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Kai Koa

James Hanzimanolis

Co-Founder @ Erudite | Content Marketing Agency | GTM Leader | Startup Advisor

Co-founder @ Erudite. We're a content marketing agency with the goal of driving more inbound leads and helping startups and small SaaS build a brand through social media.

Founder

Generate 250K-1M impressions per month | Fractional Head of Content for GTM Tech

graphical user interface, text, application

2 big life updates:

1. We had a boy!
2. Erudite signed it’s biggest account in history!

Also…

We’re launching a SaaS product for ghostwriters alongside our agency (and are launching in beta soon).

Life is good

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I just got off the phone with the CEO of a popular ZoomInfo competitor.

15 seconds in and this guy hangs up.

Why? Because “content is a waste of their time.”

Gents…

There’s a reason ZoomInfo will always win.

Henry Schuck, in 90 days, has seemed to completely pivot strategies.

Especially with content.

He’s either bought the best ghostwriter money could buy.

Or he’s just a gifted writer.

Either way, it’s funny to see how small-fry CEOs think about growth vs. the GOATS in tech.

Amjad (Replit): POSTS DAILY
Henry (ZoomInfo): POSTS DAILY
Dharmesh (HubSpot): POSTS DAILY

There’s a trend here.

The best CEOs are brand builders. No exceptions.

Content is the #1 game changer in 2026.

There’s a rumor that Clay is bumping their pricing. Explorer package is going from $350/mo to $500/mo. If true… then yikes.

They are *also* changing their credit model.

It’ll soon cost credits to export rows and other minor tasks.

(Again, these are just rumors).

If true, they’ll hurt both of their customer types:


Type 1: The GTM engineer
Technical salespeople have been bringing their own API keys (from Icypeas, LeadMagic, OpenAI, DiscoLike, etc.) to minimize credit consumption in Clay.

This new system would force them into credit consumption for actions that shouldn’t warrant credit usage.


Type 2: The non-technical salesperson
Plenty of Clay users use the app solely for data waterfalling. They aren’t building complex workflows or automations.

These users don’t own API keys on other platforms. While their technical experience will be the same, they’ll be heavily overspending (already are) on credits.


I get it.

Clay is awesome. We all love Clay.

However… if these rumors end up being true, it feels like a smack in the face.


If I were learning about GTM orchestration tools for the first time, I’d go with one of the other guys:

- BitScale
- Compelling
- Floqer
- Persana AI 
- Tabula
- Airscale 
- Sync GTM
- (ZI’s new GTM studio)

There are so many to pick from.

And most are more affordable than Clay.

Working in tech is a privilege.

There isn’t another career where an entry-level role (no degree needed) is paying $50,000-$70,000 salary + bonuses.

We’re living in a bubble.

Most of the people you run into at the supermarket work in construction, retail, restaurant, etc.

And they are making $60,000 max.

Meanwhile in tech, there are VPs getting paid $300,000 with stock options and 26 y/o dropouts working as sales directors for $150,000 plus commission.

Just to sell some handy-dandy HR tool.

We got it good, boys.

When I ran SDR teams, I had ONE rule:

Cold call for 8 hours straight.

I'll also say this: this was 3+ years ago. The idea of "social selling" seemed ridiculous to me. I didn't want reps sending 1-off emails.

Just pick up the phone and dial.
(Anything else was a waste of time).

And guess what?

Calling worked great. My reps had a routine and we were generating mass amounts of pipeline. Everything was running smooth.

Things have changed since then.

The best reps BARELY pick up the phone anymore.

What are they doing instead?
1. Creating content on LinkedIn
2. Talking to leads in the comment section
3. Sending DMs
4. Booking demos

Reps like Kade Hinkle + 🐜 mike haimowitz 🐜 🐜 are great examples of this.

The easiest way to fill your pipeline on LinkedIn is with Kondo: Superhuman for LinkedIn DMs.

Sure, picking up the phone and calling will always work.

But we're not in the past anymore.

If you can figure out how to generate pipeline from LinkedIn, nothing else really makes sense anymore.

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Co-Founder

Advisor

Vice President of Growth

Director of Business Development

Sales & Marketing

GTM at Common Room

DM me your favorite hot sauce 🔥🌶️ | Automation Nerd | girl scout cookie hater

Kondo: Superhuman for LinkedIn DMs

Unfortunately, this was true (and kinda worse than I thought). There's more to the story. Clay's new pricing: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly 👇

THE GOOD:
- Credit costs are dropping 50%-90% (yippee)
- Consumption is more transparent
- No markup on LLM usage

THE BAD:
- HTTP API integrations only available for growth plan or custom ($495+)
- Support is only available for growth plan or custom ($495+)
- Credit top-ups cost a 30% premium

THE UGLY:
- This has become almost unusable for agencies. Clay is getting tired of users who have found loopholes to minimize credit consumption and are moving upstream.

TLDR
Clay is officially making the pivot from agency focused to enterprise focused.

As someone who cares about GTM orchestration, it's hard for me to get behind this when every alternative is caring for their smaller users.

BitScale dropped their pricing and changed their model. I'm spending $99/mo to run all of my workflows with no hiccups.

(BitScale isn't the only one doing this).

But if that's the case - if these alternatives exist - then why would I choose Clay?

Gen Z is too soft to work in tech.

No, I'm not "micro-managing" you.
I simply want a weekly report.

No, I'm not encouraging "hustle culture."
I just want you to do your job.

No, $60K is not a "low-paying salary."
You're 20 with no experience.

Entire generation is cooked tbh

My good friend (VP of Growth @ a series B hypergrowth startup) just got canned from his $400K/yr role. And he's blaming the firing on a household-name data vendor.

(Before I continue... no, it's not ZoomInfo, Apollo, or Cognism. But you're welcome to take guesses).

Here's what happened:

Their team sells to local companies.

Ones where finding a phone number or email is difficult.

The data vendor they signed with only has 9% of their TAM in their database.
(Meaning they were MISSING 91%!?)

I've said this once and I'll say it 100x more...

When you're building a master lead list, you need maximum coverage. I'm talking 95%+. And the only realistic way to do that is by using 10-30 data providers.

No, you don't need to buy each one.

Easiest way to do this?
Get FullEnrich (or another waterfall provider).

FullEnrich aggregates almost 20 different vendors to find data. Meaning that your leads are most likely sitting in their database.

This is what we've been doing at Erudite since day one. Since our target is niche, we have an account list of ~750 T1 & T2 accounts. Much less than the average agency.

The process:
1. Build an account list (20-30 dream accounts)
2. Expand your list with a lookalike tool (300-3000 extra accounts)
3. Find 3-5 decision makers from each account (Sales nav, FullEnrich database)
4. Find 2-3 influencers from each account (Sales nav, FullEnrich database)
5. Start LinkedIn + Email + Calling campaigns (base each campaign's messaging on persona)

If my friend would've done this, he'd still have his job.

PS
Can you guess who the vendor was?

If you've used all-in-one tools for cold email, they often offer "pre-warmed inboxes" at a premium. Hate to break it to you... but those are a scam.

In 2025, Google + Microsoft became even more strict around cold email.

'Pre-warmed inboxes' will last 30, maybe 45 days top.

Here's what you need to know and do instead:

The problem with peer-to-peer warming systems is simple. When 50,000 Instantly users send templated emails to each other, Google sees the pattern. Same subject lines, send times, and network of domains.

Their spam detection flags this within weeks.

I analyzed deliverability data across 200+ outbound campaigns. Accounts warmed through peer-to-peer networks showed a 67% drop in inbox placement after day 40. The warming looked artificial because it was artificial.

Warmy takes a different approach.

And it's why we use them for all of our warming.

Instead of routing emails through a closed network, it generates unique conversation threads using AI.

• Different topics
• Varied reply patterns
• Realistic timing gaps between messages

The technical difference matters.

Google's algorithms track behavioral signals, not just volume. When your inbox shows diverse, contextual exchanges rather than identical templates bouncing between known cold email domains, the trust score holds.

Data from Warmy users shows 89% inbox placement rates sustained past 90 days. That is a 3x improvement over peer-to-peer alternatives.

The takeaway: warming quality beats warming quantity. Invest in systems that mimic real human behavior, not ones that create detectable patterns at scale.

If you want to check it out, here's the link: https://lnkd.in/gj8d26u4

Met a founder running a sales tool that’s essentially Instantly, Nooks, Aligned, and ZoomInfo wrapped into one tool.

He thinks his company is doomed.

Because he can’t find users, he keeps saying “I don’t have product market fit.”

But he does.

I’d argue that most startup founders have PMF. Their distribution is so garbage, though… so there’s no way to test.

Managed to get him 200+ sign ups in span of three weeks.

A license cost $250 and only 32% of those sign ups churned. Thats a a 68% stick rate.

He still doesn’t believe he has PMF and I don’t know how to change his mind.

Here’s how you know you have PMF:

1. Churn is under 50%
2. There are competitors
3. Your solution solves a specific problem
4. It’s growing through word-of-mouth

If you can meet all four pieces of criteria, and you still aren’t gaining traction, then it is your responsibility as a founder to force your solution into the market one way or another.

No exceptions.

I currently have 54 domains (282 inboxes total) running for my email campaigns. This month, 40 of them burned out dropping from 5% ➝ 0% reply rates. Last month, the same thing happened. And the month before.

Here's what happened:

My 54 domains are split up between 3 different vendors:
1. Maildoso
2. Instantly's in-app ones
3. (One that prides itself on being cheap... I won't name them)

When I pulled the list and matched each dead domain to the vendor, it was clear. Every domain that stopped sending, or fell to 0% replies, came from the same cheap provider.

That means the issue was not my offer, copy, or targeting.

It was the inbox setup and the infrastructure behind it.

Something most people don't realize:
Inbox providers have to build behind-the-scene systems for domains. AKA an infrastructure.

And if your infra isn't setup properly, you'll burn through your domains 3X-10X faster.

I met Nikita for the first time 2 months ago and he broke down exactly why and how they do things differently. Turns out they've thought this out. A lot.

Other inbox providers don't care and are treating domain reselling as a cash-grab.

Pretty disappointing imo.

As long as I'm not abusing my inboxes (50+ emails/day per inbox), I land in the primary.

A 20 year old software engineering student told me last week he had never heard of Replit. His program has him handwriting C and Python. They forbid AI tools entirely. 

*They even told him using them is unethical*

I dropped out of a software development program years ago with just a handful of credits left. Personal circumstances.

This was one of my biggest regrets for a long time.

Not really anymore, though.

About 9 months ago, I started building some internal tools with Replit.

And yeah, I'm sure the extra coding knowledge would be helpful.

But Replit is building better tools than 95% of developers.

Hot take (although it shouldn't be):
Schools need to embrace vibe-coding. Or whatever you want to call it.

There's less of a need to learn how to code than ever before.

Universities are training students for an industry that no longer exists. They are optimizing for handwritten syntax recall while the job market rewards people who can build, iterate, and deploy quickly.

A junior developer who can spin up a working prototype in an afternoon is more valuable than one who can perfectly transcribe a sorting algorithm on paper.

And with Replit Agent 4, it's easier than ever to build with your team.

If I were teaching software development today, every student would be using Replit from day one.

Not because it makes the work easier. Because it reflects how professional software gets built now.

“It’s too crowded, we need to pivot”

Nah bro.

Tired of seeing tech founders pivot every 6-months.

Nothing wrong with existing. If a market is competitive, so what?

ZoomInfo and Apollo occupy 90% of the contact data market, but companies like Wiza, LeadMagic, Icypeas, FindyMail, and Swordfish are still surviving (and thriving).

You only need to win 0.01% of the market to have a real business.

The problem isn’t product-market fit. It’s not saturation in the market, either.

Constant pivoting is a sign that your distribution sucks.

Get good kid.

11.3 million impressions on X in 90 days. 100% organic.

(Here’s how you can do the same)

Before I start… there’s something you should know.

Yes. Your prospects use X. Half the business won at Erudite comes from X.

It’s different than LinkedIn. You don’t get penalized for posting more. Reposts actually drive engagement. It’s a machine.

Here we go.

1. Find 10-15 people in your niche to befriend
2. 15-30 thoughtful comments per day
3. Quote reposts are key for growth
4. Use lead magnets like crazy
5. Only post about 2-3 topics
6. Share opposing views
7. Post 3x per day (min)

And if you want to see my step-by-step process, comment “X GROWTH” and I’ll send you my playbook.

Erudite

Talking about your product/service in every post is NOT a growth strategy.

This might sound counterintuitive…

But no one buys that way.

Content can be broken into 4 pillars:

1. Thought leadership
2. Technical content
3. Personal stories
4. Company updates

We only mention their tool/offer in 20% of content. (This is done VERY subtly in the body of their content).

This is basic buyer psychology.

People don’t buy from walking billboards. They buy from people they respect.

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The Battle

Kai Koa

James Hanzimanolis

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The Battle

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James Hanzimanolis

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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);}James Hanzimanolis's LinkedIn Performance

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