Cold Outreach

Cold Outreach

Setup (one time)

Fill in references/config.md with your sender identity, product one-liner, target profile, and subject line. Set two environment variables:

export RESEND_API_KEY="your-key"   # free key at https://resend.com
export JINA_API_KEY="your-key"     # optional; free key at https://jina.ai (Reader also works keyless)

Core Workflow

1. Research — deep-dive a prospect using parallel agents (page scraping + web search).
2. Evaluate — rate the prospect 1-10 on fit signal, size, and contact accessibility.
3. Draft — personalize the template with a prospect-specific hook.
4. Preview — send the draft to your own inbox (from config) for a visual review.
5. Send — after explicit confirmation, send to the target via Resend.
6. Log — update ledger/prospects.md with send date, recipient, and follow-up notes.

Research Protocol

Launch 2-3 parallel research agents:

Agent 1 — Site scrape: scrape the prospect's website for team members, roles, emails, bios, and the pages most relevant to what you sell. Use the jina-image-search skill or raw jina endpoints — Reader (r.jina.ai) works keyless; Search (s.jina.ai) needs JINA_API_KEY (or use the built-in WebSearch tool instead).

Agent 2 — External research: search each decision-maker by name on public profiles (LinkedIn, industry directories, review sites). Find reviews, ratings, awards, talks, publications, and the company's external reputation.

Agent 3 (optional) — Depth on the buying signal: scrape the pages that indicate whether they have the problem you solve, and identify the specific gap your product fills.

Fit Evaluation

Rate prospects 1-10:

8-10: strong target. 5-7: moderate. 1-4: low priority.

Who to Send To

1. The person who owns the problem you solve day-to-day.
2. A direct, named email over a generic inbox (firstname@company.com > info@company.com).
3. Skip admin@/noreply@. For a generic inbox at a larger org, add a bold Attn: [team] line using their actual internal team name.

Email Template

Read references/email-template.html and references/email-template.txt. Fill the placeholders from references/config.md and the prospect research.

Personalization rules

• Replace [prospect specific thing] with something concrete from their site (a 30-second skim).
• Reference their actual content, work, or details — show you looked.
• Do NOT personalize the subject line. For B2B cold email, a generic, low-key subject generally out-performs a personalized one; keep it short and non-salesy (set it in config).

Template style rules

• Inline styles only (email clients strip <style> tags); plain-text version always included.
• System font stack, ~15px, line-height 1.6, near-black text; one clear link, not a loud button.
• Keep it short and text-first for deliverability — avoid heavy images on a first send.

Sending Protocol

Send via the Resend API — see scripts/send-email.sh (reads RESEND_API_KEY; takes the from-address, subject, recipient, and bodies so nothing is hardcoded).

• From / subject: from references/config.md.
• Always send both HTML and plain-text versions.
• Always confirm the recipient with the user before the real send.
• For previews, send to your own address (config) with a "(test)" subject prefix.

Tracking

After each send, update ledger/prospects.md: add/refresh the prospect's row (name, contact, size, signal), mark SENT [date] with recipient + role, and note the next follow-up.

Follow-Up Sequence

3-4 days after the initial send, up to two follow-ups, each hitting a different angle (a different pain point, a proof point, or a short nudge). Stop after two; never spam.