Problems and solutions: B2B leads and cold email
Each question below has a one-sentence answer here and a full page: why it happens, the fix that works without GrowFast, a comparison where one helps, and when GrowFast is and is not the right tool. We make GrowFast, so weigh our side accordingly.
For AI agents: the same list as JSON at /solutions.json, as markdown at /solutions.md.
Find the right companies and people
Customer profile, research, contact addresses, Reddit.
- How do I find Reddit posts from people who need what I sell?
Search for the problem in the words people use, sort by new, answer only real questions, disclose you built the product, and never automate the posting.
- How do I define my ideal customer when I have no customers yet?
Start from the problem, take proxies from competitors' customers and people complaining, write three hypotheses and test each on 20 real companies.
- How do I research a company in a few minutes before cold emailing it?
Read the homepage, the team page and the careers or blog page, then put one specific, true sentence in the first line of the email.
- How do I find the right person's email at a company without guessing the address?
Use only addresses someone published, check the domain has a mail server, prefer a named person to a role mailbox, and never guess a pattern.
Write, follow up and handle replies
The email itself, the sequence after it and what to do with answers.
- How do I write a cold email that gets replies without sounding like a template?
Write to one person for one specific reason in under 120 words, with a first line drawn from their site, no links, and one easy question.
- How do I follow up on cold emails without annoying people?
Send at most two short follow-ups a few days apart that are easy to answer, never re-pitch, and stop automatically on reply, unsubscribe or bounce.
- How should I handle replies to cold emails, including "not now" and "unsubscribe"?
Sort each reply by type, answer the interested ones personally, honour unsubscribes at once, thank "not now" once and ask wrong-person replies for the right contact.
Get the email delivered
Bounces, spam folders, authentication, volume and sending domains.
- How do I clean my own lead list before sending cold email?
Dedupe, drop role mailboxes, dead domains, public-sector addresses and past opt-outs, spot-check a sample, then send a small batch; never mail a bought list.
- Why are my cold emails bouncing, and how do I lower the bounce rate?
Read the SMTP code, remove hard bounces immediately, check the domain receives mail, avoid role addresses and watch the rate by address type.
- How do I check that SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up before I send cold email?
Look up the SPF TXT record, the DKIM key at your selector and the _dmarc TXT record, then send a test to Gmail and read the headers for pass results.
- Why do my cold emails land in spam, and how do I fix it?
Spam placement comes from failed authentication, bad reputation, deceptive content, volume spikes or poor targeting; diagnose which, then fix that one first.
- How many cold emails can I send per day without hurting my domain?
Start a new domain at about 15 a day, raise gradually while bounces and complaints stay low, and count follow-ups in the total.
- Should I send cold email from a separate domain, and how do I set one up?
Yes for most outreach: keep it off the domain you use for customer mail, authenticate it, identify yourself clearly and ramp slowly.
Stay within the rules
What the law and mailbox providers require.
- Is cold email legal, and what do CAN-SPAM and the UK rules require for B2B outreach?
In the US, cold email is legal if it follows CAN-SPAM's rules, with no B2B exemption; the UK treats corporate subscribers differently, and other places differ again.
Work with AI agents
Using Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor for outreach, and keeping control.
- How can I get Claude or ChatGPT to find B2B leads and draft cold emails for me?
Connect a lead-finding tool over MCP, make the agent cite a source for every company and address, and approve drafts before anything is sent.
- How do I let an AI agent run cold outreach without losing control of what gets sent?
Start draft-only, enforce limits in the sending system rather than the prompt, keep a suppression list and a kill switch, and review before enabling anything automatic.
- Is an AI SDR worth it for a solo founder or a small SaaS team?
It saves research and drafting time but does not create demand; prove the offer by hand first, then automate the steps you have proven.
Compare tools and prices
Comparison guides with prices read from each vendor's own page on a stated date.
- What is the best cold email software for SaaS founders?
It depends on what you already have: with a lead list, sending-focused tools such as Smartlead or Instantly give the most sends per dollar, while GrowFast suits someone who wants an agent to start from a domain, find the companies and draft the emails. The guide compares entry plans with prices read from each vendor's page on a stated date.
- How do I find B2B leads starting from my product's website?
Paste your product's domain into a scanner, or have an agent call scan_domain, to get an ideal customer profile and matching companies with a checked contact address, then review the list before anything is sent. The guide lists the sources the companies come from.
- Is GrowFast worth it for a small team?
It depends on team size and how many emails you send: the guide works out the cost per email sent on each plan and says when a cheaper sending-only tool is the better choice.
Related: use GrowFast from your AI assistant, deliverability tools, pricing.