Advanced Client

Founder

Instantly.ai

Certified Expert

StratumFive Ltd

Global Client Relations Manager

Global Client Relations Team Leader

Hi, I’m Tom — CEO & Co-founder of AdvancedClient.io

We’re a full-service GTM Studio that builds outbound systems designed to generate qualified pipeline across every relevant channel — email, cold calling, paid ads, LinkedIn, and content.

We’ve partnered with 40+ B2B companies — from consultancies and tech firms to manufacturers — to architect multichannel outbound programs using tools like Clay, Instantly, Findymail, Hypertide, and Trigify.

We typically work with:

- B2B companies doing $100k+ in monthly revenue
- Offers with $10k+ LTV and high consideration
- Founders or GTM teams who want a reliable outbound engine without hiring a team of SDRs

Why clients work with us:

1. They’re too focused on product or delivery to execute outbound properly

2. They’ve tried outbound but never got past low reply rates or spam filters

3. They’re overwhelmed by tools and want a proven system, not another experiment

4. They want to scale pipeline without bloated headcount

What we do:
- Define your ICP, segment your TAM, and structure your offer for cold traffic
- Build inbox-safe cold email infrastructure that guarantees high deliverability
- Source and enrich high-quality leads using AI and advanced workflows
- Craft messaging for email, LinkedIn, and calling — optimized for replies
- Launch and manage multichannel outbound (email, calling, paid, social)
- Handle reply management, follow-ups, and booking — we own results
- Provide content advisory to align thought leadership with GTM execution

If you're serious about pipeline growth and want outbound that performs like your best rep — across every channel — let's talk.

📥 DM me
🌐 advancedclient.io
📧 tom@advancedclient.io

Tom Grainger

I'm English. Live in Brighton. I run a 2-man business with Louis Young.
We both work from home but meet in london every 2/3 weeks. 
We help a handful of clients at a time. 
I like collecting vintage suits (unrelated)

This year we'll hit $300k+ in revenue. 

Here is a very quick breakdown of what I sell, how I market + sell it and how we deliver our service without a huge team. 

1. What I sell: 

We work with SaaS companies with an ACV over $50k generate more qualified pipeline (that closes at a higher rate) without increasing their headcount. 

2. How do we do it?: 

We build out elite fractional SDR teams who's only job is to call. We handle the TAM, enrichment, qualification, signals, hiring, training, ramping, QA, tech and everything else involved allowing our clients to launch in 10 days instead of 10 months. 

3. Why do our clients love us?: 

- We solve a huge headache for them while delivering excellent results by implementing the cutting edge in outbound sales. 

4. Why do SDR's want to work with us? 

- We pay extremely competitively, handle all the headaches usually involved in being an SDR (they only need to call) and we are very flexible. (Shoot me a DM if you are an SDR looking for fractional work, we have lot's of opps for you to work on). 

5. How do we make sales?: 

a. Cold calling: We employ the same system's for our clients for ourselves. 
b. Cold email: We hit up our TAM every 3 months with simple hand raising messages. 
c. Linkedin content: Me and Louis Young have around 20k followers between us and generate millions of impressions with our content - this brings a lot of inbound. 
d. Referrals: Our clients love us so we get lots of referrals. 

Tools we use: 

Cold calling: Trellus (YC W22)
Cold email: Hypertide.io (infrastructure), Instantly.ai (sending) 
Data: Clay, Prospeo.io, Findymail, LeadMagic, FullEnrich
Signals: BirdDog, Trigify.io, Vector 👻
Cleaning: SureConnect

We use a bunch more tools for comms etc but this is the core stack for delivering our service.

More Pipeline W/O Scaling Headcount Using AI GTM Workflows | Founder @ advancedclient.io

I'm Tom, I listen to every call our SDR's make. It takes bloody ages.

but

it's the single most important thing I do in my day, here's why: 

Speaking to hundreds of sales leaders this year has made something really really clear. 

there is not enough time being spent coaching and training SDR's - which to me seems insane. 

why would you spend money hiring, training, ramping and maintaining a sales team if you aren't going to actively coach them? 

I get that it's time consuming but... everything worth doing in life is hard.

now that most people work remote, coaching time is more valuable that ever. 

like the gym, your reps and their form (pardon the pun) need to be tweaked consistently in the first few weeks. 

tonality, objection handling, breathing, elevator pitches, closes - all need to be consitently refined. 

and this can only be done if someone who knows is actively listening to their calls and providing feedback. 

so when our reps ping me to say they're starting a call block. 

I just on Trellus (YC W22) and live listen in the background while I'm doing other work.

when I hear something that needs changing I shoot them a message in slack with advice for the next call. 

these micro tweaks compound over a single call block and as the days and weeks go by, our reps get better and better. 

somethings can't be 100% operationalised with SOP's - you've got to roll up your sleeves and jump in the trenches. 

P.s. we are always hiring talented, smart SDR's who want to 10x their development through a high intensity, phone first program. You'll be working directly with us and our clients with the best tools, tech and data on the market. Shoot me a DM if you're interested :)

If I were a Founder or a C-suite exec at a software company…

I’d send this message to my GTM team today:

“This workflow doesn’t just blast emails. It gives us full visibility across the entire buyer journey from first signal to booked sales conversation.”

Here’s what we track:

- Off-site intent signals
- Website visitor identification
- LinkedIn engagement
- Lookalike audience targeting

To do it, we plug in:

Vector 👻 → Ad click tracking
RB2B → Identify visitors on key web pages
Trigify.io → Track LinkedIn post engagement

Then we go deeper with:

Ocean.io + Clay → Build lookalikes of our best customers

All that data flows into Clay, where it’s enriched and qualified in real-time:

- Lead filters
- MX record checks
- Company-level enrichment
- Signal validation

For email verification, we use a waterfall of LeadMagic, Findymail & Prospeo.io to handle the heavy lifting:

- Finding and verifying emails
- Flaging catch-alls

For phone data: FullEnrich, Prospeo.io + SureConnect

- Sources valid direct dials
- Ranks the lists

Once leads are validated, we activate them:

- Drop into email sequences
- Push to SDR call lists
- Trigger LinkedIn workflows

This is when calendars start filling up.

Then:
- Calendly handles scheduling
- Automated reminders go out
Zapier syncs data to CRM

And when deals close?

We loop it back:

- Build lookalike audiences around closed-won accounts
- Run paid campaigns to repeat the cycle

I think the sales org of 2026 will look nothing like what you’re running today.

Right now? Most companies are still stuck in 2018.

They’ve got SDRs hammering phones, sending templated cold emails from their main domain (lol), and hiding behind “marketing-approved” messaging that sounds like it was written by ChatGPT v0.5.

Here’s what that looks like in reality:

 • Reps aren’t getting enough connects, so their confidence tanks.
 • When they do get someone on the phone, they freeze — they haven’t had enough real reps.
 • Cold emails go straight to spam because the main domain’s reputation is torched.
 • Leadership doesn’t have visibility, coaching is reactive, and morale is in the gutter.

Quota attainment? In the bin.

But here’s how it’s going to work by 2026 👇

→ Reps will be phone-first.

 Every call will be supported by an elite backend team — building signal-led lead lists, enriching valid numbers, ranking them by intent (TitanX style), and feeding reps high-confidence dials.

They’ll get live and post-call coaching daily.

They’ll have better data → more conversations → more confidence → more pipeline.

→ Cold email won’t sit with SDRs.

It’ll sit inside marketing - centralised, infrastructure-led, and quality-controlled.

Built on secondary domains, warmed up. Reliable. Infra from: Hypertide.io, spun with deliverable copy, and operated like a performance channel - not an afterthought.

Every positive reply will be routed straight to the phone team.

→ ABM outreach becomes the rep’s playground.

Warm inboxes, hyper-personalized messages, natural DMs - no corporate BS.

Everything feels conversational and human again.

And here’s what that means 👇

Instead of 15 burnt-out SDRs chasing activity metrics…

You’ll have a handful of elite operators running optimized dials, handling real conversations, and converting at 3–5x the rate - backed by a marketing-driven outbound (and paid ads) engine.

Less headcount. Higher output. Cleaner data.

Outbound that finally compounds.

The best orgs will start fractional.

They’ll bring in partners who already have the infrastructure, training, and ramp-up systems in place - so they can prove the motion fast.

The backend gets built.
The reps get trained.
The motion gets validated.

Then, once they’re confident and the pipeline’s flowing, they’ll bring it internal with reps who already know how to run it.

That’s how smart orgs will move: speed first, ownership second.

The future isn’t “sales-led” or “marketing-led.”

It’s ops-led.

Where infrastructure, data, and enablement sit at the center - powering every rep and every channel.

That’s the 2026 sales org.

Phone-led. Data-fed. Marketing-integrated. Ops-powered.

I’m Tom. I’m 28. I live in England. My cofounder Louis Young and I run a GTM agency on track for $300k this year.

Last week, while my US friends were knee deep in turkey and leftovers, Louis asked me what we were doing for BFCM.

I told him the truth: “We’re an agency. We don’t sell consumable products we can discount.”

He looked at me and said, “Fine, but what if we just create the best offer on the market?”

So after about 35 Guinness in central London, we did exactly that.

We built a DFY outbound calling engine that runs end to end.

You don’t lift a finger.

+ we’re adding a FREE week of dialing so you can test our execution and we can test your offer before any long term commitment.

Here’s what’s inside:

1. ICP Definition and TAM Mapping
- We’ll break down your ICP based on won deals or market theories.
- Then map your entire TAM to completion: every company, every prospect, every buyer you want to reach.

2. Signals and intent
- Using BirdDog, we layer custom signals across your TAM. And yes, truly custom. If you want to track whether a founder is into... snails..., we’ll track it.
- This lets us prioritise the most in-market companies and personas.

3. Infrastructure
- We run everything through Trellus (YC W22).
- It plugs into Clay or your CRM.
- We connect directly to your sales team’s calendars so calls appear automatically with contextual handover in Slack.

4. SDRs
-You get one of our in-house SDRs calling 3-5 hours per day on your account.
- We build every script, objection matrix, and enablement path.
- We listen live to calls and coach in real time so performance improves fast.

5. Reporting
- You’ll get a private Slack channel with direct access to me, Louis Young, and your SDR(s).
- Weekly KPI reports, full transparency, plus a written breakdown from Louis on what happened and what’s next.
- Optional CRM sync.

Now the part everyone asks about: the free week.

Not every offer or market fits calling. That’s fine.

Instead of locking you into a contract and hoping it works, we run a full proof-of-concept week at no cost.

We build the list, enrich numbers, create scripts, run the objections, and call.

You see the results with zero commitment.

We see if you’re a good partner for a longer engagement.

If the proof of concept lands and you’re happy, we sign a 6-month contract and scale.

Your pipeline grows without operational lift or distraction from mission-critical deals.

The alternative is hiring a team yourself and managing recruiting, training, enablement, QA, coaching, tech, holidays, sick days, motivation, and everything else that slows down growth.

This offer is best for companies with real PMF, aggressive growth plans, and no desire to spend 6-12 months building a sales team from scratch.

They need pipeline. They need it soon. And they want it without taking focus away from customers already on their plate.

If you want the full breakdown, tell me and I’ll send it over.

I’m 28 today so here is 28 lesso… nah I’ll save you the waffle. 

Instead I’m making 28 million cold calls. 

Booking 280,000 meetings 

And generating £2.8T (not $) in profit for myself and clients. 

See you next year ✌️

P.s. Here is a live pic of my current calling set up, does anyone have a new dialer recommendation? My fingers hurt

No alternative text description for this image

I'm Tom. My Co-founder is Louis Young. 
We run a GTM agency with 3 employees. 
That makes us tiny.

But... 

imo that's our strength. 

Story + explanation: 

My first job was an SDR for a shipping tech company. 

We called landed captains, engineers etc to sell them tracking and security software for their fleets. 

It was cool tech but we were running a 90's style bullpen salesroom. 

Our 'list' was a spreadsheet with company names and office phone numbers. 

We had to dial the list 1 by 1 trying to break through gatekeepers to get to decision makers. 

My go to was "I need to be put through to the security officer." 

Maybe a bit unethical but it got my foot in the door most of the time. 

Anyway... 1 day I came across a tool (can't remember which - it was 6 years ago) that helped with list building - getting the relevant person + their mobile number...

To me this seemed like microchip type technology (funny thinking back on it) 

I spoke to my manager about getting it and 3 months later I hadn't heard a thing back. 

Nothing changed. 

---

Fast forward to today. 

As my own boss at a lean machine. 

I see a tool, tech, development that I want to try out. 

I try it out. 

It's incredibly freeing.

And... ultimately, means we stay at the forefront of the cutting edge of GTM. 

The systems we are currently building (signals, tooling, coaching etc) might have killed off an earlier me. 

But it's probably been one of the funnest parts of running my own shop. 

Louis Young might disagree when I send him 10 tools a week we have to try out.

But when we find the 1/10 diamond in the rough that 10x's our outputs...

I think it's worth it. 

---

Speaking with 100's of revenue leaders this year, it blows my mind how slow most companies move. 

I'm speaking to people who are still umming and ahhhing about trying out Clay...

TLDR: Being small, lean and profitable let's us move fast and stay riding the front of the wave in GTM.

We are Hiring: Full Time Remote SDR (Contractor)

We’re looking for a full time SDR to work across multiple client accounts. This is a high intensity, phone heavy role for someone who wants to build world class outbound skills fast.

You’ll spend most of your day on the phone.

Up to six hours of live calls across three calling blocks, every day.

If that excites you, keep reading.

You’ll speak with decision makers, qualify leads, book meetings, and create pipeline for several clients at once. 

You’ll develop range and adaptability fast because you’ll work across different industries, offers, and GTM setups.

We’re a hands on team. You won’t be handed a script and forgotten about. 

You’ll get coaching, feedback, and direct access to leadership. One year here will feel like ten years of development in a traditional company.

Your job is outreach. Nothing else.

- No list building.
- No enrichment.
- Minimal admin.
 
We handle all of that.

You get elite tooling, elite data, elite systems, and a clear path to becoming exceptional.

Compensation:

Full time contractor role

$54,000 to $78,000 per year (base to OTE)

What You’ll Be Doing:

- High volume outbound calling across multiple client accounts
- Speaking with decision makers and qualifying opportunities
- Booking meetings that create real pipeline
- Following proven workflows and keeping tight notes
- Developing through weekly coaching and feedback

What You Get: 

- Fully remote contractor role
- World class outbound tooling and data
- Exposure to multiple industries and GTM engines
- Minimal admin, zero list building, zero enrichment
- Fast personal development with hands on leadership support

Our Culture:

We value speed, honesty, hunger, accountability and high performance.

And because we’re fully remote, we value clear, fast and frequent communication.

Clarity and frequency matter here.

Requirements: 

- Minimum 1 year of SDR or outbound calling experience
- Comfortable with long calling blocks
- Confident communicator with resilience
- Coachable and driven
- Can work UK or US time zone hours
- Comfortable being a full time contractor

If you want to become elite at outbound and grow your sales career faster than anywhere else, you’ll fit here.

Apply Here: 

https://lnkd.in/e4CmpEX8

a $250,000 sales team won't fix it. 
the latest 'gtm' tool won't fix it. 
AI won't fix it. 

to me it's crazy how much: 

- budget teams spend
- time teams waste
- energy teams exert 

just to avoid the thing that will FIX it: 

1. Automating bullsh*t tasks your reps either hate doing or use as an excuse not to do stuff. 
2. Creating a phone first sales motion (with the best tools) 
3. Talking to their ICP (every day) 

I think teams want it to be complicated. 

and maybe there is a shadow industry that perpetuates it, in order to; 

do less, spend more, be more comfy. 

well, we are solving for that atm by building the best outbound sales team on the market. 

killers who want to be on the phone, 

love talking to people, 

are responsible for revenue, 

+ we give them the best backend and tools on the market...

honestly, if I was 20 again, i'd bite my own nose off for this opportunity. 

unfortunately it didn't exist, so young Tom; 

get back to dialing that crappy list you have. 

p.s. live images of me training up the next elite member of our team (my mrs, she has no idea) to take out the competition (for legal purposes this is a joke).

It took me 3 years to realise that automation ≠ success, then; 

I had a bit of an existential crisis. 

In my head, automation was the key. 

Scale infinitely, without increasing headcount. 

Who wouldn't take that offer. 

But then results started to drop, 

client's started churning, 

and 'systems' that I was relying on to pay my bills... stopped working. 

everything I thought was 'true' turned out to be false. 

it sucked but honestly, I needed the reality check. 

you cannot remove the human element from a sales led growth model. 

it is required and it is necessary. 

so, what did I decide to do instead? 

take everything I knew about automation, AI and systems and apply it to a broken human led model. 

the revenue leaders I was speaking to all told me the same things: 

1. their reps aren't producing results. 
2. the phone is dead. 
2. cold email doesn't work. 
4. pipeline is shrinking. 

so I dug deeper; 

and identified the issue. 

human reps being held back by bullsh*t admin tasks that stop them (or give them an excuse) from executing revenue producing activities. 

In my business, we were mapping TAM's, producing lead lists, qualifying, researching & enriching leads in minutes when other teams were either NOT doing it or taking months...

it seemed obvious; 

arm the best reps in the world with the best automations, AI and tooling and let them focus on revenue driving activity. 

and this is exactly what we've done. 

we work with killer reps, handle all the crap, give them the best toolings and let them fire away into the market and do what they do best. 

produce revenue. 

and now we do :) 

p.s if you're 1. a killer rep looking for opportunities to work on the best offers in the market with the best tech and tooling or; 2. a b2b business looking to scale their outbound operations without the headache of building it themselves. Shoot me a dm

p.p.s tried the 'best' guinness in brighton this weekend... result: 10/10 absolute creamer.

Dhruv Patel

Saleshandy

Saleshandy is a cold outreach platform that helps B2B businesses automate and scale their outbound sales efforts. 

» I am the person responsible for
- majority of marketing stuff
- people management
- developing and implementing systems & procedures throughout the organization
- operations

Co-Founder

Appitsimple Infotek Pvt. Ltd. [www.softwaresuggest.com]

- Lead Marketing strategist & enabler, strategic vision, and involved in growth of the marketing team from 1 to 6 
- Grew organic acquisition, leveraging website optimization, SEO, and PR 
- Setting up marketing infrastructure i.e Google analytics, Webmasters, SEO tools, Adwords, Social platforms & paid social media networks.
- Influenced product development within application to increase page on time, no of page view per session, reviews, goal conversions and increase in paid click through rates.
- Coordinated communication amongst team members
- Social Media Management – wrote blog posts & managed corporate Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
- Email Marketing – created and sent industry updates, regulatory notifications, Promotional emails, guides to customers and prospects via MailChimp & Sendy.
- Played a role in team building, recruitment / hiring & data extracting.

Marketing & Operations

Pathnex Technologies

Getting Things Done

Co-founder @ Saleshandy

Hey there,  

I'm a guy who wears many hats, and I like it that way! 

My marketing journey kicked off at a company where I managed a team of over 25 folks as the Marketing Lead and Operations Manager. 

But my itch for something more took me down the road of content and niche marketing. That's how I ended up co-creating Saleshandy, a place where I'm still enjoying the ride and helping the company grow.

I'm a marketing junkie and a business starter, and I get my kicks from companies that encourage teamwork and don't put up roadblocks to success. I live to meet and exceed what customers want. I keep a close eye on the results and always tinkering with my game plan based on what's needed. When things go south, I don't get bent out of shape; I see it as a chance to learn. I take a good, hard look at what went wrong, figure out why, and then cook up solutions based on the facts.

As a growth hacker and digital marketing buff, I thrive on the hustle and meet life with a never-say-die attitude. My constant grin shows my love for creating strong teams and my readiness to lend a hand at the drop of a hat.

So here I am, a Co-founder at Saleshandy, extending an invitation for you to join me on this wild ride as we take over the marketing world, one success story at a time. 

Let's get together and see how we can help each other grow. What do you say?

6 months ago, a SaaS company tried to sell me features.

But today, they sold me a problem I actually care about.

Email 1 said:
→ Pulse surveys
→ Real-time sentiment
→ Easy recognition
→ All product talk.
 
Nothing about me.

So of course, I didn’t buy.

I replied with one suggestion:

“Make your email about the outcome, not the feature.”

And today, I got another email from the same company.

Same company.

Same product.

But a completely different angle:

“Teams miss disengagement until it’s too late.”

That one line did what the features couldn’t.

It made me feel the problem.

The shift they made:
FROM: “Here’s what we do.”
TO: “Here’s what happens if you don’t act.”

That’s the real game in outbound.

✅ If you send cold emails, use this framework:
1️⃣ Start with a pain your prospect already feels.
 2️⃣ Connect your product to a clear outcome (save, prevent, improve).
 3️⃣ Make the prospect the hero—not your software.
 4️⃣ End with a small ask, not a big pitch.

Before you send, do a quick check:

Count the words “we” vs. “you.”

If “we” wins, your email loses.

Outbound isn’t about explaining your product.

It’s about diagnosing their problem.

If you get that right, you’ve already won half the game.

Co-founder @ Saleshandy | Automating cold emails to drive lead generation & sales

We started Saleshandy in 2015 with handful folks.

Here’s what a decade taught us:

10 Years → 10 Big Learnings

2015: Start even if you’re unsure.
2016: A little demand is enough to move.
2017: Go where things grow.
2018: Users show the real direction.
2019: Small steps compound.
2020: Fix what’s breaking.
2021: Focus speeds everything up.
2022: Big bets change your path.
2023: Growth exposes hidden gaps.
2024: Systems > features.
2025: Evolve fast or fall behind.

What should the 2026 upgrade be?

I got this cold email yesterday — and it irritated me before I even finished the first line.

 Why?

 Because it followed every “internet sales hack”… and ignored the only thing that actually matters: the prospect.

And here’s the funny part:

 Not only did I not reply,
 Not only did I not consider their service,
  I’m never buying from them.

That’s the part most people forget about cold outreach:

👉 Your prospect may not love you from the first email.

But if you’re wrong, arrogant, or assumptive…

They might hate you instantly.

Here’s where the email went completely off-track:

“You’ve been trying to fill that senior role for too long.”

 → Pretending to personalize
They don’t know that. 
They guessed (and guessed wrong)

 → Too many “we” statements.
 The email was a monologue about themselves.
 As a prospect, none of it connected to my reality.

→ A pushy CTA
 Requesting a 20-minute call with the co-founder in the very first email… with 

→ Zero trust built?
 Bad move.

→ Triggering: but in the wrong direction.
 Emails should evoke curiosity or relief. 
This one evoked annoyance.

→ Confidence:the kind no one asked for.
 There’s confidence that builds trust.
 And there’s confidence that feels like an attack.
 
This one was the second kind.

So…

How much confidence is too much?

Exactly this much.

A terrible personal life with a great professional life is not success at all.

Some take years to figure this out.

Looks like you are “winning”:

 → Revenue growing
 → Team expanding
 → Users are happy

But you might not have taken a real vacation in 3 years.

Missed a loved one’s birthday.

Stopped working out. Gained 15 kg.

Result?

 In the grind of building a successful company, you’re becoming a person you didn’t plan to.

That will hit different.

Here’s what nobody tells you about building:

The business will always need more.

 → More features
 → More meetings
 → More growth
 → More problems to solve

There’s no finish line where it suddenly gets easier.

If you don’t draw boundaries, the business will consume everything (including your life).

Hard rules I don’t break:

 → No work after 7 p.m. (unless emergency)
 → One full day off per week (Sunday, phone off)
 → Go for a run two times a week, non-negotiable

Remember: The best version of your company needs the best version of you.

And the best version of you doesn’t come from 80-hour weeks and no life outside work.

Half of my college life, I was a lone wolf.

No friend group. No "squad." No late-night hangouts.

You've seen those Bollywood college movies, right?

Friends laughing between classes. Bunking lectures together. Living the "best years of your life."

I did none of that.

I went to college. I did my work. Went home.

Most people would say I missed out.

But i didn’t. 

Here's what being a lone wolf actually taught me:

1. Comfort with solitude = comfort with deep work

When you're not constantly surrounded by people, you learn to sit with your thoughts.

No distractions. No need to fill silence.

That skill? It's everything when you're building something hard.

Most founders can't sit alone with a problem for 4 hours. I can sit with it for 4 days if needed.

2. No peer pressure = no stupid decisions

→ When your friend group decides to bunk class, you bunk too. 
→ When they choose easy electives, you follow. 
→ When they waste time, you waste it with them.

Being alone meant every decision was mine.

3. Self-reliance isn't optional in startups

In college, I learned to solve my own problems. 

No group to lean on. No one to copy notes from.

When you're bootstrapping a startup, that's your daily reality.

No support system. No hand-holding.

I learnt to run on my own. 

The skills I built in those "lonely" years? 

They're the reason I can build, ship, and iterate without waiting for anyone's permission.

Business 101: Get an office near a good tea café. (Trust me, it works.)

Every founder thinks big decisions happen in perfectly air-conditioned boardrooms with 15-slide presentations.

Wrong.

They happen over a slow-boiled chai with just the right amount of sugar.

Ten years in, I can tell you where my best decisions were actually made:

At a café, over chai, near our office.

Not because we planned it that way, but because that’s where the ideas actually show up.

Here is why: 

→ Big decisions need space to breathe.
In a meeting, there’s pressure to conclude.
Over chai, you can sit with confusion. You can let an idea take its time.

→ The formality kills honesty.
Brutal truth: In meetings, not everyone says what they think.
Over chai? People speak their mind.
Because it’s not a meeting. It’s a conversation.

→ Decisions don’t have clean answers.
When it come to taking big decisions, you need to think of every possible contradictions, think through the uncertainty. 
That doesn’t happen in 60-minute meetings. 

I am not saying, don’t take meetings. 

I am saying: 

If a decision feels forced in a meeting: 
  ➡️ Get out.
  ➡️ Go to a café. Order a chai.
  ➡️ Start talking about it. 
  
You’ll thank me later. 


Made any big decisions over chai? Share in the comments, I’m reading all.

I used to think product-market fit was everything.

But building Saleshandy showed me that founder-product fit matters even more.

Back in 2024, working with Piyush, I had this realization:

Our product isn’t just something we built.
 
It’s an extension of who we are.

And honestly? I had no clue about this when we started.

We didn’t sit down and plan, “let’s infuse our personality into the company.”
It just… happened.

When you’re genuinely passionate about what you’re solving, your personality naturally leaks into everything:

→ How your team operates
→ How they interact with customers
→ The language in your product
→ The decisions you make when no one’s watching

Now, with 50+ people on the team, it’s obvious: our belief system has become the company’s belief system.

We’re calm, empathetic leaders. 
We’re competitive, but we care deeply about helping people.

And that’s exactly what Saleshandy feels like: friendly and approachable.

When customers feel like they’re talking to a friend not a vendor trying to extract money—they:

✅ Come back
✅ Refer others
✅ Give you the benefit of the doubt

Goodwill compounds.

You can’t fake this.

You can’t engineer authenticity with better messaging or slicker branding.

So the real question isn’t just:
 "Does my product fit the market?"

It’s:
 "Am I building something that’s truly an extension of me?"

Because if you’re not, you’re just competing on features.

 And that’s a race to the bottom.

What’s one way your personality shows up in what you’re building?

We just changed something small in Saleshandy's email editor. 

Most cold email tools make you write like a coder, not a salesperson. 

You type {{FirstName}} and hope you got it right. 

You add {spin} tags and hope they work. 

One small mistake, and your email breaks — but you won't know until it's sent. 

So we tried something different. 

We turned those messy tags into simple, colorful buttons. 

You click and pick. 

The editor checks it right away. 

No mistakes. No broken emails. 

It’s early, but people like it. Things are faster and smoother. 

The questions about broken tabs is reduced. 

But it made me think about something bigger: 

Should email tools feel more like Google Docs... or like a complicated dashboard? 

Most people sending emails aren't coders. 

They're salespeople, founders and marketers. 

They don't like the technical stuff — they just want to write emails that work. 

So here's my question: 

If you're writing emails every day, what matters more — having every feature possible, or having a tool that stays out of your way? 

Comment "Power" or "Simple" and tell me why. 

I'm reading all of them.

I’ve started judging people by ONE thing:


How they act when they’re confused.

Because everyone gets confused.

It’s normal. It happens daily.

But what people do next tells you everything.

Here’s what I’ve seen:

1) The Asker
Says, “Hey, I didn’t understand that.”
Gets clarity in minutes.

2) The Googler
Quietly searches, watches, reads.
Figures it out on their own.

3) The Pretender
Nods like they get it…
but you can see the panic behind the smile.

4) The Blamer
“The instructions weren’t clear.”
“Someone should’ve told me.”
Nothing is ever their fault.

Same confusion.

Very different futures.

If you want to grow faster:
• Ask when you don’t get it.
• Learn whatever you can yourself.
• Don’t fake it.
• Don’t blame.


The people who grow are the ones okay with saying,

“I don’t understand this yet — but I want to.”

I don’t read emails. I scan my inbox. And trust me your prospects do the same.

I have seen people jump to guess why a campaign underperformed. 

→ Open rates dip? “Must be the subject line.”
→ Replies drop? “The offer isn’t strong enough.”
→ No meetings? “The copy failed.”

But the real cause was almost never what they blamed.

Because when you look closely at how people actually behave in an inbox, the pattern is predictable and brutally simple.

Most teams keep rewriting emails, testing variations, tweaking copy… trying to fix what prospects barely pay attention to.

What I’ve seen consistently is this:

Emails don’t fail because the content is bad.

They fail because the inbox experience is weak.

It’s not about writing better.

It’s about showing up in a way that earns attention before the email is even opened.

So, remember: It’s not the email. It’s how you appear in the inbox.

Most outbound emails fail for one reason:

We write them the way we think… not the way prospects read.

Your prospect is busy. Distracted. Trying to protect their time.

So when your message sounds heavy, unclear, or sales-driven, they skip it instantly.

The good news?

Replies go up the moment you switch from “selling” to “helping.”

That’s what this framework is built around.

Three simple approaches that make outreach feel natural.

1. Empathy
2. Educate
3. Engage

When you mix these three, your email stops feeling like “another sales message.”

It becomes a conversation starter.

And in outbound, conversations are the real win.

So, the best way to stand out in outbound? simply be a human.

Which of these 3 approaches do you personally use the most? And why?

Cold emails don't sugar coat & that's what i like the most about it.

Cold email tells you the truth faster than anything else.

When I was getting started, I tried everything to avoid the uncomfortable stuff.

→ Ads gave me hope.
→ SEO gave me patience.
→ Product gave me ideas.

But none of them told me what I actually needed to know.

Cold email did.

The moment you start sending 50 cold emails a week, you learn things no dashboard will show you:

→ You’ll know instantly if your offer is weak
→ You’ll know if your ICP is wrong
→ You’ll know if your value prop is confusing
→ You’ll know if anyone even cares enough to reply


And trust me, as a founder, these are the answers you can’t afford to delay.

Cold email forces you to face the reality you’ve been avoiding:

 If someone opened but didn’t reply — your message was boring.
 If someone replied with confusion — your offer wasn’t clear.
 If someone replied angrily — your targeting was off.
 If someone booked a call — your direction was right.

No investor, no advisor, no book gave me that level of clarity.

Cold email didn’t give me the answers I wanted.

It gave me the answers I needed. And that’s why it worked.

If you’re a founder and you’re not sending at least 50 cold emails a week, you’re building in the dark.

Your market is talking every single day. The question is, are you listening?

Everything felt urgent last quarter.

→ Every Slack message. 
→ Every feature request. 
→ Every bug report.

We were constantly firefighting. 
Constantly context-switching. 
Constantly burned out.

But when everything is urgent, nothing actually is.

The problem wasn’t the work. 

 It was how we labeled it.

We were confusing urgency with importance.

 If an “urgent” request can wait 24 hours, it’s important — not urgent.

Now, we classify everything into 4 buckets:

→ Urgent & Important — Do it now.
→ Important, Not Urgent — Schedule it.
→ Urgent, Not Important — Delegate it.
→ Neither — Delete it.

The result?

 We’re finally working intentionally, not reactively.

 The pace is calmer. The output is better.

 And ironically — we’re getting more done by treating fewer things as “urgent.”

A small flower I noticed on my way reminded me of my journey: How growth happens in imperfect conditions.

I still remember: Ten years ago, Piyush and I entered a market.
 
Everyone around us said the same thing in different ways:

 “Highly competitive.”
 “Not trendy.”

Every friend told me, “Find a better niche.”

And almost everyone I spoke to had no clue about outbound.

But I believed something different: 

You don’t need perfect conditions to grow.

You grow where you are.

After all these years building Saleshandy, here’s what I’ve learned:

When things don’t feel perfect: 

 • Focus on what you can do right now.
 • Treat limits as chances to get creative, not reasons to quit.
 • Track progress each week, not just results, but your actions.

So when someone says,

 “That market’s dead.”
 “That idea’s overdone.”
 “That space is too hard.”

Believe me, that’s exactly where your wins are waiting.

I work in a space where user education can’t be avoided. 

But here is the catch: Teaching alone isn’t enough.

Most SaaS products assume users will follow best practices if you give them:

• Documentation
 • Checklists
 • Recommended routines

Reality is different. 

Users only follow best practices if the product makes it Inevitable .

We saw this clearly with deliverability. 

Founders often say, “Our deliverability suddenly crashed.” 

It doesn’t crash — it declines slowly:

• A few replies drop
 • Inbox placement shifts
 • Opens fall
 • Eventually, everything collapses

It’s predictable, if you notice early. Most teams don’t.

The real gap? 

People weren’t failing at outreach. They were failing to spot problems early.

Saleshandy's Inbox Radar solves this. 

Not with more education. Not with dashboards. Not with more tasks.

It shifts responsibility from the user to the product. 

Quiet, recurring inbox checks catch trends before they become failures:

• Domain health drifting
 • Warmup issues
 • Misconfigured inboxes
 • Early placement decline

This isn’t new. But it’s the kind of product behavior more tools should have.

Every SaaS founder eventually realizes: If outcomes depend on users, the product doesn’t own the outcome.

Real leverage comes when:

• The product sees problems before the user
 • The product corrects or alerts early
 • Users don’t need to stay hyper-vigilant

For our users, this shifted the mindset: From reacting to damage to anticipating it.

Great products don’t just educate. 

➡️ They take responsibility. 
➡️ They reduce vigilance. 
➡️ They protect outcomes.

Inbox Radar is one example, quietly doing what users shouldn’t have to remember.

Everyone said building apps after college was a mistake. It was the best mistake I ever made.

Right after college, I went straight to help Piyush with his business.
 → No office.
 → No structure.
 → No fancy title.

Just two people and a long list of ideas.

We built so many apps:

→ Some did okay
 → Some failed
 → Some miserably failed
 

But here’s the part I’m grateful for:

Every failure taught us how to think.
Every bad idea taught us how to pick good ones.
Every mistake made us faster, sharper, and a little less stupid.

People think success comes from one big win.

 But in reality?

It comes from hundreds of small, messy experiments.

Those early days taught me things no job could ever teach:

→ How to ship fast, even when you doubt yourself
 → How to learn without anyone explaining
 → How to build something from zero
 → How to stay calm when everything breaks
 → How to keep going when nothing works

Most people choose “safe”.
 
I chose “try”.

And that made all the difference in my life.

Looking back, those random apps weren’t random at all.

They were the training ground.

Without them, I wouldn’t be here.
 
Without those failures, I wouldn’t be a co-founder today.

Sometimes the path that looks the most messy…

 Is the one that secretly prepares you for everything ahead.

What’s one “bottom-less decision” you made that actually changed your life?

Drop it in the comments, i love it to read it all.

In the series of “bad cold emails,” here’s another one I got 👇.

Yes, it was simple.
Yes, it was polite.
But totally empty.

From the subject line alone, I already knew it wouldn’t bring any value.

Still, I opened it… and I was totally right.

Here’s what went wrong:

➡️ No understanding of my team — we don’t even have a Founder’s Office team at Saleshandy.
➡️ No icebreaker, just “I’m the CEO, we helped 500 businesses” — exaggerated claim, started a year ago.
➡️ CTA: “Let’s set up a call” in the very first email.

Here’s the thing:

Sometimes, not personalizing is better than pretending to personalize.

If your email doesn’t make me feel like you actually know me, it’s dead before I hit reply.

What’s worse: fake personalization or generic templates?

Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

Bitter truth: your prospect is not thinking about you. 

You're not on the top of their minds at all.

They are:

→ Busy with Q4 goals
→ Hiring new AE 
→ Frustrated with cold pitch

If you want them to choose you, they have to eliminate everything else first. 

And trust me… they’re not doing it for you.

Every step of your outbound has to be about making that choice easy for them. 

Every email, call, or touchpoint should remove friction, build trust, and make the “other options” irrelevant.

You don’t compete on luck. You compete on:

→ Showing you understand their world better than anyone else
→ Proving you’ve solved problems like theirs before
→ Making them feel that choosing you is the easiest and only option

So next time you feel the urge to just “try” and hope for a response, pause.

Focus on making it easy for the prospect to choose you.

Because the choice is not about you. 

It’s about how well you understand their needs.

The best routine isn’t the one you post online; it’s the one you keep.

A friend of mine was very inspired by a 5 AM morning routine video… and he started it.

Meditation. Journaling. Workout. Cold shower. Green smoothie.

Thumbs up for the effort…

But it only lasted 12 days.

Then back to the usual routine:

Wake up. Coffee. Start working.

I asked him,

"What’s wrong now? What felt good then?"

His answer?

"Nothing much, Dhruv. It just felt… nice."

Don’t build a routine for the sake of an Insta story or a few snaps.

Your routine should serve your energy, not your digital presence.

You don’t have to buy everything the internet sells. 

Follow what suits you.

→ I don’t meditate in the morning. I think better at night with music on.
→ I don’t journal daily. I process by talking things through.
→ I don’t work out in the evening. I prefer to play with my kid.

The best routine is the one you’ll actually stick to.

Not the one that looks good on screen.

I’m the opposite of what people expect from a founder.

Unlike most, I stay grounded: but it has nothing to do with humility or being “nice.”

 For me, it’s about staying real.

Even after years of building Saleshandy, I still:
→ Read support tickets myself
→ Listen to lost sales calls
→ Scroll through the harshest reviews

Not because I have to.

Because I want to.

The higher you climb, the easier it is to lose touch.
 → Your calendar fills with strategy meetings.
 → Your team filters the information for you.
 → Your users become just numbers.
 → Your competitors fade into charts and reports.

Being grounded keeps me honest.
 
It reminds me why I started.

It keeps me connected to real problems, real people, and real risks.

Staying grounded isn’t optional 
 
It’s the only way to make sure you’re building the right things.

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