am the one who tells you that your "growth strategy" is actually a liability. I'm the one who finds the asset you didn't know you owned. I'm the one who designs the legal, technical, and operational architecture that allows you to stop fighting your own business.

I don’t offer advice. I offer clarity.

And clarity is the most expensive thing you can buy, because it costs you your illusions.

Ben Beveridge
Proconsul
ben@proconsul.ca

"Ben is a pattern recognizer who builds infrastructure where others see noise. He detects structural opportunities before they're legible, then constructs the architecture—frameworks, partnerships, capital structures—to make them real. A synthesist who thinks by building models, converting vision into operational reality."

"Super impressed by the proposal. The scale and ambition are astonishing."

This was my 2025, if you're curious:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fobvd_Qi5DH1ES0j0KRhJotiEuEAU1_BtggHoUpSYaY/edit?usp=sharing

If you find something interesting, we should talk.

taplio

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The Battle

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