CEO @ Conversion House 🏠 | On-demand design for small SaaS marketing teams so they can launch faster, position better and convert more.

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Joe Wheatley

The best GTM principle → Create abundance where there is scarcity

Credit goes to Santosh Sharan for this one!

Before ZoomInfo, B2B data was locked behind Dun & Bradstreet at $100K/year. Only the IBMs of the world could access it.

ZoomInfo dropped that to $5K/year and went from $10M to $100M (abundance for SMBs)

Then Apollo arrived and made B2B data available for under $100/mo (abundance for everyone)

Each time, data was scarce for a lower segment of the market
A company noticed → made it abundant → their growth exploded

The cycle repeats over and over. Scarcity becomes abundance. Winners look for new scarcity.

And when data becomes fully abundant (thanks Apollo) the old playbooks stop working (goodbye spray and pray). That's why the industry has shifted towards signals. 

Tools like:

- Clay
- Freckle.io
- BirdDog
- Signalbase (Previously LeadsOnTrees)

So the real money question: What’s scarce now, and what will be scarce next?

That’s where the opportunity lies.

Joe Wheatley 🏠

Founder @ Demand House | Intelligent outbound for B2B SaaS | Trusted by Warmly, Summize & Coefficient

4 layers of B2B outbound (and our go-to tech stack)

1 / Capture Layer
- Prospeo.io for cold leads, RB2B for website leads and Trigify.io for social listening

Note: since Prospeo's V2 launch, we've switched over from Apollo (see link in description for reasons why)

2 / Intelligence Layer
- Freckle.io as the GTM-brain (others use Clay - they do the same thing)
- HTTP APIs to find and validate emails, using the following providers:
--> Prospeo, LeadMagic and FullEnrich for waterfall enrichment
--> ZeroBounce for email validation
--> BounceBan to verify catch-alls
- Freckle credits for mobile numbers (only credits we use)
- OpenAI API for AI enrichments and classification
- Tier leads based on account-fit and engagement score
- Build email and cold call scripts using messaging frameworks + AI
- Route leads to right sequences (Apollo for Tier 1 & 2, Instantly for Tier 3)

3 / Outreach Layer
- Tier 1 is multi-channel, manual SDR outreach (with scripts to assist)
- Tier 2 is multi-channel, manual outreach (when out of Tier 1 leads)
- Tier 3 is fully-automated email outreach (using copy built in Freckle)
- Tier 3 also identifies who is in-market vs who is out-of-market. For in-market, send sales-focused messaging; for out-of-market, send marketing nurture

4 / Sales Layer
- If positive reply, add lead to CRM. Now over to SDR team to book a demo

Founder @ Demand House | Outbound systems for B2B SaaS | Trusted by Warmly, Summize & Coefficient

Proof that cold outbound isn't dead, and remains the BEST channel for building predictable pipeline

Last week we sent 1,800 emails across 3 campaigns (roughly 600 leads contacted)

Reply rates between 5.7-10.6%

5 opportunities

See for yourself.

Given we only just started running outbound for ourselves (started in 2026), with only 10 secondary inboxes, I'd say this is a damn good start

Before you say outbound is dead, think again!

You need to give the recipient a reason to reply (value).

Then you need to deliver on this value and offer more value to get the call.

But most don't offer real value, and then complain no one responds. Why would they?

Others give value to the wrong people. Your fault you've got a bad list.

Also - stop relying on marketing / content as your savior. It's a long-term play that should consume 20% of your efforts max. 80% should be on near-term pipeline aka. outbound.

If you put in the work to build the right list and offer (and you deliver on your promises), you will win.

Building Curacity's top 100 prospects in 10 minutes:

1 / What they do
Demand creation platform where hotels create content, Curacity distributes to premium publishers (Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, etc.) to drive bookings and revenue

2 / Define ICP by analyzing best customers
50% small chains (8-14 properties), 33% independent (1 property), 67% US-focused, 83% hotels

3 / Identify buyer personas
CMOs, VP Marketing, Director of Marketing, VP Revenue Management (decision makers) + Marketing Managers, Brand Managers, Revenue Managers (champions)

4 / Identify key signals
Rapid growth (headcount/revenue), hiring for marketing manager, new CMO/VP Marketing, new property launches, rebranding, recent funding/acquisition, performance issues (low direct bookings, declining occupancy)

5 / Find leads in Apollo
Filter by marketing roles, C-suite/VP/Director level, company lookalikes (Viceroy Hotels, Virgin Hotels), US location, 200-1,000 employees, hotels/hospitality industry, layer on signals

6 / Import to Freckle / Clay
Combine 4 signal lists from Apollo (lookalike + rapid growth, lookalike + hiring, rapid growth, hiring) and import to Freckle/Clay

7 / Validate emails
Zero Bounce for validation, Bounce Ban for catch-all verification

8 / Enrich with phone numbers

9 / Verify ICP + buyer persona match
Is company ICP? Is person decision-maker? Remove leads that don't match both

10 / Build messaging
Rapid growth: "Growing team = need revenue to support payroll, explore new marketing channels?" / Hiring: "What are new marketing manager's priorities? Open to exploring new channels?"

Result: 94 verified top hotel decision-makers ready for multichannel outreach to drive Curacity sales

Top 100 Prospects in 10 Minutes for Blink (Employee Engagement Platform)

- Determine ICP based on best customers
- Map TAM & signals
- Build tiering system
- Find leads in Apollo
- Enrich, validate and filter in Freckle (or Clay)
- Build messaging relevant to signal (observation), ICP and persona

Frank Sondors 🥓 is literally the 🐐 of startup sales (he books 500 demos per month and scaled Salesforge.ai 🔥 from $0-$3M in less than 1 year)

When building a team, he said to start off with 2 reps
(Do not hire from big corporate like Google - wrong mindset)

And then he talked about how to acquire customers. It's not about one channel, it's about multi-channels working together.

Get data, test & iterate.

He also spoke about why you need to track first touch and last touch attribution

And finally, how to warm-up prospects before booking the demo

Head over to Frank's profile now and follow him. The guy to watch in 2026

We're getting more positive replies than we can handle.

Here's one example:

- Reached out to someone who just joined a 7/8 figure SaaS as Head of Sales
- Asked how the role was going (be human!)
- Offered genuine value

Outbound works when you do it better than everyone else.

Step 1 - Offer value to get the reply 
Step 2 - Offer value to get the call/audit

If you offer what they actually want and deliver on it, you'll win. Simple.

Building Contiyo.com - Every content creator's best friend | Co-founder & Co-CEO at Nortik - We delivered $150M worth of SaaS startups | Follow for daily insights, strategies and tips on how to scale your SaaS

At Nortik, we build custom AI agents, automation systems, and SaaS software that automates complex workflows, and helps fast-paced businesses move 3x faster.

We've helped 20+ startups build SaaS products and AI agents that generated over $150,000,000 in combined funding and revenue (4 featured in TechCrunch).

What we build:
→ Custom AI agents that automate repetitive workflows.
→ Multi-agent systems that coordinate across your entire operation.
→ Complex workflow orchestration (MCP servers, LLM integrations, human-in-the-loop approvals).
→ Custom production ready and enterprise grade SaaS solutions.

How we work:

We embed directly into your team. Our engineers work in your codebase, join your standups, and ship production AI in 3-6 months. You're not stuck with extra headcount when it's done.

Recently we:

→ Built an AI observability infrastructure for a startup that raised a $10M Series A.
→ Architected a platform handling 50M+ daily data points that became #3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.
→ Helped one of Germany's largest TV networks cut engineering costs by 23% on their streaming platform.
→ Delivered a full crypto/stock portfolio tracking system with real-time market integrations.
→ Built internal operations dashboards with AI-powered automation for media companies.
→ Developed a VFX platform for a Hollywood-grade AI company that turns actors into digital characters (Backed by Steven Spielberg).

Industries we're mostly active in:

→ Healthcare & HealthTech
→ Marketing & Email Deliverability
→ Sales & RevOps
→ Travel Tech
→ Entertainment & Media

Book a free consultation here & let us show you the power of AI for your business: nortiksoftware.com

Ognjen Gatalo

Duolingo's push notifications have a 4x higher open rate than the industry average.

And they break every "best practice" in the book.

They're guilt-trippy. Passive-aggressive. Weird.

"These reminders don't seem to be working. We'll stop sending them."

That notification alone became a meme.

But here's the thing:

It works because it sounds like a person, not a product.

Most SaaS notifications read like they were written by a legal team.

"You have 3 pending tasks awaiting your attention."

Nobody talks like that.

Duolingo talks like a friend who's slightly disappointed in you.

And that emotional texture is why people screenshot their notifications and share them online for free.

Your push notifications are free marketing real estate.

However, most companies waste it on a robotic copy.

The next time you think skip something simple like a notification copy, just remember that everything reflects on your brand.

—
🎯 Does your product sound like a human or a system notification?

Be honest.

Nortik.io - Custom AI Agents, Complex Workflow Automation and Software Development for Startups & Mid-market | Drove over $150M for SaaS startups | Building ChurnSignal.ai | Find my insights here → saasstrats.com

I took a longer break from LinkedIn to spend quality time during the Christmas holidays.

This week, the majority of our agency is back in the office, taking on new tickets, planning new marketing campaigns, and continuing the conversations that were started in 2025.

In 2026, my focus will be on 2 things:

a) Making sure the products our teams build are consistent. Putting more focus on UI, UX, and security, as well as optimizing those micro interactions that compound and actually make a difference between good and great.

b) Marketing. Placing more of our agency work out there for the world to see. A/B testing new campaigns, offers, and CRO strategies in order to showcase how we can help the big leagues.

My goal for Nortik in 2026 is to start working with 1 flagship SaaS client. Think Notion, Slack, Intercom, etc.

We’re shifting our focus towards larger development teams and helping them navigate by bringing our full agency expertise collected over these 5 years, integrating our engineers within your team, and taking on specific work packages and sprints that are of the essence.

We know our worth and how much value we can bring when it comes to SaaS strategy and development.

2026 feels like the year to go deeper, not wider.

Fewer projects, higher standards, and work we’re genuinely proud to put our name on.

—
💬 What will be your main focus in 2026?

Let’s have a conversation!

I spent 100+ hours testing AI tools in the past year.

Most were complete garbage.

Here are 20 AI resources that will actually 20x your business:

(bookmark this for easy access)

1) Surfer SEO - boosts visibility in Google and ChatGPT
2) Ralph Wiggum - hands-free AI coding loop that builds while you sleep
3) NotebookLM - personal research AI that helps with your docs and materials
4) Claude Cowork - desktop AI that works across your apps
5) Hume AI - emotion-aware AI for voice and text
6) LangChain - framework for building AI agents
7) Google Antigravity - AI-first IDE that plans, writes, and debugs code
8) Claude Skills - add-ons that teach Claude new abilities
9) ChurnSignal AI - flags early signs of churn before it happens
10) Claude Code - agentic coding system from high-level prompts
11) Clawdbot - AI bot framework living inside your computer
12) ChatGPT Work With Apps - AI that operates inside your Mac apps
13) Gamma App - creates decks and docs from a simple prompt
14) Higgsfield - build your own virtual AI influencers
15) Gumloop - no-code automation builder with AI agents
16) Cursor - AI code editor with full project awareness
17) Klap .app - turns long videos into viral short clips
18) Agentation .dev - annotate UI elements to avoid hallucinations
19) Chatbase - train a custom chatbot on your data
20) Merlin AI - browser assistant for every website you use

Save this list so you can revisit.

—
Follow me for more practical AI and SaaS advice → Ognjen Gatalo

20 Must Know AI Resources That Will 20x Your Business

The most underrated SaaS growth channel in 2026 isn’t SEO, GEO, or ads. It’s App Marketplaces.

Let me explain:

I started using Grammarly after discovering their Chrome extension.
I started using Typeform after stumbling on their Slack integration.

I didn't visit their homepage first.

I found them while working inside another tool.

This is the most underrated growth channel in SaaS right now.

Here are 7 marketplaces you should be building for in 2026:

1️⃣ 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗯 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲
3.83 billion people use Chrome worldwide.

138,000+ extensions are available, but most have fewer than 1,000 users.

That's your opportunity.

Build a lightweight extension that solves one specific problem, and you're discoverable the moment someone searches for a solution.

2️⃣ 𝗭𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲
8,000+ connected apps. 3+ million businesses using it.

Clearbit tracked their Zapier users and found they churn 20% less than average.

Getting listed means appearing in searches alongside every tool your customers already use.

One integration = thousands of landing pages working for you.

3️⃣ 𝗦𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆
2,600+ apps. 42+ million daily active users.

People spend 90+ minutes per day inside Slack.

When your product lives where people work, adoption becomes frictionless.

Your app becomes part of their workflow, not another tab to remember.

4️⃣ 𝗻𝟴𝗻
230,000+ active users. Just raised $180M at a $2.5B valuation.

The open-source automation space is exploding.

n8n's community is one of the most active in automation, with developers building custom nodes and templates every month.

If you want to reach technical users and power builders, this is where they live.

5️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲
3,000+ native integrations and growing fast.

Make has a visual workflow builder that non-technical users love.

Their user base spans marketers, operations teams, and agencies looking for automation without code.

Being listed here puts you in front of SMBs ready to buy.

6️⃣ 𝗚𝗶𝘁𝗵𝘂𝗯 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲
100+ million developers. Over 20,000+ Actions and 1,000+ apps.

$30 million+ in marketplace transactions annually.

Most SaaS founders think GitHub is "just for developers."

Wrong.

DevOps, security tools, project management, documentation are all discovered here.

If your tool touches any part of the developer workflow, you're missing out.

7️⃣ 𝗥𝗮𝘆𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲
This one's a sleeper hit.

Raycast is a productivity launcher replacing Spotlight on Mac and it’s growing exponentially.

You can build an app for it and intantly jump off as they only have around ~2,000 extensions at the moment.

And the best thing is - Almost nobody is building for this marketplace yet compared to Chrome or Zapier.

—
The formula for winning user acquisition in 2026 isn’t digging where everyone else is, it’s finding a completely new goldmine.

And I’ve just helped you find it.

That’s why you should follow me → Ognjen Gatalo

In the 1950's the US Air Force tried to design a cockpit to fit the average pilot's body.

After measuring 4000 pilots they got all the dimensions right and formed the “average body”.

On paper, it was flawless.

In reality, it fit no one.

None of the pilots came close to having an average body.

This is how adjustable seats were created.

However, this story has nothing to do with fighter jets.

But it has everything to do with how we build products.

When you try to target everyone, you target no one.

The best SaaS products are built for exact ICPs in mind.

On the other hand if it’s for more than 1 ICP, it’s highly customizable.

Think about this next time you start designing a feature or a full product.

Always have the pilot’s seat strategy in mind.

With AI agents on the rise I see a common problem that resurfaces.

And that is unpredictable usage limits.

Apps have now started including “this action will use 54 AI credits” messages, but that still puts a strain on the user to do the calculations on his own.

Instead, I came up with a feature that I think will become mandatory in every product that actually wants to focus on their UX.

And that is a (predictable) usage limit bar.

Simply always keep an AI usage limit bar in sight when it comes to performing some AI agent tasks, or workflows.

The goal is to use it in an Apple Dynamic Island style.

The benefits it can provide are enormous for improving user experience:

- Showcase how much credits an action will take
- Alert the user on larger actions with visual input
- Increase willingness to explore and use advanced features
- Reduce user hesitation before performing AI-powered actions
- Eliminate mental math and cognitive load during task execution
- Decrease support tickets related to unexpected credit depletion
- Creates a sense of control that reduces churn from billing frustration

The list goes on.

This way you’re keeping the guesswork out of the table, and the user can move much much faster and with more clarity, which ultimately keeps the user engaged further on your platform and helps you reduce churn while increasing customer satisfaction.

I quickly drafted this v1 version of how it could look like.

Jacob Bank Relay.app Check it out, I would really prefer if you implemented something like this!

P.S. If you need help driving this further, maybe we can talk. 👀

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