StartupGTM.com | I help b2b founders hack traction | Profitable founder (YC)

Transforming a startup from early to repeatable sales is HARD.

If you’re a B2B founder with early sales, then you've done many things right to win your first customers.

BUT - to raise a round A, your startup will need to have a product that's ready to scale because it can be 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙮.

To get repeatable sales - there are four blockers. 
 
You'll need to change each one from "not working" to "working": 
 
1️⃣ Consistently creating a 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 of conversations with customers 
 
2️⃣ Converting these conversations into a 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 of first meetings 
 
3️⃣ Converting these meetings into a 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 of trials 
 
4️⃣ Converting trials into a 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 of deals. 
 
These blockers need to be removed 𝙨𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 - i.e. one by one. 
 
💡 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗥𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗪. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀.

—

I'm a former co-founder and CEO at ApolloShield - a profitable YC startup.

I work hands-on with B2B founders on turning their early sales into repeatable sales through a combination of disciplines:

1️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀: Understanding the market, identifying target customers, and analyzing competitors.

2️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴: Defining how the product fits into the market and crafting compelling messages to appeal to the target audience.

3️⃣ 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀: Developing strategies for selling the product, including choosing sales channels and partnerships.

4️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵, 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Creating and executing campaigns to build brand awareness and generate leads.

5️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀: Managing discovery and commercial discussions with clients and partners to get their business.

5️⃣ 𝗢𝗻𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸: Gathering customer feedback and continuously adapting the product and strategies accordingly.

6️⃣ 𝗜𝗧 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Building support systems to holistically orchestrate and manage your GTM efforts.

7️⃣ 𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Developing a method to move forward quickly, iterate and get market feedback - doubling what works and tossing what doesn’t.

🚀 Let's connect and accelerate your startup together!

Nimo Shkedy

Founder @ Slyleadz | I help startups build cold outbound systems that generate qualified meetings | 💌 slyleadz.us

STRUGGLING TO FILL YOUR PIPELINE WITH QUALIFIED LEADS?

I've been there. After testing 1000+ outreach campaigns, I cracked the code.

Now, I help B2B companies build outbound systems that:
→ Generate 20-30 qualified meetings/month
→ Convert cold prospects into warm conversations
→ Scale predictably without the spam tactics

Our secret?
- Multi-channel outreach that actually works
- AI-powered personalization at scale
- Follow-up sequences with 40%+ response rates
- Data-driven targeting that finds your ideal customers

Recent wins:
→ Helped a SaaS startup book 100+ demos in 60 days
→ Built a 7-figure pipeline for a tech company in 90 days
→ Generated 500+ qualified leads for enterprise clients

Want to stop guessing and start closing?
Book a strategy call: calendly.com/slyleadz/slyleadz-15-minute-meeting-clone

Nick Palasz

When all hope is gone and then…. this happens

You already accepted defeat
Started drafting the explanation
Practiced saying pipeline is building

You told yourself this is normal
This happens to everyone, and it’s all part of the game

Then one deal moves
One reply hits
And confidence returns immediately

Same workload
Same chaos
But the mood is definitely lighter

And the funniest part?

This keeps working on us

Because sales isn’t about logic

It’s about how fast hope can come back 😅

Follow Nick Palasz for more

I don’t send a cold email until it passes this check.

Because I’d rather fix it in 60 seconds than lose a week of replies.

I’ve been on the other side of that. You launch something that feels solid. Targeting makes sense. Copy feels tight. The offer is clear.

And then… nothing.

So you start adjusting angles. Rewriting lines. Changing the CTA. Telling yourself, maybe the market’s just slow this week.

Meanwhile, it’s something small. The subject’s slightly off. There are too many links. A quiet spam trigger is pushing you out of primary. Something boring but expensive.

That’s why I test the email before it goes out.

Warmy shows me what I’d otherwise learn the hard way. 
Subject length, word count, spam signals, reading time, link count. If something’s off, I fix it before it ever touches a prospect’s inbox.

Outbound already has enough moving parts.

Deliverability shouldn’t be one of the unknowns.

If you’re about to send a campaign, run it through a check first. It takes a minute, but it might save your next campaign 👉(https://lnkd.in/gHJ3cf5a)

If one hire was supposed to save your pipeline, read this

You made the expensive hire
With a higher salary, higher expectations, and a bigger quota.

This was supposed to change everything.
Finally bring in the deals.

But the targeting didn’t change
The CRM is still half-filled
Handoffs are still unclear
Data is still messy

The name on payroll is different but the friction inside the engine isn’t.

And then the quiet disappointment starts.

“Maybe they’re not as senior as we thought.”

But senior reps aren’t magicians.

They don’t create structure out of thin air
They amplify the environment they walk into

If the inputs are clean, they look elite
If the backend is messy, they look average

Before you question the rep, question the process.

P.S. If your top performer looks stuck, look at what’s sitting behind them not in front of them

Follow Nick Palasz for more

5,000 emails daily… on how many domains exactly?

I’ve learned not to get excited by volume anymore because I’ve burned domains before 😅

Not in one dramatic crash, but in slow fatigue like:

• Replies thinning out
• More emails landing in spam
• Campaigns that used to work suddenly feeling average

And the worst part is you don’t immediately connect it to volume

You think it’s the angle, the copy, or even the market being weird this week.

Meanwhile, the domain’s just tired

There’s too much load on it and not enough support.

That’s why before I scale anything, I check the math.

If I want to send 5,000 emails a day, I want to know exactly how many domains and mailboxes that actually requires.

I’ve been using Warmy’s domain calculator for that.

It shows me the setup I need before I touch the dial

👉 So before you turn the dial up to 5,000, plug your number into the calculator and see what your setup actually needs (https://lnkd.in/gHJ3cf5a)

5000 Emails a Day?

I’ve heard next quarter more than my own name

And somehow I still act surprised every time 😅

It’s always delivered gently
“Everything looks good but we’ll just push this to next quarter”

You pause for half a second
Not long enough to be noticeable but long enough to recalculate your life

First thought: that’s fine
Second thought: that’s not fine
Third thought: this is actually strategic

By the end of the call, you’ve professionally agreed, emotionally protested, logically justified it and already rebuilt your confidence.

Sales is wild like that
One calm sentence and you’ve already gone through five emotional plot twists while saying it sounds great

If you’ve mastered the art of smiling through a delayed close, you’re officially seasoned

Follow Nick Palasz for more outbound reality checks

There’s no confidence like 9:47 PM confidence 👀

All week you were aligned
Clear strategy
Strong angle
Everyone approved

Then you reread it once 
And suddenly you’re convinced this entire sequence is personally responsible for slowing your company's growth 

So, you delete it and rewrite everything:
New positioning
Stronger hook
Different CTA

Launch is in 8 minutes but it feels like the perfect time to reinvent outbound

Because salespeople don’t avoid chaos

We just book it right before it goes live

Follow Nick Palasz for more

P.S. If you’ve ever renamed a doc “FINAL_final_v9,” you’re part of the problem too

Good reps look average inside messy systems

Because they’re fixing problems they didn’t create

They log in ready to sell

Instead, they’re checking if the account even fits

Looking up basic context
Realizing the contact bounced
Switching channels mid-flow

None of that shows up on a dashboard

So activity goes up but certainty doesn’t

Which tells you something

The system is asking reps to solve problems it should’ve handled already

But it doesn’t have to be that way

-When accounts are filtered first
-When data is enriched once
-When contacts are verified upfront
-When priority is based on fit and timing
-When channel choice isn’t random

Reps stop patching holes mid-sequence and walk into conversations much more prepared

That’s when selling starts to feel simple again

Follow Nick Palasz for more 

P.S.If your reps are doing everything except selling, we should talk

A 15-minute call should not require attachments

Especially when it’s called a discovery call.

You join ready to talk, but instead hear  “Let me share my screen”

Now it’s a presentation, and they walk you through:

• How the company started
• Why is the logo blue
• What makes them different

All while you’re still muted

Then minute 14 arrives and they ask

“So…tell me about your goals.”

Apparently, discovery works best under time pressure

Because nothing says meaningful conversation like squeezing it into the closing credits 😅

Follow Nick Palasz for more outbound reality checks

Most teams assume activity drops because motivation drops

But a lot of the time, belief dropped first

Belief that the calls will connect
Belief that the emails will land
Belief that the effort will turn into something real

From the outside it looks like discipline slipping

But from the inside it feels like pushing harder on something that has quietly stopped working

That’s the part of sales dashboards never show

Swipe to see how differently this looks from each side

Follow Nick Palasz for more insights on outbound systems and sales reality

What managers see vs What reps feel

Just another peaceful day in sales

Where optimism and reality take turns winning

You start the day convinced something’s finally going to land

By noon you’ve been ghosted a couple times and politely humbled in ways that sound very professional but still sting a little

You tell yourself it’s just part of the game
And it is… but it never feels completely normal

Then the next call starts and somehow your voice sounds confident again like the last few conversations didn’t happen

You just keep going

P.S. How many personality resets did you do today? 😅

Are you trusting Sales Nav data a little too much?

I did.

If the filters looked right, I assumed the emails were right.
-Good titles.
-Funded companies.
-Recent hiring.

So I’d export it, load it into the sequencer and hit send. It felt quite efficient.

Then bounce rate would creep up by 3%

Not enough to freak me out but enough to slowly mess with deliverability.

And every time replies dipped, I did what everyone else does

Rewrite it with:
-New subject line.
-Stronger opener.
-Different CTA.

I wasn’t fixing the problem. I was just avoiding it

The real issue was the step I barely respected
That middle layer between Sales Nav and send, where emails are enriched, verified, and filtered before they ever touch a sequence.

Once we tightened that using Icypeas, things took a turn for the better

Bounce rate dropped under 2%
Replies started coming from actual decision makers
And I stopped rewriting emails every week.

If you’ve been tweaking copy more than your data process, this might be the reason why

Sales Nav and Send

Teams spend weeks on campaigns and minutes on who they’re targeting

And that imbalance quietly shows up in the results

You can feel it when you launch

Replies hesitate
Calls feel colder than expected
Momentum never really builds

Because some teams are just pulling names out of Sales Nav and pressing go

While others slow down first

They enrich the data
Look for hiring, funding, tech changes
Check if the person is even in a position to care right now

Same outreach but different starting points

That’s why one feels like chasing and the other feels like talking to the right people

Follow Nick Palasz for more observations on what actually moves outbound

There’s a version of me that closes deals very fast

Mostly in my head though 👀

I move it to Closed Won
Tell myself the month is saved
And start acting slightly less stressed

Nothing is signed
Nothing is confirmed

But somehow I’m already relaxed about it

Sales really lets you celebrate things that haven’t technically happened yet 

P.S. Do you wait for the signature or just the feeling?

The Big Bang Theory version of your sales team would be… interesting 😅

There’s always a Sheldon who over-optimizes
A Leonard who plays it safe, predictable, and polite
A Howard who personalizes emails to an uncomfortable level
A Raj who is brave in Slack but quiet on calls
And somehow… a Penny who exceeds her quota and books meetings off vibes

Every team has the full cast

P.S. Which role did sales accidentally assign you?

 Cast ran your outbound team

📌 Save this

Most teams think subject lines are all about creativity

They’re not. They’re about timing.

You can have a great offer, clean copy, solid targeting and still get ignored if the subject doesn’t match what’s happening inside the company right now.

That’s why these 25 subject lines are built around real situations companies are already in 
Hiring SDRs
Just raised
Switching tools
Missing targets
Expanding territory.

When the subject reflects something that actually changed inside their world, the email lands differently. It feels connected to what’s going on, and that alone shifts how it’s read

P.S Before sending the next email, ask yourself what actually changed inside that account

The problem was never choosing Google or SMTP.
It was how long it took me to test either one.

Cold email advice loves certainty.
Pick a side, defend it loudly, then move on.

But real outbound doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes Google lands better.
Sometimes SMTP does.
Sometimes the difference only shows up a couple of weeks later, after the market shifts again.

What actually hurt was turning every test into a commitment.

Testing Google used to mean planning around it, budgeting for it,  then waiting long enough that the original idea stopped being interesting.

I’ve had campaigns that made perfect sense on paper but by the time they went live, the window had already passed

That’s the part I got tired of

And that’s why this Google Workspace update from Maildoso actually matters to me.

Since switching our provisioning over:

→ What used to take 7-8 days now takes under 15 minutes
→ Bounce rates dropped below 2%
→ Reply rates improved by 6% on segments where Google fit better

We didn’t rewrite anything.
Same copy. Same ICP. Same offer.

We just stopped waiting.

And the pricing made it even easier to say yes.
It’s cheap in the way that makes you reread the page once just to make sure you didn’t miss something 😅

If waiting on setup has ever been the thing slowing your outbound down, go check it out

What worked in outbound before doesn’t hold the same weight now

That advantage has now become the baseline

There was a time when effort alone moved things
Good reps, solid templates, consistent follow-ups… that was enough

But now everyone’s doing that
The bar just moved up

The difference shows up in how execution happens behind the scenes

Strategy is still human
But timing, prioritization, testing and scale are shifting to systems

You can feel it when outbound starts working again

It’s less chaos and more clarity now

P.S At what point did your old outbound approach start feeling heavier than it used to?

taplio

The Battle

Nimo Shkedy

Nick Palasz

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreNick Palasz's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Nimo Shkedy

Nick Palasz

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);}Nick Palasz's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreNick Palasz's LinkedIn Performance