Co-Founder & CEO at LeadHaste - a world-class B2B lead-gen agency that sends you ready-to-buy prospects so your team can spend time on what matters most: closing deals.

️Dimitar Petkov

My Christmas gift from Clay  arrived on January 20.

Because I forgot to add my country code to my phone number.

So my gift went on a world tour without me.

The package is packed with little GTM-engineer joy.

A “GTM Engineer Dept.” cap.

A blue “Data Kit” toolbox.

Stickers and a notepad.

And a book called “Consolations,” which feels oddly on-theme for my data mistake.

It’s a good reminder that most “big” ops problems start as small input problems.

One missing prefix.

One wrong field.

One assumption that nobody checks.

Here’s the mini checklist we use now before anything ships, syncs, or launches.

Step 1: Normalize phone numbers to E.164 (+country code, no guessing).

Step 2: Add validation at the form level, not after it hits the CRM.

Step 3: If the number looks local, force a country selection.

Step 4: Store raw input and cleaned output, so debugging is easy.

Step 5: Spot check a handful before the first batch send.

My takeaway.

Data hygiene is not admin work.

It is pipeline protection.

What is the smallest data detail that causes the biggest downstream mess in your GTM process?

⚡️Dimitar Petkov

Clay World Record Holder | Co-founder @ LeadHaste | Clay & Smartlead Certified Partner

Two small Clay updates just fixed two daily annoyances for me.

I have been waiting for both for a long time.

Update 1 is in Waterfall Email Finder.

The old flow could validate the same email over and over if multiple providers returned the same address.

That meant paying to re-validate an email we already had.

Now we can set a “Threshold for duplicate results” in the waterfall.

If the same email shows up 2 or 3 times, Clay stops running more providers instead of burning credits.

The setup I use now is simple.

Pick your providers like before.

Set the duplicate threshold to 2 or 3.

Let the waterfall stop itself when it is clearly repeating.

Update 2 is a built-in wait time before a node runs.

I used to do this manually with an n8n setup and I even made a YouTube video on it.

Now you can just set “Run after delay” right inside the node run settings.

This is huge for async HTTP API calls where the first request starts a job and the data shows up later.

We use BetterContact for some “find people” workflows, and that async timing is exactly where this helps.

If Gmail doesn’t trust you, nothing else matters.

You can have perfect copy, clean lists, the right tool stack, and still land in spam because your sending pattern screams “new sender + risky behavior.”

One advanced deliverability habit that moves the needle fast: traffic shaping.

Most teams “ramp volume.”

Very few shape where that volume goes and how it behaves per mailbox provider.

Here’s the framework:

1. Keep a stable baseline. 
- Gmail hates volatility. 
- Ramp up, but do it with small, consistent steps. Spikes look risky.

2. Shape by engagement, not by inbox provider
Instead of trying to “split Gmail vs Outlook,” split by behavior:
- Start sends to your best-fit, most responsive segment
- Expand only after you see replies/opens stay healthy
- Pause the dead segment before it drags your whole domain down

3. Protect the first touch

First email should be plain and easy to trust:
- one idea
- no heavy link stuffing
- no weird formatting
- one clear question

4. Warm up the right way

Warm up isn’t “seed replies.” It’s proving you’re a normal sender:
- age domains before volume
- authenticate properly (SPF, DKIM, DMARC aligned)
- ramp slowly with real outbound patterns, not artificial inbox activity

5. Don’t rely on reseller lists if you care about deliverability

- If the data is stale, you’ll pay for it in bounces and complaints.
- At scale, list quality is the deliverability lever: validate, suppress risky addresses, and cut anything that spikes hard bounces.

Connect with me & Reply “DELIVER” and I’ll send my full checklist of 46 items.

Dimitar Petkov📨

Clay World Record Holder | LeadHaste | Clay & Smartlead Certified Partner

Sales calls are fun when you stop treating them like a trial.

And start treating them like a conversation with another human.

I was reviewing a call transcript and the thumbnail made me laugh.

Two founders smiling like we are on a podcast.

A notetaker bot waiting patiently in the corner.

And a prospect on the other side of the screen (blurred).

This is the part people forget about sales.

Most calls are just two adults trying to solve a real problem with limited time.

When you show up curious, the call gets lighter.

Not fluffy.

Just human.

Here is what makes the process genuinely enjoyable for us.

We do not try to win the call.

We try to understand their Tuesday.

We ask, “Walk me through the last time this went wrong.”

We ask, “What did you try already.”

We ask, “What would make this a clear yes for you.”

Then we say the quiet part out loud.

“If we are not a fit, I will tell you fast.”

That one line drops the guard almost every time.

And the call turns into a real exchange.

Less performance.

More problem solving.

We also do one small thing that keeps it fun.

We look for the moment we both laugh.

Because that is usually the moment trust starts.

Not because we are friends.

Because the pressure is off and the truth comes out.

Our rule now is simple.

If we cannot build rapport while staying direct, we are making sales harder than it needs to be.

What do you do on calls to keep it human without losing the edge?

The first 500 outbound messages should never be delegated.

Not to an SDR.
Not to an agency.
Not to automation.

Founders see things nobody else does.

You hear the real objections.
You notice which words trigger replies.
You learn what people actually care about, not what your deck says they should care about.

Most teams skip this part.
They hand outbound to someone else too early.
Then they spend months fixing the wrong problems.

Those first 500 messages are not about scale.
They are about signal.

After that?
Yes, systemize it.
Yes, automate it.
Yes, hire.

But only after you’ve earned the right to delegate.

Curious how many founders here actually sent their first outbound themselves?

Most cold emails fail because they feel risky to answer.

Not because the offer is bad.
Not because the timing is wrong.

Because replying feels like work.

Every question you ask adds friction.

Every calendar link raises commitment.

Every long explanation creates pressure.

From the prospect’s point of view, replying is a decision with consequences.

“Will this start a sales process?”
“Will I get pitched?”
“Will this eat my time?”

The best cold emails do the opposite.

They lower emotional commitment.

They make replying feel safe.

Examples that reduce friction:
- Binary replies instead of open questions
- “Worth exploring?” instead of “Can we schedule a call?”
- Permission language instead of urgency
- Short emails that can be answered in 5 seconds

Reply rate is not about persuasion.

It’s about how easy it feels to say something back.

Curious how others here design for low-friction replies. What’s worked for you?

The real power of Clay isn’t enrichment.

It’s constraint.

Most outbound systems fail because they surface too many options.

Too many signals.
Too many scores.
Too many “maybes.”

You end up debating leads instead of acting on them.

Clay becomes dangerous when it’s used to add information.

It becomes effective when it’s used to remove ambiguity.

One table.
One rule.
One output.

Good Clay setups don’t ask,
“Is this a good lead?”

They ask,
“Should this be sent or not?”

If a human has to think after the table runs,
the system is unfinished.

Decision compression is the goal.

Less interpretation.
Fewer edge cases.
Clear yes or no paths.

Clay isn’t there to make you smarter.

It’s there to make decisions boring and obvious.

How are you using Clay today: exploration or execution?

Cold email is about to be judged by something that is not human.

Google is rolling AI summaries into Gmail.
Which means your email might get read, compressed, and ranked before a person ever sees it.

That changes how I think about writing outbound.

Not the format.
Not the tools.
The intent.

Up until now, we wrote emails for skimming eyes.
Subject line.
First line.
Maybe a second glance.

Now you are also writing for an AI that asks one question:
“What is this actually about and should it matter?”

If your message is vague, clever, or hides the point, the summary will expose that.
If your value is clear, it might actually help you.

Here is the real shift I see coming:

Cold email stops being about intrigue.
It becomes about clarity under compression.

When an AI turns your email into two sentences, do those sentences help you or hurt you?

A few things I expect to matter more:

- Plain language over clever copy
- One obvious outcome, not three soft benefits
- Offers that sound useful even when stripped of tone
- First touches that give value instead of asking for a meeting

And fewer emails that start with “quick question.”

This will probably hurt spray-and-pray outbound.
It might actually reward people who already write clearly and honestly.

No one knows exactly how Gmail will rank or surface these summaries yet.
But one thing feels safe to say:

If your email can’t survive being summarized, it probably wasn’t strong to begin with.

Curious how others are thinking about writing for an AI-first inbox.

Deliverability problems should not be discovered in a dashboard.

They should show up in Slack in under a minute.

We built a small Smartlead to Slack anomaly alert runbook for that.

It watches a few webhook events that tend to show trouble first.

It posts a clean alert into a dedicated #deliverability-alerts channel.

It includes the exact campaign, domain, and the rates that triggered it.

For severe cases, it pauses the campaign and blocks the bad domain or lead in our database.

It then opens a triage thread or task so someone owns the follow up.

These are the Smartlead events we monitor 24/7 for:
- campaign.bounce_threshold.breached 
- email.account.disconnected
- campaign.status.changed

Slack gets the same message format every time.

- Campaign
- Domain
- Bounce rate
- Seed summary
- Recommended next step

The last step is ownership.

We create a ClickUp task and start a threaded Slack message tagging the owner.

The rule we follow now is simple.

Alerts without an owner are just noise.

What is your “red line” metric where you auto pause instead of waiting for a human?

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startupmasters-eu

Good cold emails feel unfinished on purpose.

That sounds wrong, but it works.

When an email explains everything, there’s nothing left to respond to.
No tension.
No curiosity.
No reason to type back.

The best cold emails leave a gap.

They hint at a problem without diagnosing it fully.
They suggest an outcome without showing the whole playbook.
They sound human, not polished.

Over-edited emails get skimmed.
Slightly awkward ones get replies.

This is why decks don’t belong in cold email.
This is why long explanations kill response rates.
This is why “just enough” beats “perfect.”

Your job is not to convince in one email.
Your job is to start a conversation.

What’s the smallest amount you can say and still make someone curious enough to reply?

Scaling outbound isn’t hiring more SDRs.

It’s fixing the system they work inside.

Most teams try to grow volume
before they fix flow.

Leads come in messy.
Routing is unclear.
Replies sit untouched.
Follow-ups depend on memory.

Adding headcount just multiplies the chaos.

Real scale looks boring.

Clean enrichment before a lead ever hits a sequence.
Clear rules for who follows up and when.
Automatic routing based on intent, not titles.
One source of truth for replies.

When the system is right,
one rep does the work of three.

When it’s not,
ten reps still miss deals.

Before you ask “who should we hire?”
ask “what should happen automatically?”

Want a subject line that NEVER gets opened?

Use these.

If you use any of these, your open rate is fighting for its life.

1. RE: when there was no previous email
2. FWD: because lying is apparently a strategy
3. Free!!! (triple exclamation marks never convinced anyone)
4. 100% guarantee (of being ignored)
5. Act now like it’s a 1999 infomercial
6. Risk-free said by someone you don’t trust yet
7. $$$ because spam filters love money symbols
8. ALL CAPS ANYTHING
9. Exclamation marks everywhere!!!!!
10. Emojis in cold outreach 😱🔥🚀
11. Obvious clickbait (“You won’t believe this…”)
12. Fake urgency (“Last chance” sent 3 weeks in a row)
13. “Quick question” followed by 7 paragraphs
14. “Just circling back” on the first follow-up
15. Overpromising math (“Save 1,52,453 hours per second”)
16. Buzzword soup (“Synergizing AI-driven growth levers”)
17. Long ass headlines that sound like a landing page hero
18. Subject lines longer than the actual email
19. Trying to be clever instead of clear
20. “How Can My Amazing SaaS Help You Save Everything Forever With Zero Effort”

Good subject lines do one thing.

They make someone curious enough to open.

Not impressed.
Not sold.
Not tricked.

Just curious.

If you want replies, write like a human.

What would you add to that list?

Personalization is killing your cold email replies.

Yes. Even when it looks “smart.”

Here’s the trap I see all the time in cold email.

People personalize the wrong thing.

They open with
“Loved your recent post about X”
or
“Congrats on the Series A”

And then… nothing relevant follows.

The reader thinks:
“Cool. You stalked me. Why are you emailing me?”

Personalization without relevance is just noise.

It actually hurts you because:
	•	It delays getting to the point
	•	It signals automation in disguise
	•	It steals attention from the real problem you solve

The goal of the first line is not to prove effort.

It’s to prove relevance.

A better test:
Would this email still make sense if I removed the personalized line?

If the answer is no, you’re hiding behind personalization.

Relevance beats personalization every time.

Curious where you draw the line between useful context and wasted words in cold email.

Most outbound tests are statistically useless.

Especially in cold email.

Teams spin up Smartlead campaigns, run 5 subject lines, and declare a winner after 2 days.

Nothing meaningful was tested.

Why?

Because the variable wasn’t the copy.
It was the list.

Different ICP slices.
Different company sizes.
Different intent levels.

So when one subject line “wins,” you didn’t learn anything.

You just emailed a better audience.

Good outbound testing is boring:
	•	Same ICP
	•	Same filters
	•	Same volume
	•	One variable changed

If you can’t explain why something won, it didn’t win.

Subject lines don’t fail in isolation.
They fail in messy systems.

Fix the system first.
Then test the copy.

Curious what you standardize before running outbound tests.

More data does not make outbound better.

It usually makes it worse.

Most teams treat Clay like a slot machine.

Pull every enrichment possible.
Add 15 fields.
Hope something magically converts.

What actually happens:
	•	Lists get noisier
	•	Personalization gets forced
	•	Reps don’t know which signal to trust

The best outbound teams don’t use data to add context.

They use data to remove bad fits.

Examples:
	•	Excluding companies that already use a competitor
	•	Filtering out roles that can’t buy
	•	Killing accounts with obvious disqualifiers

That’s data hygiene.

If enrichment doesn’t change a decision, it doesn’t belong in your workflow.

Outbound isn’t a data collection problem.

It’s a decision-making problem.

Curious what signals you’ve found most useful to exclude prospects, not personalize them.

Early lead gen is discovery.

Late lead gen is execution.

In the beginning, everything is noisy.

You are testing ICPs.
You are guessing messaging.
You are learning what actually triggers replies.

Your system should be flexible.

Messy data is fine.
Manual reviews are normal.
Iteration speed matters more than efficiency.

Most teams rush past this phase.

Then, once patterns are clear, the job changes.

Late-stage lead gen is about consistency.

Fewer experiments.
Tighter rules.
Stricter filters.
Less creativity.

At this stage, creativity hurts performance.

Systems win because they remove variance.

The mistake I see most often is running an “early-stage” outbound system forever.

Same chaos.
Same guesses.
Same excuses.

Lead gen maturity isn’t about volume.

It’s about knowing when to stop exploring and start executing.

Where do you think most teams get stuck?

Apps, sites, & software for startups and the big companies they strive to become.

👋 Hi there!  

I'm a serial entrepreneur and founder of SPARK6, a software and product innovation agency focused on helping companies implement AI-powered solutions that create effective organizations and products people love. 

After a decade of working in robotics, I’ve started and sold several companies in both CPG and software. 

I post daily on how AI can be a force-multiplier for leadership, business leverage, and personal productivity - for you, your team, and your customers. 

For actionable tips and insights into the latest AI developments, subscribe to my newsletter Framework Friday.  

We specialize in designing and building: 

→ Websites (CMS agnostic) 
→ Custom enterprise software 
→ Mobile apps (iOS and Android) 
→ E-Commerce platforms (Like Shopify) 
→ Workflow automations powered by LLMs 
→ AI strategy, training and change management  
→ Conversational AI experiences for customer service 
→ AI agents for internal and customer-facing workflows 
→ AI-powered telepresence and holographic experiences  

Our clients range from startups to global brands across industries like:  

→ Arts  
→ CPG 
→ Telcom
→ Fintech  
→ Fit-tech
→ Logistics  
→ For-cause
→ Education  
→ Healthcare
→ Personal care 

We've been doing this for 14 years, and over that time, we've built for Fortune 500s and scrappy startup teams alike.  The common thread? High-impact work delivered with strategic care and real technical precision. 

Sound like something you're exploring?  Send me a message. Just don’t open with a pitch-slap. And if you're a bot, I'm looking forward to that dad joke 😉 

Let’s build something amazing. 

- Elijah

Elijah Szasz

You can make the right decision,

and still feel like you missed.

That doesn’t mean it was wrong.

Sometimes progress looks like friction
before it looks like momentum.

Plans don’t fail in straight lines.
They bend.
They reroute.
They expose weak assumptions.

What feels like a misstep is often
the system surfacing what needed to change.

In business, in careers, in life,
the fastest upgrades rarely feel smooth.

They feel inconvenient.
They feel confusing.
They feel late.

But detours have a job:
they stress-test who you are
before rewarding where you’re going.

If you’re questioning your direction,
don’t default to self-blame.

Most outcomes aren’t verdicts.
They’re diagnostics.

Three reminders when things drift off-plan:

1. Separate error from information.
→ Not all friction is failure.
→ Sometimes it’s feedback doing its work.

2. Zoom out before you react.
→ Short-term confusion can enable
  long-term leverage.
→ Context changes conclusions.

3. Keep the system in motion.
→ Insight follows movement.
→ Stalling freezes learning.

I’ve shipped decisions that didn’t land.
Built systems that cracked under load.
Chosen paths that forced a rethink.

Each one raised the ceiling
for what came next.

You’re not lost.
You’re iterating.

And iteration is how systems improve.

♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

Founder | Follow to leverage AI in Products & Leadership

Everyone at work has a personal story.
 
Almost no one shares it.
 
The teammate who snapped in the meeting?
They are carrying something heavy.
 
The report who missed the deadline?
Their life just changed overnight.
 
The leader who feels distant?
They are running on empty.
 
Kindness is not softness.
It is operational maturity.
 
But kindness is not the same as being nice.
 
Nice avoids tension.
Kindness addresses it with respect.
 
What real kindness looks like at work:
 
→ Asking "What do you need right now?"
↳ Before defaulting to blame
 
→ Designing flexibility into systems
↳ So people do not have to ask for grace
 
→ Noticing behavioral drift
↳ And checking in early, not after damage
 
→ Protecting focus and boundaries
↳ Especially when pressure comes from above
 
→ Building workflows that allow humans
↳ To be human on bad days
 
Strong leaders understand this:
 
You can demand excellence
AND design for reality.
 
You can move fast
AND leave room for struggle.
 
You can be direct
AND lead with empathy.
 
Targets get forgotten.
Moments of support do not.
 
♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

You’re not overwhelmed.
 
You’re under-systemized.
 
Most people blame discipline.
The real issue is missing leverage.
 
Here are the AI systems you’re probably not using:
 
1. The AI Systems You’re Not Using
↳ Reduce friction
↳ Increase leverage
 
2. Cognitive Load
❌ Hold everything in your head
✅ Externalize thinking with AI
↳ Notes, summaries, memory
 
3. Task Flow
❌ Repeat the same work manually
✅ Automate recurring tasks once
↳ Let the system handle repetition
 
4. Decision Speed
❌ Overthink small choices
✅ Use AI for fast first drafts
↳ Decide faster, refine later
 
5. Information Intake
❌ Consume everything in real time
✅ Let AI filter and summarize
↳ Focus only on what matters
 
6. Execution Loop
❌ Plan endlessly, delay action
✅ Short cycles: idea to test
↳ Adjust based on feedback
 
7. Personal System
❌ Scattered tools, scattered focus
✅ One trusted system of record
↳ AI keeps it clean and current
 
8. Discipline Design
❌ Rely on motivation and willpower
✅ Systems plus AI enforce habits
↳ Consistency without friction
 
♻️ Repost to help your network.
🔔 Follow Elijah Szasz for actionable insights on AI, systems, and strategy.

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️Dimitar Petkov

Elijah Szasz

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The Battle

️Dimitar Petkov

Elijah Szasz

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}️Dimitar Petkov's LinkedIn Performance

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