C17 Lab

Head of GTM Engineering

Building out outbound plays for enterprise clients

Strategic GTM

Clay

Enterprise Partner

Monthly Unlimited Flows for Fixed retainer

Clay Certified Expert 

Unlimited Custom clay workflows for you for a fixed monthly price

24-72 hours delivery, one request at a time.

Free 3000 Credits - 

https://clay.com/?via=6f1999

Clay Creator

Instantly.ai

Certified Instantly Expert

Smartlead

Smartlead Certified Experts

Maildoso

Advisor

Persana AI

Monthly Flows on a fixed price


https://persana.ai/pros/utkarsh-rana

Persana Pro

Adyhere.com

Helping B2B SaaS Companies and Agencies Generate Leads while they sleep via AI-Powered Inbound + Outbound

If you are not from one of the above industries no issues, you just need to be a B2B business.

We do all the heavy lifting, you just attend the meetings!

$200,000+ in REV & $1M+ Pipeline generated for B2B clients via outbound

Website - https://www.adyhere.com/
Email - utkarsh.rana@adyhere.com

Founder

I help B2B SaaS Companies and Agencies Generate Leads while they sleep
$200,000+ in REV & $1M+ Pipeline generated for B2B clients

Unlimited Custom clay workflows for you at $2000/Month

I set content systems that:
-> Builds audience
-> Engage with them while heating their buying intent 
-> Converting warm leads with a high closing rate as the content did most of the work.

Then I use data from over 100+ sources to create smart strategies that find the right prospects. 

This helps your sales team connect with people who are looking for you.

Here’s what I do:
Build Content systems that build an audience
Build targeted lead lists
Set up and warm up inboxes
Write personalized emails & DMs
Manage full campaigns


The aim is to test 
OFFER-MARKET-FIT
TARGET TESTING
MESSAGE-MARKET FIT
PRODUCT-UNTAPPED MARKET FIT


--
If you're a B2B company that wants more demos/sales calls, go to https://www.adyhere.com/

Utkarsh Singh Rana

We don’t use Clay native waterfall.
Even though I love Clay
.
.
Why?

Because we needed full control

Especially around tools like Supabase, BounceBan (Verify risky emails without sending messages), and email domain filtering. 

So, I built a custom waterfall logic. 
We're now on Version 8 and it's been a game-changer for our GTM team.

Thanks to Enzo Carasso 🧲 for letting me spend $$$ on testing tools 😊 

🔁 Our Custom Enrichment Waterfall at C17 Lab:

1️⃣ Supabase First: 
Credit goes to 🦾Eric Nowoslawski and Bharatt Arorah for introducing me to SupaBase

We query by:
LinkedIn Handle (if valid)
OR Full Name + Domain
 This saves us 30–40% of our enrichment credits upfront.

2️⃣ Domain Filter Logic
 If Supabase gives us utkarsh@c17.ai
 but the real domain is c17.com → ❌ rejected.

 No mismatched domains. No noise in the pipeline.

➡️ What if Supabase fails?
We fall back to:
Apollo/CSV email (only if different from invalid ones)
Prospeo.io and Icypeas
But NEVER revalidate already-marked-invalid emails.

 🧠 That alone saved us 154,000+ verification calls last month.

3️⃣ Final Validation
 Every valid-looking email goes through:
✅ MillionVerifier
🚫 BounceBan (Verify risky emails without sending messages) (only if catch-all/invalid by MillionVerifier)

And we use request IDs to fetch final verdicts if needed as sometimes BounceBan gives you request ID

4️⃣ Bonus: ESP Detection
 We tag every email with Gmail, Outlook, etc., via EmailGuard.
 Helps in split testing emails as Outlook deliverability is bad.

5️⃣ Sync Back to Supabase
 Every enriched lead gets written back to Supabase with full data.

 No duplicates. No overwriting.

NOTE: When you cross like a Million records in Supabase, you'll get errors with LookUp as the data is too much

Use ChatGPT to figure out what schema you want with it.

🔍 How We Fixed the Lookup Problem
We use GIN trigram indexes, which are special tools that help Supabase find text very fast, even in millions of rows. 

They let Supabase search company domains and LinkedIn handles without slowing down. 

These indexes act like shortcuts that guide the database to the right place instantly.

Indexes that make Supabase fast:
➡️ emaildb_companydomain_trgm_idx — helps find company domains quickly
➡️ emaildb_handle_trgm_idx — helps match LinkedIn handles fast
➡️ emaildb_handle_eq_idx — speeds up exact LinkedIn lookups
➡️ emaildb_email_key — keeps emails unique and easy to find


⚙️ Other Automations We Use
➡️ Emails are cleaned automatically before saving
➡️ LinkedIn handles are generated on their own
➡️ Full names and email domains are created automatically
➡️ Duplicate contacts are blocked before saving
➡️ "created_at" and "updated_at" update automatically
➡️ All new records become searchable right away

Utkarsh  Rana 🧲

Head of GTMs @ C17 Lab | Top Clay Enterprise Partner • Sales Tech & Revenue Systems Optimization •

I would still be spending 40+ hours weekly if it wasn't for these tools.
.
.
1. Serper
 Scrape Google Search, Maps, and Reviews.
 → Build targeted business lists
 → Monitor reviews to gauge activity
 → Pull company data fast

2. n8n
 Zapier’s smarter cousin.
 Great for cloud automations and AI workflows—especially if you're technical.

3. Apify
 Custom scraping powerhouse.
 → Grab Meta ads, Google data, TikTok profiles, tech stacks - whatever you need.

4. ZenRows
 Most reliable and cost-efficient scraper I've used.
 → Scrapes full websites (HTML + Text) cleanly.

5. HeyReach.io
 It's Smartlead, but for LinkedIn.
 → Automate connection and message campaigns at scale.

6. SmartProspect (by Smartlead)
 Massive lead database.
 → Easily download leads—top-tier for outbound.

7. Clay
 The glue.
 → Integrates with everything to automate lead enrichment, research, and outreach.

8. Taplio
 Content machine for LinkedIn.
 → Helps you ideate, write, and post consistently.

 If you're not stacking the right tools, you're stacking unnecessary hours.
 
Will it increase your cost? Yes
Will it save your time so that you can re-invest it into scaling your business? Yes

Tools I use everyday!

I used to burn $$$ on B2B lead tools that overpromised and underdelivered.
.
.
.
The worst part?
Even after dropping $1K+ per month, I still had to:

Clean up lists and have 2 verification tools - basic and catchall verification
Deal with bounce-backs

Guess who my real ICP was as list contained leads that didn't match the filters I added

AND somehow protect my domain reputation...

And that was called normal.

The real problem?
Most tools aren’t built to prioritize lead quality.
They bulk scrape, charge you upfront, and leave you holding a bag of outdated contacts.
Their job ends when you pay.

But your job (booking meetings) is just getting started.

Now imagine you're an agency owner or founder...

Every bad lead = wasted rep time.
Every bounce = damaged sender reputation.
Every wrong ICP = campaign fatigue.

When your pipeline depends on cold outreach, these things compound fast.

You’re not just burning ad spend - you’re burning trust, time, and deliverability.

Shared this issue with the Smartlead and next 2 weeks, they launched Smartprospect

✅ 300M+ verified B2B profiles with real-time enrichment
✅ Filters for role, company size, engagement, and more
✅ Multi-step verification waterfall built-in
✅ Push leads directly into your campaigns (no manual export/import)
✅ Flat $59/month fee - and no per-lead nonsense

The result?
Better data. Better replies. Better ROI - all without risking your sender health.

C17 Lab is a proud Smartlead Partner!

Last week: a lead from Samsung ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gE8Ja-Y4
This week: a booked call with Intel.
.
.
.

No warm intros. No magic.
Just a clear offer, a sharp GTM motion, and a real solution to a real problem.

This isn’t luck - this is strategy.

Here’s what we know:
🎯 Who to target
 Enterprise teams feeling the pain - and the exact decision-maker responsible for fixing it.

🔍 What they care about
Not your product — their problem. Even giants like Intel have burning issues they want solved.

📞 How to reach them
 Right message. Right channel. Right timing.

Here’s what we did:
1. Refined the targeting
We reworked the ICP - especially headcount - to align with the client’s enterprise motion.

2. Rewrote the messaging
Enterprise-grade clarity, but still easy to digest and imagine in action.

3. Shifted personalization
We don’t care about their nearest KFC.
We care about their problem.
Messaging anchored in their challenges - not surface-level flattery.

The best GTM strategies don’t start with the product.
They start with pain - and offer a clear path to relief.

You’re not burning your TAM.
You’re not annoying anyone.

You’re stepping up with relevance and precision - and that gets responses.

If your offer can solve problems for Intel…
Why wouldn’t smaller companies take notice?

🚫 Stop playing small.
✅ Start executing like it’s enterprise.

That’s the C17 Lab way.

We made 40% fewer dials than usual for a client… 
And still hit the meeting KPI 🤯 for them
That’s not a fluke.
.
.


📅 On Nov 11, we dialed 40% less than our usual volume for this client.
 🎯 Still booked 4 meetings a day - exactly what we needed to hit target.

Here’s what I learned:
🚀 Quality wins if you don't have much quantity - especially when your data source is 🔥

BetterContact is turning out to be a total powerhouse for phone numbers.

I still remember Roman Hipp telling me they were rolling out Phone Number Waterfall.

 And I was like:
 💳 “This is gonna hit the credit card HARD.”

But nope.
💡 The quality, the hit rate, and the ROI we’re seeing - it’s totally worth it.

And I don’t even validate phone numbers manually.
Yeah, there are tools for that…
 But honestly?

📞 The only way to validate a phone number is by actually calling it.

Just like how Scrubby | Complete email validation validates emails by sending actual emails - max accuracy, no guesswork.

Cold + Warm Calls = 💘 
Cold emails + Cold Calls + Warm Calls = 👩‍❤️‍👩

GTM Engineer | Uber driver turned sales guy

Creative and analytical GTM Engineer with 3 years of experience in tech sales, now focused on building advanced go-to-market, workflows and automation. I am experienced in leveraging tools like Clay, Leadmagic, HubSpot, Make, and Apollo to build scalable outbound systems, streamline prospecting, and drive measurable results. I combines technical expertise with frontline sales knowledge to deliver systems that generate pipeline and revenue.

Particularly interested In AI, great founders, products, and people!

I believe talent exists everywhere and is not bound by location - which is why I champion global hiring and remote work.

Need anything? Let's connect!

Chris Mbanta

The SDR role remains the foundation of tech sales.

I started as an SDR before I became a GTM Engineer.

The role prepared me ahead for what is to come,
And I would have never thought of becoming a GTME if I wasn’t an SDR first.

Whenever I interview for GTME roles, 
And I get this question:

“You were an SDR, but can you handle the complexity of GTM Engineering?”

My answer is simple: "I've never been better prepared than now"

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬,
I was stretched to my limit in my SDR life time.

- Spending hours on manual research
- Chasing wrong numbers and emails
- Trying to personalize at scale
- Dealt with bad data.

It was chaotic, but it built muscle.

With my little experience as a GTME?
All of those challenges are a now a piece of cake and thing of the past.

If I could survive the manual, and mental messy version of outbound,
I can definitely thrive in the system-driven version.

To anyone looking to start their career
The SDR path is still one of the best
It preps you for a long, successful career...

If you think otherwise,
Let me know in the CS.

If you are just starting out in GTM Engineering
Read this.

I made this rookie mistake early on,
Luckily one of my interviewers pointed me to the right direction.

𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞.

Many new GTMEs (including me at the start) treated Clay like the only data source.

Clay is powerful 
But sometimes doesn’t have all the data you need.

If you want to maximize your TAM and build high-quality outbound,
You need to know / find where the actual data lives.

Here are a few examples:

Store Leads → e-commerce brands
Apollo.io → general lead lists + large datasets
Google map using Serper → local businesses
Crunchbase → funding, investors, (unusual industries like non-profit).

Then you assemble everything and enrich in Clay.

When building campaigns approach it with this mentality 
"Where is the best source to capture most of my TAM?"

You will build better tables, and campaigns.

If you think otherwise,
Let me know in the CS.

When I left my full-time SDR job 

I had no guarantees
No monthly paycheck
No safety net.

Just dogging in and out of YouTube and Clay Cafe learning what I could. 

Hoping that the risks I was taking would someday make sense. 

I got updated. 
A small campaign I built, ran weeks ago and brought in 4 positive replies.

It's a sign and I'm back to the meeting business!!

This is only the beginning.

Here's one simple way to land a GTM Engineering job.

My mantra has always been this:
Do the job to get the job.

As an SDR I and many other SDRs 
Landed roles by prospecting hiring managers and sales leaders.

But a GTM Engineer you'll need to use systems.

In my case I used 

Clay
HeyReach.io
And Instant data scraper.

Here's a 3 step breakdown:

𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
First I scraped Clay's partner database on their website
Using Instant Data Scraper ( it's a free Chrome extension).
And downloaded the CSV.

𝐄𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚
⟶ Uploaded the CSV into Clay
⟶ Cleaned the list
⟶ Enriched them
⟶ Organized them for outreach.

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐧
⟶ Opened a HeyReach account
⟶ Connected my LinkedIn
⟶ Launched campaigns to agency owners.

Note: HeyReach is free for the 14-days 
So only open an account when you’re ready to use it.

I did all of this using tools anyone can access for free.

You can copy and paste this method for yourself,
You'll reach agency owners faster.

It also adds to your experience as you're running a small LinkedIn campaign.

There are three components that make outbound actually work.

𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚
𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠
𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲.

Most teams nail the first two.

But if your emails aren’t getting read,
Then outbound becomes an uphill battle.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲:

You can have the best data and the best message, but if your emails aren’t landing in the primary inbox, none of it matters. 

You have to monitor domains, 
Warm up mailboxes, and keep sending pattern clean.

But doing all of this manually is challenging and it’s easy to miss something.

This is why I use Maildoso 

It keeps your sending reputation high, 
Warms your mailboxes, and makes sure your emails don't trigger spam filters.

Also they launched a new feature: self-healing mailboxes.

𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬:

Your mailboxes are automatically split into two groups.

Group 1 sends while Group 2 rests and recovers
Then they swap.

If you had some campaigns die because of burned mailboxes, 
This would be your recovery plan! 

Would you check them out?

If you're not eating tasty turkey today, it's your loss!

The Americans are!! 

They are feasting today
Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends.

Boring things make you the most money.

Sometimes they even compensate for fulfillment.

“I love updating Salesforce"
Says no sales rep.

And for most people in GTM, this stuff feels boring:

Cleaning data
Scraping leads
Building scalable workflow 
Building a repeatable GTM system that prints meetings

But here’s the part we don’t talk about:

These things feel boring because they’re repetitive
They don’t give you instant gratification,
And nobody pats you on the back for doing them
But when the meetings starts rolling everyone is excited.

It is the work that makes everything else possible.

✅ Clean data → better targeting
✅ Scraped leads → bigger TAM
✅ Scalable workflows → predictable pipeline
✅ Solid GTM systems → meetings every single day.

People who win lean into the boring,
Even when nobody’s watching.

It isn’t glamorous
It’s just what works.

If you think otherwise 
Let me know in the CS.

New to GTM Engineering
But you don't know what tools to learn?

Or what each system are built for
I get it, most beginners get overwhelmed by tools.

So here’s the simple breakdown of the core tools every GTME touches.

Clay 
The father of GTM Engineering
It's where all data come together
Used for: enrichments, research, data cleaning
Table building, automation, and launching campaigns.

It's the brain box of most GTM workflows.

Apollo / FullEnrich
Massive databases with great filters
Used for: build lead lists, find contacts fast
Pull company info, export into clay for deeper enrichment
Think of them as part of your raw data source.

Smartlead / Instantly.ai
Your outbound email engines
Used for: building cold email campaigns, sequencing,
Tracking performance, these tools handle the email side of outbound.

Apify
A marketplace full of scrapers.
Used for: renting scrapers, pull niche datasets,
Whatever scraper you're looking for you can find in Apify.

n8n / Zapier
Your automation powerhouse
Used for: building workflows and AI agents, transforms 
And automate anything across GTM, ops, or data, it's your glue.

These are some of the tools GTMEs use daily.

Tag who needs to see this.

taplio

The Battle

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Chris Mbanta

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taplio

The Battle

Utkarsh Singh Rana

Chris Mbanta

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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