Charlotte Schefe

I bring people together to help them grow 🔥 | Head of Relationships @lempire | Follow me for daily communications insights to help you build better relationships

Head of Relationships

Robin Labrot

The decks you need to build successful (and cool) products ❘ Founder @ListenUp!

Cold outreach reply rates dropped 40% since 2019… 
most sales tools kept selling the same sequences, just with better subject lines
 
I watched it happen from the inside: I was Head of Product at lemlist when we scaled from $4M to $25M ARR, the golden era of outbound

One overlooked problem is how to better handle what happen AFTER you get a reply:
The warm conversations dying in your LinkedIn inbox
 
That's the gap nobody's building for. Sequences are everywhere. Inbox management isn't. 

So I built TalkToHumans: a lightweight pipeline layer that lives inside your LinkedIn inbox, follow-up reminders, reply drafts, contact context, all inside the tab you already have open. Simple, safe, affordable.

LinkedIn is still the ONE network where a DM from a stranger can turn into a call within a week. 
Most sellers are sleeping on it.
 
I post for founders doing founder-led sales, solo sellers, recruiters, and lean GTM teams who close deals through conversations, not automations
 
Try TalkToHumans → talktohumans.app 
Or just DM me. I reply fast (my product depends on it)

Head Of Product

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Founder at TalkToHumans!

making the LinkedIn inbox actually usable

It’s official - I’m excited to introduce TalkToHumans, a safer, simpler, and more affordable way to turn conversations into customers, hires, and deals.

Every day, founders, recruiters, and sellers work inside LinkedIn conversations.

And yet the LinkedIn inbox is still:
→ messy
→ slow
→ easy to lose track of conversations
→ painful when you manage dozens of threads

Important replies get buried.
Follow-ups get forgotten.
Opportunities slip through the cracks.

If LinkedIn conversations drive your business, your inbox shouldn’t work against you.

TalkToHumans is a better LinkedIn inbox.

Built for solo sellers, recruiters, and lean GTM teams who live in LinkedIn DMs.


With TalkToHumans you can:

→ Schedule follow-ups
Keep conversations going without mental load. Queue follow-ups and never let a warm lead go cold.

→ Enrich people and companies you talk to
Stop Googling mid-reply. Get the context you need without leaving the conversation.

→ Organize conversations with tags & custom views
Filter your inbox the way your brain works. No more “2010-style” message list.

→ Manage your network intentionally
See who you’ve talked to, who you haven’t, and who’s worth re-engaging.

→ Create your own AI skills
Edit, shorten, translate, or draft replies in one click without leaving your inbox.

→ Keyboard your way through LinkedIn
Navigate, reply, tag, schedule and archive 3× faster without touching the mouse.

It runs directly in your browser, respects LinkedIn limits, and keeps everything simple.

No complex setup. No risky automation. No $100/month sales tools.

Just a faster way to manage the conversations that matter.


TalkToHumans is now available.

Comment “INBOX” and I’ll DM you 2 free months of the Pro plan.

I’ll give it to the first 50 people who comment.

🐚 LinkedIn is chaos. Sales tools are overkill

La situation qui me donne maintenant des frissons:

Tu montres ton produit à des prospects → ils te disent “super intéressant, je pense que ça peut marcher!”

Et pourtant:
1. peu d’achats
2. peu d’usage
3. zéro urgence

Pendant longtemps, j’ai cru que si ça ne marchait pas, c’est que je n’avais pas assez bossé ou pas compris un truc..

Cette zone de brouillard où les signaux sont positifs mais où rien ne décolle vraiment, Rob Snyder appelle ça la "cave de la douleur" (la pain cave, ça rend moi bien en français je vous l'accorde)

J’y ai passé 2 ans et demi: ListenUp!, SparkUp!, SecretSignals, FreshNav


Ce que j’aurais voulu qu’on me dise plus tôt:


1. Tu rames peut-être dans la mauvaise rivière

Ramer plus fort ne changera rien si tu vas dans la mauvaise direction

Le PMF, c’est quand le courant travaille pour toi, pas contre toi

La solution: sortir la barque de l’eau et tester d’autres rivières

→ rajouter des features = tu rames
→ changer d’industrie ou de solution = tu changes de rivière


2. Bootstrapper + sales-led = combinaison presque impossible

J’ai essayé pourtant, mais c’est peine perdue

Je n’arrive même pas à trouver un exemple de SaaS bootstrap où la motion était 100 % sales-led dès le départ

En revanche, des SaaS bootstrap 100 % self-serve pour prosumer, j’en ai à la pelle, certains montent ensuite upmarket et deviennent partiellement sales-led


3. “Vendre avant de construire”, mais personne ne te dit comment

Voici ce que j’ai fait concrètement:
→ préparer 4-5 decks de produits ou ICP différents
→ montrer ça à des prospects cibles
→ demander à chaque slide: “en quoi c’est différent pour toi ?”

Résultat:
→ soit des hypothèses ajustées
→ soit un premier client potentiel

Rincer et répéter 10-20 fois, normalement tu tombes sur quelque chose!
(pour les intéressés je peux partager les decks en DM!)

Construire trop vite expose aussi au biais des coûts irrécupérables: plus tu investis, plus c'est difficile de faire des gros virages

Au final, la plupart des SaaS meurent parce qu’ils sont:
• dans la mauvaise rivière
• ou dans la mauvaise GTM motion
• ou avec de faux signaux de PMF

Et c’est beaucoup plus difficile d'y voir clair qu’on le croit, surtout quand tu as un peu de traction ou que tu es bon en sales

Dans le podcast avec Mathilde, on est rentré dans le détail:

→ pourquoi certains projets donnent de faux signaux de PMF
→ comment tester plusieurs rivières avant de construire
→ et comment ces expériences m’ont mené à TalkToHumans

Si ça t’intéresse:
https://lnkd.in/e24WSaeS

HeyReach just got banned ($10M ARR company)
LinkedIn is cleaning house 💀

And they won't be the last!

The death list so far: 
→ Proxycurl 
→ Apollo 
→ Seamless 
→ Artisan 
→ Aimfox 
→ HeyReach

Same pattern every time:
A tool finds a wedge, grows fast, pushes a bit further than others, gets visible enough… and then LinkedIn decides it’s time

So naturally everyone asks:
“Which tool is next?”
“Am I safe using mine?”
“Is there actually a safe way to do LinkedIn?”

Here’s the reality after digging deep into LinkedIn’s ToS while building TalkToHumans:

LinkedIn doesn’t ban tools, it flags signals

And those signals are surprisingly predictable:

1. BEHAVIOR

This is the biggest one

→ 100+ actions/day
→ fixed delays (exactly 2–3s between actions)
→ same sequences repeated across accounts
→ activity 24/7
→ viewing 100% of search results

At scale, this stops looking human
Even if each action is “allowed”


2. IP & ENVIRONMENT

→ multiple accounts from same IP
→ switching locations too often
→ server side tools using rented IP pools

If your activity doesn’t match a stable “human story”, it raises flags


3. EXTENSIONS & UI CHANGES

→ tools injecting buttons or modifying LinkedIn UI
→ extensions LinkedIn can detect via known signatures
→ anything that clearly alters the page or behavior

LinkedIn literally checks for some of these ON EVERY PAGE LOAD 
(if you don't believe me, open your Chrome console and you will see)


So back to the core question:
Will you get banned using those tools?

→ short term: probably not
 → mid term: depends how hard you push
 → long term: you’re playing in a grey zone

Your growth relies on LinkedIn tolerating your behavior, that’s the bet

That’s also why we built TalkToHumans differently:

→ speed through UX, not sketchy automation
→ strict daily caps you can’t bypass
→ runs in your browser (same IP, same session)
→ no server side automation farms


Ask yourself:

1. If your current tool disappeared tomorrow, how much pipeline would you lose?

2. If your account got banned, how much pipeline would you lose?


...
May the algo find this post worthy of thy feed, Robin

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Charlotte Schefe

Robin Labrot

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The Battle

Charlotte Schefe

Robin Labrot

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);}Robin Labrot's LinkedIn Performance

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