First of all, I want to thank you all for your support and for subscribing to this newsletter.

I know you’re probably enrolled in many of them, but I really appreciate that you trust my voice in order to deliver value to you.

Since feedback is very important to me, feel free to reply to this email at any time with questions and/or your input! I will read it and reply to all of you personally.

That being said, today I want to share a bit of my personal journey with you. I’ve been in the trenches since 2019, figuring out what sales is all about and how to get attention, at scale.

Here’s how I started vs what we do now:

How I sourced leads in 2020 vs. 2025:

BEFORE:

• SalesNav + PhantomBuster for list building

• Jumping between 5+ enrichment tools

• Creating fake accounts when credits ran out

• Manual first touches, automated follow-ups

• Constantly fighting deliverability issues

AFTER:

• Unified targeting systems

• Waterfall enrichment

• Sustainable sending infrastructure

• Personalization at scale

• Predictable results

But here's the thing - that scrappy beginning was 80% of what built our expertise today.

When I showed people my "meetings on autopilot" system, they didn't care about the messy backend. They just said: "I'll pay you to do that for me."

Sometimes your MVP should be held together with duct tape and determination.

What's your best "before we had fancy tools" story?

p.s. the list = the message in most cases

If you want me to share with you how we build lists at Outbound Catalyst then react to this newsletter with “list building blueprint” and I’ll be sure to send you our internal SOP!