CEO @ Conversion House 🏠 | On-demand design for small SaaS marketing teams so they can launch faster, position better and convert more.

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Joe Wheatley

After 2.5 years, I've closed the agency down.

In August 2023 I was completely new to business. Came from the defence industry. Didn't know what SaaS was, didn't even know the difference between marketing and sales.

Knew how to make websites and write, so started freelancing - blog posts and websites for marketing agencies.

Then started landing my own clients. Re-invested everything back into the business - courses, paid ads, tools.

A few courses said "pick a niche", so after some research and zero prior experience, niched down to SaaS.

Started posting about SaaS design on LinkedIn (around November 2024). One month later, landed my first major SaaS gig. Built a website for Summize.

A few more websites, then pivoted to content for SaaS companies. Started a podcast around this time. 

FYI, podcasts are one of the biggest growth hacks - you learn from people you wouldn't otherwise get in a room, they get free marketing.

Summer 2025, flew to San Francisco and filmed videos for a few names you'd recognize.

Came back, jumped on some disco calls. The demand was for outbound not content. Followed the demand. Learned outbound, picked up some new clients. Someone even offered equity for Demand House.

As of today: 30+ B2B companies, multi 10k+ projects, 27 five-star reviews. Not every project was a success - but when we failed, we reflected and learned from our mistakes.

At the beginning of Feb 2026, started thinking longer term. Two things kept coming to mind:

1. GTM agencies are fighting over lower market and small budgets - a race to the bottom with automation and AI.

2. The market rewards those with a top 1% skill, not a jack of all trades.

That pointed to one thing: build a career in tech sales, selling to mid-market and enterprise. Big budgets, opportunity, high-touch, human-led. Skill still matters.

Started applying for roles. Found Vertice - 13x growth in 2 years (one of the fastest growing tech companies in Europe).

Went to their office for the final interview and the floorplate was pure hustle energy. Perfect

Starting on monday as a BDR. Team look great. Very excited. All-in.

Reflections:

99% of this 2.5 year journey was raw action in the face of intense confusion & ambiguity

But push through and on the other side is clarity. Then you must repeat.

That's growth.

Everyone has been through this process, but most stop. The process defeats them. You see it all over their faces. This is what you must avoid.

Instead, you must learn to love the journey. The good, the bad. Every single part of it. Amor Fati

Like Yin and Yang, there is no light without dark.

Everything is connected.

So if you take away one thing away from this post it’s this:

- The journey is the point.
- There is no finish line.
- NEVER stop chasing growth.

GTM @ Vertice | Intelligent Procurement Platform | #1 fastest growing scale-up in UK (Sifted) | #2 in Sunday Times 100 Tech

Master these 5 areas of deliverability so you avoid the spam folder and book more qualified meetings

1️⃣ Infrastructure & Settings
→ Purchase domains with reputable providers like Porkbun
→ Use .com domains
→ Age domains for 30 days before sending
→ Buy backup domains for rotation
→ Use 2 inboxes per domain
→ For inboxes, use trusted re-sellers like Zapmail.ai
→ Diversity your sending infra (mix of Google, Outlook and 3rd party)
→ Ensure proper authentication and DNS (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, URL re-directs)
→ Warm-up inboxes (start at 5 per day, increase by 1 per day up to 15-20)
→ Set warm-up reply rate to 70%
→ When warm-up is complete, send maximum of 25 emails per day per inbox
→ Ensure warm-up stays on at 10-15, 70% reply rate
→ When starting cold email campaigns, begin with 5 emails per day in week 1
→ Then gradually increase to 25 emails per day by the end of week 2
→ Match ESPs for better deliverability (outlook to outlook, Google to Google)
→ Keep bounce rates < 2% and spam complaints < 0.1%
→ Check domains aren't blacklisted using MXtoolbox

2️⃣ Lead Lists
→ Ensure company is within your TAM or ICP
→ Ensure contact is a buyer persona
→ Use enrichment waterfalls like BetterContact to maximize both quality and quantity of contact data
→ Ensure proper enrichment, scoring, tiering, filtering and lead routing using Freckle.io or Clay

3️⃣ Offer
→ Must be compelling
→ And relevant

4️⃣ Sequence
→ Good sequence length e.g. for Tier 3 email-only outreach, max 3 emails
→ Optimize time between steps (depends on ICP and tier)

5️⃣ Copy
→ Write in plain-text (no links, no HTML)
→ Add unsubscribe option
→ Remove any spam trigger words (use spam checkers like Mail Meteor)
→ Use Spintax, messaging frameworks and AI-generated copy
→ Ask questions and personalize
→ A/B test
→ Follow copywriting best practices

Anything to add? Drop below

Building Contiyo.com - Every content creator's best friend | Co-founder & Co-CEO at Nortik - We delivered $150M worth of SaaS startups | Follow for daily insights, strategies and tips on how to scale your SaaS

At Nortik, we build custom AI agents, automation systems, and SaaS software that automates complex workflows, and helps fast-paced businesses move 3x faster.

We've helped 40+ startups build SaaS products and AI agents that generated over $150,000,000 in combined funding and revenue (4 featured in TechCrunch).

What we build:
→ Custom AI agents that automate repetitive workflows.
→ Multi-agent systems that coordinate across your entire operation.
→ Complex workflow orchestration (MCP servers, LLM integrations, human-in-the-loop approvals).
→ Custom production ready and enterprise grade SaaS solutions.

How we work:

We embed directly into your team. Our engineers work in your codebase, join your standups, and ship production AI in 3-6 months. You're not stuck with extra headcount when it's done.

Recently we:

→ Built an AI observability infrastructure for a startup that raised a $10M Series A.
→ Architected a platform handling 50M+ daily data points that became #3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.
→ Helped one of Germany's largest TV networks cut engineering costs by 23% on their streaming platform.
→ Delivered a full crypto/stock portfolio tracking system with real-time market integrations.
→ Built internal operations dashboards with AI-powered automation for media companies.
→ Developed a VFX platform for a Hollywood-grade AI company that turns actors into digital characters (Backed by Steven Spielberg).

Industries we're mostly active in:

→ Healthcare & HealthTech
→ Marketing & Email Deliverability
→ Sales & RevOps
→ Travel Tech
→ Entertainment & Media

Book a free consultation here & let us show you the power of AI for your business: nortiksoftware.com

Ognjen Gatalo

Steal my AI productivity stack:

AI Studio → Rapid prototypes & tests
Claude Code → Coding & development
Gemini → Image generation & UI design
Perplexity → Deep research & prospect hunting
ChatGPT → Quick questions & prompt optimization
Grok → Social media trends, hooks & topic research
Claude → Content, strategy, contracts, anything word-heavy
NotebookLM → Turning videos into roadmaps & educational content

Using a hammer for every job simply doesn’t cut it.

Start learning how to use multi-tool stacks.

—
What’s your AI stack? Leave it down below. 👇

Nortik.io - Custom AI Agents, Complex Workflow Automation and Software Development for Startups & Mid-market | Drove over $150M for SaaS startups | Building ChurnSignal.ai | Find my insights here → saasstrats.com

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The Battle

Joe Wheatley

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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);}Joe Wheatley's LinkedIn Performance

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