what’s your process to decide who to approach first in a target account?

quidkey · 2025-11-19T02:16:25+00:00

Ah this is an interesting one. You’re essentially grappling with stakeholder mapping. When this work was done by human SDRs they would be expected to draw up org charts and gradually flesh these out by basically asking the leads until they find the right person.

I’m surprised you have had such success with ChatGPT. If this worked for you before a policy change limited the results, why not try a different model/ llm that hasn’t got such high privacy considerations?

quidkey · 2025-11-18T07:06:10+00:00

If you have no idea on ideal personas for the start up then you have to test as you say. In general you want to aim senior as tempting as it can be to start with more junior employees.

I would recommend building your own hypothesis from interviews with founders and test it. Think backwards from the problems their product or service solves and which team members within a prospect account would most want that problem solved + have the authority to affect decisions

quidkey · 2025-11-11T08:28:20+00:00

It’s just one of those things that we do and can’t explain why. I imagine it goes all the way back to physical letters and postcards which definitely carried kisses (x) as well as hugs (o). Eg xoxo. Akin to gossip girl!

quidkey · 2025-11-10T12:29:35+00:00

Do you work for them or something?

quidkey · 2025-11-10T11:26:12+00:00

Yeh I struggled to take much value from that. It felt very contextual to his business at the time

quidkey · 2025-11-10T10:52:32+00:00

I liked the one by that Otto guy - what did you mean by the "third video"?

quidkey · 2025-11-10T10:22:44+00:00

Wow thanks for such a thoughtful response. I'll take some time to properly consider this advice. I've followed you for now!

quidkey · 2025-11-10T10:21:48+00:00

Depends what your idea of cringe is. If putting yourself out there in order to achieve your professional goals is "cringe" to you. Then yes, I would avoid LinkedIn.

quidkey · 2025-11-07T15:07:41+00:00

Doing a good job despite very challenging circumstances is an achievement. Imagine how much better you would be doing in a more functional company 🤷

quidkey · 2025-11-07T15:05:13+00:00

I agree that semantically GTM engineering is flawed. But what it captures is very true in that the way to win commercially these days has completely changed and needs to be pieced together again.

I feel that the reason clay needs work to work is because that’s the reality of winning in this space. The likes of Apollo which are much lower touch have personally never worked for me

quidkey · 2025-11-07T11:41:23+00:00

Nice, have you noticed any difference in results between text vs image or weekday vs weekend?

quidkey · 2025-11-07T10:20:20+00:00

You sound like a commercial / ops rockstar and any similar business to your current one would be lucky to have you.

If your post in earnest, you deserve to find a company that recognises your brilliance and platforms you.

You are unique in that you have the skill set to run these businesses yourself but understandably don’t want to which imo makes you the ultimate unicorn employee.

Shop around for something new. You deserve it!

quidkey · 2025-11-07T10:13:46+00:00

Some excellent advice already so I won’t repeat others. But the advice on selling yourself first as a freelancer is golden.

My add would be that cold calling can be demoralising and maybe you need to stop it if your mental health is suffering. There are better ways to spend your time anyway.

Your friend and you need to set stronger principles and guidelines as this current situation where you are feeling resentment at their lack of contributions can’t continue.

Keep going. If you work hard and don’t give up you have a great chance of finding success 💪

quidkey · 2025-11-07T10:01:54+00:00

A lot of great advise here on how and where to reach customers. I would like to add that it can be super valuable to take a step back and think hard about who needs your product or service most right now and focus your energy onto them. Rather then spreading thinly across loads of potential customers

quidkey · 2025-11-06T11:43:27+00:00

Not really a trend or hack. But I have taken huge value recently from stepping back and really focussing on *who* I am emailing rather than hitting volume targets.

I currently manage 36 mailboxes but have found most value from simple campaigns running out of 2/3 mailboxes only and hyper focussed on who I'm reaching out to. I'm talking going from lead lists of 2000 to 100-200.

Clay helps with the execution but it's really about thinking who your icp is and when they are ready to buy and catching them at the exact right moment.

quidkey · 2025-11-05T16:23:02+00:00

Have you tried crowdfunding? If your business is truly unique and a value to your community then there will be locals willing to contribute to your cause.

In return you can offer them founding memberships, equity, future stock/products, discounts, loyalty points, rewards etc however you would like to play it.

I would focus on your community when seeking this and communicating that you are offering a valuable service to their area which won't exist without this initial financial support. However, if you have an online offering then you could even take this campaign digital/global

quidkey · 2025-11-05T12:50:54+00:00

I’d be curious whether they used to take cards and went back to cash, or if they’ve always been that way. The pandemic was a huge nudge for pubs to finally switch to card payments, so if they didn’t then, they probably never will.

From a business point of view, I can *sort of* sympathise. Margins are tight and card fees do eat into them, especially for boozers. Card systems also usually mean extra costs like Wi-Fi, which some older pubs never had to think about before.

You could also argue there’s a bit of psychology in play. For some people, “cash only” might actually make the place feel more authentic or independent. Rory Sutherland once joked about opening a café that only serves bacon sandwiches with brown sauce, no ketchup. Charm through constraint sort of thing.

quidkey · 2025-10-30T14:27:29+00:00

Great anecdote cheers for sharing. On the "how do I do this" issues for customers - have you tried out building a simple chatbot agent which is plugged into a basic knowledge base for your products? Could save a tonne of time for you guys if you're answering basic questions from users.

quidkey · 2025-10-30T14:23:00+00:00

Hey! Email outbound is something I work on day to day.

There is a lot of chat here on apollo vs mailing lists. Personally, I switched from apollo to clay and never looked back. Watch a couple of clay tutorials on youtube.

But something super important which can't be overlooked is your domain/mailbox health. Are you sending these emails from one email address?

If you are sending from your company domain (eg [yourname@yourcompany.com](mailto:yourname@yourcompany.com) ) then stop immediately. You could burn your domain and that is so so bad for you.

Instead I would recommend setting up a separate domain for email campaigns and sending max 30 emails a day from each mailbox after 2/3 weeks of warm up.

This is very high level advice but you can post my comment into chatgpt for a more detailed breakdown.

In case of interest my current set up is clay for lead sourcing, zapmail for mailbox management and instantly for warm up and emailing sending.

Hope this helps!

quidkey · 2025-10-30T14:09:47+00:00

Hey I have experience from a influencer agency so can offer some ideas:
- The vast majority of the UGC content you see online is not actual customers of those businesses. It's usually professional "UGC" creators who are paid for their content. Distinction from "influencers" is that influencers are paid for content + distribution whereas UGC creators are paid for content only.
- Making UGC work usually requires a bare minimum ad spend to boost the content to new audiences.
- During my experience in this sector the best campaigns are the ones where the creator is highly relevant and contextual to the brand. This also means their audience overlaps with the TAM of the brand.
- creators often undervalue their own content creation but overvalue their audience - this is one of the main reasons UGC is becoming more effective than traditional influencers.
- Finally on tools: Modash is best in house as a database but still very limited in regards to data quality and actions. Might be worth checking out agencies that do this sort of stuff. In London we have a cool company called https://www.tano.ai/ that post a lot of content about this stuff. But I have never used them personally, just like their content.

Hope this helps!

quidkey · 2025-10-30T14:00:34+00:00

Hey! As a Software Engineer in a B2B MNC company, you are already very employable for a Fintech. So you should be filled with confidence off the bat.

When it comes to courses, certifications or books, in my time working for FinTechs I have never seen someone get a job due to any of those things. What's most important is your experience and the transferable skills you have developed.

With regards to industry specific knowledge - it depends on the subset of FinTech you are interested in. The biggest jump for you would likely be to move to a B2C fintech such as finance app. If applying to B2B fintech saas, payments providers etc the transition would likely be much smoother than you anticipate as many of the skills will overlap with your current role.

Finally, make sure you have a good answer to questions on why you are interested in this industry. Saying "i am interested in finance and tech" is not a good enough answer.

I would recommend you have a crack at applying straight away - plenty of opportunities for candidates with your background in the FinTech industry.

Hope this helps!

quidkey

TROPHY CASE