C17 Lab

Head of GTM Engineering

Building out outbound plays for enterprise clients

Strategic GTM

Clay

Enterprise Partner

Monthly Unlimited Flows for Fixed retainer

Clay Certified Expert 

Unlimited Custom clay workflows for you for a fixed monthly price

24-72 hours delivery, one request at a time.

Free 3000 Credits - 

https://clay.com/?via=6f1999

Clay Creator

Instantly.ai

Certified Instantly Expert

Smartlead

Smartlead Certified Experts

Maildoso

Advisor

Persana AI

Monthly Flows on a fixed price


https://persana.ai/pros/utkarsh-rana

Persana Pro

Adyhere.com

Helping B2B SaaS Companies and Agencies Generate Leads while they sleep via AI-Powered Inbound + Outbound

If you are not from one of the above industries no issues, you just need to be a B2B business.

We do all the heavy lifting, you just attend the meetings!

$200,000+ in REV & $1M+ Pipeline generated for B2B clients via outbound

Website - https://www.adyhere.com/
Email - utkarsh.rana@adyhere.com

Founder

I help B2B SaaS Companies and Agencies Generate Leads while they sleep
$200,000+ in REV & $1M+ Pipeline generated for B2B clients

Unlimited Custom clay workflows for you at $2000/Month

I set content systems that:
-> Builds audience
-> Engage with them while heating their buying intent 
-> Converting warm leads with a high closing rate as the content did most of the work.

Then I use data from over 100+ sources to create smart strategies that find the right prospects. 

This helps your sales team connect with people who are looking for you.

Here’s what I do:
Build Content systems that build an audience
Build targeted lead lists
Set up and warm up inboxes
Write personalized emails & DMs
Manage full campaigns


The aim is to test 
OFFER-MARKET-FIT
TARGET TESTING
MESSAGE-MARKET FIT
PRODUCT-UNTAPPED MARKET FIT


--
If you're a B2B company that wants more demos/sales calls, go to https://www.adyhere.com/

Utkarsh Singh Rana

We don’t use Clay native waterfall.
Even though I love Clay
.
.
Why?

Because we needed full control

Especially around tools like Supabase, BounceBan (Verify risky emails without sending messages), and email domain filtering. 

So, I built a custom waterfall logic. 
We're now on Version 8 and it's been a game-changer for our GTM team.

Thanks to Enzo Carasso 🧲 for letting me spend $$$ on testing tools 😊 

🔁 Our Custom Enrichment Waterfall at C17 Lab:

1️⃣ Supabase First: 
Credit goes to 🦾Eric Nowoslawski and Bharatt Arorah for introducing me to SupaBase

We query by:
LinkedIn Handle (if valid)
OR Full Name + Domain
 This saves us 30–40% of our enrichment credits upfront.

2️⃣ Domain Filter Logic
 If Supabase gives us utkarsh@c17.ai
 but the real domain is c17.com → ❌ rejected.

 No mismatched domains. No noise in the pipeline.

➡️ What if Supabase fails?
We fall back to:
Apollo/CSV email (only if different from invalid ones)
Prospeo.io and Icypeas
But NEVER revalidate already-marked-invalid emails.

 🧠 That alone saved us 154,000+ verification calls last month.

3️⃣ Final Validation
 Every valid-looking email goes through:
✅ MillionVerifier
🚫 BounceBan (Verify risky emails without sending messages) (only if catch-all/invalid by MillionVerifier)

And we use request IDs to fetch final verdicts if needed as sometimes BounceBan gives you request ID

4️⃣ Bonus: ESP Detection
 We tag every email with Gmail, Outlook, etc., via EmailGuard.
 Helps in split testing emails as Outlook deliverability is bad.

5️⃣ Sync Back to Supabase
 Every enriched lead gets written back to Supabase with full data.

 No duplicates. No overwriting.

NOTE: When you cross like a Million records in Supabase, you'll get errors with LookUp as the data is too much

Use ChatGPT to figure out what schema you want with it.

🔍 How We Fixed the Lookup Problem
We use GIN trigram indexes, which are special tools that help Supabase find text very fast, even in millions of rows. 

They let Supabase search company domains and LinkedIn handles without slowing down. 

These indexes act like shortcuts that guide the database to the right place instantly.

Indexes that make Supabase fast:
➡️ emaildb_companydomain_trgm_idx — helps find company domains quickly
➡️ emaildb_handle_trgm_idx — helps match LinkedIn handles fast
➡️ emaildb_handle_eq_idx — speeds up exact LinkedIn lookups
➡️ emaildb_email_key — keeps emails unique and easy to find


⚙️ Other Automations We Use
➡️ Emails are cleaned automatically before saving
➡️ LinkedIn handles are generated on their own
➡️ Full names and email domains are created automatically
➡️ Duplicate contacts are blocked before saving
➡️ "created_at" and "updated_at" update automatically
➡️ All new records become searchable right away

Utkarsh  Rana 🧲

Head of GTMs @ C17 Lab | Top Clay Enterprise Partner • Sales Tech & Revenue Systems Optimization •

I would still be spending 40+ hours weekly if it wasn't for these tools.
.
.
1. Serper
 Scrape Google Search, Maps, and Reviews.
 → Build targeted business lists
 → Monitor reviews to gauge activity
 → Pull company data fast

2. n8n
 Zapier’s smarter cousin.
 Great for cloud automations and AI workflows—especially if you're technical.

3. Apify
 Custom scraping powerhouse.
 → Grab Meta ads, Google data, TikTok profiles, tech stacks - whatever you need.

4. ZenRows
 Most reliable and cost-efficient scraper I've used.
 → Scrapes full websites (HTML + Text) cleanly.

5. HeyReach.io
 It's Smartlead, but for LinkedIn.
 → Automate connection and message campaigns at scale.

6. SmartProspect (by Smartlead)
 Massive lead database.
 → Easily download leads—top-tier for outbound.

7. Clay
 The glue.
 → Integrates with everything to automate lead enrichment, research, and outreach.

8. Taplio
 Content machine for LinkedIn.
 → Helps you ideate, write, and post consistently.

 If you're not stacking the right tools, you're stacking unnecessary hours.
 
Will it increase your cost? Yes
Will it save your time so that you can re-invest it into scaling your business? Yes

Tools I use everyday!

I used to burn $$$ on B2B lead tools that overpromised and underdelivered.
.
.
.
The worst part?
Even after dropping $1K+ per month, I still had to:

Clean up lists and have 2 verification tools - basic and catchall verification
Deal with bounce-backs

Guess who my real ICP was as list contained leads that didn't match the filters I added

AND somehow protect my domain reputation...

And that was called normal.

The real problem?
Most tools aren’t built to prioritize lead quality.
They bulk scrape, charge you upfront, and leave you holding a bag of outdated contacts.
Their job ends when you pay.

But your job (booking meetings) is just getting started.

Now imagine you're an agency owner or founder...

Every bad lead = wasted rep time.
Every bounce = damaged sender reputation.
Every wrong ICP = campaign fatigue.

When your pipeline depends on cold outreach, these things compound fast.

You’re not just burning ad spend - you’re burning trust, time, and deliverability.

Shared this issue with the Smartlead and next 2 weeks, they launched Smartprospect

✅ 300M+ verified B2B profiles with real-time enrichment
✅ Filters for role, company size, engagement, and more
✅ Multi-step verification waterfall built-in
✅ Push leads directly into your campaigns (no manual export/import)
✅ Flat $59/month fee - and no per-lead nonsense

The result?
Better data. Better replies. Better ROI - all without risking your sender health.

C17 Lab is a proud Smartlead Partner!

Last week: a lead from Samsung ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gE8Ja-Y4
This week: a booked call with Intel.
.
.
.

No warm intros. No magic.
Just a clear offer, a sharp GTM motion, and a real solution to a real problem.

This isn’t luck - this is strategy.

Here’s what we know:
🎯 Who to target
 Enterprise teams feeling the pain - and the exact decision-maker responsible for fixing it.

🔍 What they care about
Not your product — their problem. Even giants like Intel have burning issues they want solved.

📞 How to reach them
 Right message. Right channel. Right timing.

Here’s what we did:
1. Refined the targeting
We reworked the ICP - especially headcount - to align with the client’s enterprise motion.

2. Rewrote the messaging
Enterprise-grade clarity, but still easy to digest and imagine in action.

3. Shifted personalization
We don’t care about their nearest KFC.
We care about their problem.
Messaging anchored in their challenges - not surface-level flattery.

The best GTM strategies don’t start with the product.
They start with pain - and offer a clear path to relief.

You’re not burning your TAM.
You’re not annoying anyone.

You’re stepping up with relevance and precision - and that gets responses.

If your offer can solve problems for Intel…
Why wouldn’t smaller companies take notice?

🚫 Stop playing small.
✅ Start executing like it’s enterprise.

That’s the C17 Lab way.

We made 40% fewer dials than usual for a client… 
And still hit the meeting KPI 🤯 for them
That’s not a fluke.
.
.


📅 On Nov 11, we dialed 40% less than our usual volume for this client.
 🎯 Still booked 4 meetings a day - exactly what we needed to hit target.

Here’s what I learned:
🚀 Quality wins if you don't have much quantity - especially when your data source is 🔥

BetterContact is turning out to be a total powerhouse for phone numbers.

I still remember Roman Hipp telling me they were rolling out Phone Number Waterfall.

 And I was like:
 💳 “This is gonna hit the credit card HARD.”

But nope.
💡 The quality, the hit rate, and the ROI we’re seeing - it’s totally worth it.

And I don’t even validate phone numbers manually.
Yeah, there are tools for that…
 But honestly?

📞 The only way to validate a phone number is by actually calling it.

Just like how Scrubby | Complete email validation validates emails by sending actual emails - max accuracy, no guesswork.

Cold + Warm Calls = 💘 
Cold emails + Cold Calls + Warm Calls = 👩‍❤️‍👩

Roman Hipp

BetterContact

Co-Founder & Growth

Amazon

Business Development

charles

Business Analyst & Expansion

Moss | All-in-one spend management

Customer Success

BlackRock

Spring Week

Building BetterContact | Helping early-stage B2B SaaS companies with insights & ready-to-use templates

Currently building BetterContact, a B2B SaaS that aggregates various data sources to find and verify any email and mobile phone number.

Growth Co-Founder

The last 3 months have been our strongest so far for BetterContact (+113.9% growth), and this time, we finally have a better understanding why:

1. The amount of times we get mentioned by happy customers has skyrocketed (⅔ new customers come through a referral)

2. We’re now far more deeply integrated into the Martech ecosystem (almost every major player in that space integrated our data in one way or another)

PS: there are some new big partnerships on the horizon

3. A lot happened on the data verification frontier, and people seem to especially love the improved accuracy on the phone side (as: more connects -> more conversations -> more revenue opps)

4. Significantly improved product performance due to a more robust infrastructure & error handling capabilities (100% uptimes in the last 60 days)

Our biggest challenge remains pushing churn below the 10% mark (it’s edging that for a while now).

While it won’t be an easy one, we put a lot of work into our Q4 roadmap, so we’re confident to get there EOY!

Building BetterContact | Helping B2B companies win outbound through more and better contact data

In October, BetterContact reached sub-10% customer churn for the first time, after battling with >25% churn waves. While still not optimal, it’s one of my proudest moments since we launched 26 months ago.

The difficulty of this astronomically high churn was that we’d win a new customer, only to watch an existing one leave.

So we *needed* to make it our #1 priority - here’s what we did:

1. PARTNERSHIPS & INTEGRATIONS

Over the last months, we partnered with tons of great companies:

- Outreach tools (Instantly, Smartlead, Saleshandy, Lemlist, Reply, et al.)
- CRMs (Hubspot, Breakcold)
- No-code tools (Clay, Zapier, Make)
…and many more

As many already use these tools, a seamless integration with them allows for using our product more easily. 

And as we’re going where the user already is, it decreases friction & churn.

(there are many more exciting partnerships in the pipeline!)

2. STRONGER PRODUCT

We didn’t only add 10+ new data providers, but also invested a lot in:

- Mobile phone verification, including geo-/name matching & activity scoring
- BetterAI, our algorithm to find the best provider sequence based on lead characteristics
- Stronger infrastructure & error handling capabilities, leading to better uptimes & enrichment times 
- Country-specific improvements to deliver better data to specific markets

We’ve seen a lot of users that rigidly compared our data with other solutions, and became customers after.

3. CO-MARKETING & EVENTS

Partnering & doing cool stuff together with brands our users already love drives a lot of brand advocacy - also, I’ve met a lot of great people in the space through that.

I can’t wait for our first ‘real-world’ get together at the Clay x BetterContact GTM Christmas Party in Berlin on 4th December! 

Our next big goal is approaching 5% churn - tough challenge in this market, but there’s a few things around the corner that make us confident to get there soon!

I was convinced we’d already tested every good contact data provider - but last week, one of our top customers challenged us to test one  we didn't know yet for the BetterContact waterfall

After testing their data thoroughly, the provider was able to add 0,4% valid numbers to our mobile phone finder waterfall.

Considering we already have 20+ providers in the mix, it was quite a pleasant surprise!

(good reminder to listen to your customers!)

So apparently, hidden gems still exist… and now we want more, to help us squeeze out every last % of valid data.

That's why we're putting out a bounty of $1k for everyone that points us to a data provider that adds to our current valid output by at least 0.5%, and which we will ultimately make part of our waterfall - please reach out! 👇

Last month, I spoke to an European agency owner who just hired 3 cold callers but is having trouble scaling cold calling with traditional data vendors (or ‘their existing setup with Zoominfo/Apollo’). Here’s what their problem is:

1. They use a mix of Apollo and ZoomInfo. Their connect rates are <7%. As they pay their cold callers a decent hourly base wage, the time it takes them to dial the 90% non-connecting numbers leads to significant fixed costs + low productivity.

2. Their cost on data is exploding. They average $0,3/enriched number - which is not bad. However, their cost/connect is at +$3 (due to unusable numbers). This discrepancy & the resulting ‘hidden costs’ are driving them nuts.

3. As Apollo/ZI are US providers, they often get +1 (US) numbers for their European leads, which they can’t call due to high fees (and it's not the right person anyways). This adds another layer of costs for unusable data.

Here’s how we helped them solve it:

1. We do proper activity scoring, which analyzes if the number has been recently active and picked up calls. If not, we don’t push it back and treat it as invalid.

2. As they’re an outbound agency, we put them on an agency plan, so 30% discounted ($0,28/verified number). This allows for good margins, as providers such as Lusha ($0,9/number) or Kaspr ($0,5) are not feasible at scale.

3. We conduct line type & geography checks, making sure that the number’s country code actually matches where the lead is localized.

They have just been with us for a months already & here are some stats they shared:

1. Connect rates average 19%. Their callers are now able to do more than double the conversations they were able to do before. This does not only lead to more booked demos, but just happier callers in general.

2. As they are on agency pricing, they average $0,28/enriched number. Considering their connect rates, their cost/connect decreased by ~60%.

3. Their non-EU dials (+1 etc.) for their European-only leads were driven to near 0 (we’re working on eliminating that completely).

What is your cold calling stack?

🎄Only 8 more days to go until the Clay x BetterContact GTM Christmas Party in Berlin, can't wait to see you there! (link to sign up below)

Even after 1000’s of Google meets & scaling BetterContact to a 7-figure ARR business, I never *really* talked to someone in ‘real life’ about what we do & the sales tech space in general 

Last week, however, I met one of our earliest customer quite randomly, which was one of the coolest experiences of that journey so far.

10x more personal than talking to someone on a Google Meet, and just… better.

That’s why I’m even more excited that in December, there will be an opportunity for many more of these ‘real life’ conversations.

Because on the 4th, we’re co-hosting a Christmas Party in Berlin together with Clay.

Very excited for this one as it’s the first SaaS event that I’m attending (and at the same time, the first one that we’re co-organizing).
 
Hoping to see as many familiar & new faces as possible (I'll put the link to the event in the description)!

🎄Only 14 more days to go until the Clay x BetterContact GTM Christmas Party in Berlin, can't wait to see you there!

Giridharan S and Roman Hipp were attendees

View event: Clay x BetterContact GTM Christmas Party (Berlin)

Clay x BetterContact GTM Christmas Party (Berlin)

The reason why most outbound campaigns fail is that they are built in the Red Ocean: targeting the exact same leads everyone else does. The Blue Ocean is where teams win these days.

Here’s why: legacy providers like Apollo, Zoominfo & Lusha only cover 30–60% of your TAM.

(i.e. you'll only get 30-60% valid emails & mobile numbers)

Means what?

Literally everyone else, including your competitors, gets the access to the same 30-60% of your TAM. So you end up competing with EVERYONE for the attention of the exact same leads.

Meanwhile, there's the Blue Ocean.

In outbound, 'Blue Ocean' doesn't have to mean a new, bigger market.

It can simply mean covering 20-30% more of your existing TAM, and going after the 'untouched' leads almost no competitors can find.

It’s the same market you already target, just the part no one else can reach.

At BetterContact, by working with 20+ data providers, we've built the tech to find, score, and verify contact data others miss (25–30% 'untouched leads').

This gives you bigger TAM coverage, higher connect rates and better results... Without ever diluting your ICP (the greatest sin of outbound).

Outbound isn’t broken. You're just fishing where everyone else is fishing too.

You can…

🩸 Keep fighting for 'leftovers' in the Red Ocean
💧 Or swim in the Blue Ocean, where others can’t

The 'outbound death zone' is probably the reason why most companies doing cold outreach shine at first, but fail miserably after & say 'outbound is dead' 

To better explain what I mean, here’s a real breakdown of the figures for a unicorn company that came dangerously close to getting stuck there:

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌

They used a mix of Apollo & ZoomInfo to break into the European market. High ACV, small TAM.

Their list building/lead sourcing process is rock solid and is based on 1st party intent data.

However, using Apollo and ZoomInfo, they found less than half of valid mobile numbers of these prospects for their sales teams.

This pretty quickly placed them in the middle of the ‘outbound death zone’ process: ICP dilution

As they did not have enough dials for their sales team anymore, and in order to hit quota, they were forced to also prospect leads which were not exactly matching what they initially agreed on as ICP.

Here are their numbers for a recent micro cold calling campaign they did:

Total dials: 1400
Conversations: 217
-> connect rate: 15.5%

Meetings scheduled: 17
Closed Won/Lost: (no data yet)

The problem is that the initial list that they built had around 3.000 leads.

So they were not even able to reach half of their list.  

𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

So here’s how we helped them to solve it:

The big goal was TAM maximization.

We ran the 1.600 non-reachable through BetterContact, and found additional 750 verified mobile numbers, so 25% extra to their previous enrichments with Apollo and ZI (totals to 72% found) .

Extra dials: 750
Conversations: 174
-> connect rate: 23.2% 

Meetings scheduled: 15 
Closed Won/Lost: (no data yet)

𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐒

Just by using BC, they had an additional 174 actual conversations with their ICP, and 15 additional meetings booked.

Looking at their high-five figure ACV, we’re looking at an additional ~$750k in high-quality pipeline.

Considering previous campaigns they ran, and their meeting-to-closed won ratio, they will most likely hit their target for this micro campaign. All because they squeezed out that 25% extra reachable ICP coverage.

taplio

The Battle

Utkarsh Singh Rana

Roman Hipp

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreUtkarsh Singh Rana's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRoman Hipp's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Utkarsh Singh Rana

Roman Hipp

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);}Utkarsh Singh Rana's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreRoman Hipp's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreUtkarsh Singh Rana's LinkedIn Performance