Prove your outbound motion before you hire an SDR.
An 8-week sprint for founder-led B2B SaaS companies. I identify your strongest market segment, build and launch a targeted outbound system, and help you find out what actually generates qualified sales conversations. You keep leading the calls. I build and run what sits underneath them.
Previously built the outbound system that helped Kora generate £1m in pipeline in 3 months. See the case study
You know this stage.
Early traction came from relationships, not a repeatable system. That's normal at seed stage. It's also the reason growth has started to feel inconsistent.
- Most of your customers came through your network, a warm introduction, or a referral.
- You've tried cold outbound before, but without a clear segment or message, so replies were rare.
- An agency ran campaigns on your behalf and produced meetings that went nowhere.
- You have a rough sense of your best customers, but you haven't defined the segment precisely enough to target it.
- You're weighing up an SDR, BDR, or first sales hire, but you're not sure what they'd actually do on day one.
- There's no written playbook for outbound. If you stepped away, no one else could pick it up.
If two or three of these sound familiar, this sprint was built for where you are right now.
Why hiring an SDR now is a risk, not a solution.
This isn't an argument against sales hires. It's an argument for sequencing. Prove the motion first, then hire into evidence rather than a guess.
They inherit the guesswork
Without a defined segment, message, and qualification process, a new hire is guessing, the same way you have been. A good SDR can't fix an unproven motion.
The cost shows up early
Salary, recruitment, and months of ramp time are spent before you know whether the segment or message actually works. If they're wrong, you find out late.
It looks like a hiring problem
When outbound underperforms, it's easy to conclude the hire was wrong. Often the real issue is that nobody had proven the motion before the hire started.
The fix isn't to avoid the hire. It's to sequence it. Prove the segment, the message, and the process first. Then hiring becomes a decision backed by evidence, not a bet.
The Seed-Stage Pipeline Validation Sprint
An 8-week engagement to prove, or disprove, a repeatable outbound motion, before you commit to a full-time sales hire.
What it is
I identify the strongest outbound segment for your business, build and launch the prospecting and outreach system, operate and optimise the campaigns week to week, and coach you through the resulting sales conversations. You continue taking discovery calls and demos throughout.
What it isn't
- A generic lead generation service
- A cold email agency
- A fractional CRO engagement
- An AI consultancy
- A guaranteed-meetings or guaranteed-revenue service
You're buying validation, clarity, infrastructure, and market learning, not a promise. At the end, you have a defined segment, a tested message, a working system, and a clear recommendation on what to do next.
Before and after the sprint
Before
- Reliant on referrals and warm introductions
- Sporadic, unstructured founder outreach
- Unclear or untested ideal customer profile
- Generic messaging that doesn't land
- No documented outbound process
- Unsure whether to hire, or who to hire
After
- A clear, prioritised market segment
- A defined buyer, pain, and trigger
- A live outbound system running campaigns
- Evidence from real replies and conversations
- A documented, repeatable playbook
- A clear decision: scale it, change it, or stop
This is what the sprint produces: clarity and evidence. It is not a guarantee of a fixed number of meetings or a set amount of pipeline. Commercial results also depend on your product, market, pricing, and sales execution.
Four phases, eight weeks
Each phase builds on the last. Nothing runs in parallel that shouldn't, and nothing starts before the evidence supports it.
Extract the sales evidence
Review existing customers, past deals, lost opportunities, call recordings, use cases, pricing, and sales cycles to see what's actually working today.
Build the outbound play
Select the strongest market segment, define the buyer and the trigger that makes them receptive, and build the messaging, campaigns, CRM process, and reporting around it.
Launch and operate
Build and run the campaigns, monitor deliverability and response, analyse replies and objections, adjust targeting, and coach you through the resulting calls.
Validate and hand over
Identify what worked and what didn't, document the playbook, and give you a clear recommendation on what to scale, what to change, and whether you're ready to hire.
Everything needed to test the motion properly
Research and strategy
- Existing customer and sales evidence review
- Win and loss analysis
- Primary ICP definition, secondary ICP where justified
- Buyer and trigger-event mapping
- Target-account criteria
Infrastructure and messaging
- Prospect-data workflow
- Outreach infrastructure setup
- Cold email messaging and LinkedIn outreach process
- Follow-up sequences and qualification criteria
- CRM stages and reporting
Campaign and coaching
- Campaign launch and weekly optimisation
- Reply and objection analysis
- Founder coaching
- Sales call recording or transcript review
Handover
- Final documented outbound playbook
- 90-day recommendation
- Recommendation on whether to hire an SDR
Software and data costs (an outreach tool, a data provider, your CRM) are separate from the sprint fee.
Not a lead generation service
You get evidence, not rented meetings. The sprint is built to tell you what's true about your market, even when the answer is inconvenient.
Built on SaaS sales experience, not just campaign delivery. I've carried a number and led the calls that outbound produces, not only run the sequences.
You stay close to the sales conversations. You keep leading the calls, which is where most of the useful market learning actually happens.
You own the system at the end. Everything is built inside your own accounts and tools. Nothing here creates ongoing dependency.
It ends with a decision. A documented playbook and a clear recommendation on what to scale, what to change, and what to stop.
A fixed 8-week sprint, not an open-ended retainer. The engagement has a defined start, end, and outcome.
Helped Kora build outbound from scratch, generating £1 million in pipeline within 3 months, and supporting its growth from zero customers to deals with organisations including Tottenham Hotspur and the NHS.
Results reflect one engagement and depend heavily on the specific product, market, and sales execution involved. They are not representative of a guaranteed or typical outcome.
Who this is for, and who it isn't
This sprint is deliberately built for one stage. Being precise about fit is part of what makes it work.
This is for you if
- Founder-led B2B SaaS, usually 5 to 30 employees
- Seed stage, with paying customers already
- Evidence the product solves a real problem
- Founder still leads most sales calls
- Relying on referrals, network, or inconsistent inbound and outbound
- No repeatable source of net-new pipeline yet
- Considering an SDR, BDR, AE, or Head of Sales
- Annual contract value high enough to support targeted outbound
- Wants to prove the motion before adding sales headcount
This isn't for you if
- Pre-revenue startups
- Consumer businesses
- Low-ticket, self-serve products
- No proven customer demand yet
- Looking for guaranteed revenue
- Wants someone else to take and close all sales calls
What you leave with
A validated or rejected hypothesis
A clear answer on whether the segment and message you tested actually work, not a vague sense of it.
Campaign evidence
Real replies, meetings, and objections from live campaigns, not projections.
A documented playbook
The segment, message, process, and criteria written down so it can be run again, by you or someone you hire.
A 90-day plan
A specific recommendation for what to do in the three months after the sprint ends.
A hiring recommendation
A clear view on whether you're ready to hire an SDR, and what that role should actually own.
Founding-client pricing
Hiring an SDR before the motion is proven means paying a salary, plus recruitment and management time, to run a process nobody has validated yet. If the segment or message is wrong, that usually doesn't surface for months, well after the cost is committed. The sprint is a smaller, time-boxed commitment that produces the evidence first.
Founding client engagement
£2,500 / 8-week sprint
Standard pricing moves to £4,000-£5,000 as founding-client availability closes.
- All four phases, over 8 weeks
- Full outbound infrastructure build
- Weekly campaign operation and optimisation
- Founder coaching and call review
- Documented playbook and 90-day plan
Software and data costs (an outreach tool, a data provider, your CRM) are separate.
Book an Intro CallCommon questions
No. The sprint proves whether a repeatable outbound motion exists for your business. Meeting volume depends on your market, product, and price point, and no credible consultant can guarantee it in advance.
You don't need more advice about outbound. You need to know if it works for your business.
The Seed-Stage Pipeline Validation Sprint gives you eight weeks to find out, with a system you own and a clear recommendation at the end.