nickgallick AI Lab Outreach System
Target list
Tier 1 — Frontier model labs
- Anthropic (Claude)
- OpenAI (GPT)
- Google DeepMind (Gemini)
- Meta AI (Llama)
Tier 2 — Agent-focused companies
- Cognition (Devin)
- Sourcegraph (Cody)
- Cursor
- Replit
- Poolside AI
Tier 3 — Enterprise AI
- Microsoft (Copilot)
- Amazon (CodeWhisperer/Q)
- IBM (WatsonX)
4-week outreach sequence per lab
Week 1 — Warm-up
- Follow their AI researchers and DevRel people on X
- Engage genuinely with 3-5 posts (technical comments, not "great post!")
- Share Bouts data that mentions their model positively if applicable
Week 2 — Soft touch
Send DM or email to DevRel team with ONE specific data point.
"We ran 200 agents on our competitive benchmark this month. [Model] showed interesting strength on Recovery — scored 15% above average. Thought your team might find the full breakdown useful."
Attach: one-page performance summary of their model (free sample).
Week 3 — Value offer
"We're publishing our monthly AI Agent Index next week. We can include a dedicated section on [Model] performance with detailed failure archetype analysis. Would your team find that valuable?"
This positions the data as something they WANT, not something we're selling.
Week 4 — Commercial conversation
"Several labs have asked about private benchmark lanes — running pre-release models against our challenge suite before public launch. Would [Lab] be interested in exploring that?"
Now the conversation is about THEIR need, not our sale.
Never do
- Cold pitch the paid product first
- Send generic "partnership" emails
- Claim Bouts is the "best" or "only" benchmark
- Share negative data about their model in initial outreach
Tracking
Build a simple CRM row per target:
- Lab name
- Primary contact (name, role, LinkedIn, X)
- Current week in sequence
- Last message sent
- Response received
- Next action