#29 — Cold Take: Sales prospecting is an engineering problem

Our take: Prospecting isn't just a sales task - it's an engineering problem that technical founders can solve with automated pipelines instead of traditional SDR teams.§

The big picture: Traditional sales development relies on manual labor (what we affectionately call the SDR “body shop” model), but forward-thinking startups are now building software pipelines that scale more efficiently than hiring armies of SDRs.§

How it works today: After finding initial product-market fit, founders typically:§

• Hire an experienced seller in their domain
• Build out a team of SDRs to generate meetings through manual research and outreach
• Scale linearly by adding more SDRs

The shift: Prospecting is becoming an engineering challenge that can be solved with four key tools:§

• Reverse IP lookup (Koala, RB2B) to identify website visitors
• Email automation tools (Apollo) for campaign management
• Text generation (ChatGPT) for personalized outreach
• Integration platforms (Clay, Zapier) to connect everything

By the numbers: The traditional approach is inefficient:§

• Average readers spend just 26 seconds on articles
• People receive 70-400 notifications daily
• Manual prospecting requires laboriously researching each lead individually

The automation advantage: Modern prospecting pipelines can:§

• Instantly identify website visitors
• Automatically enrich contact data
• Generate personalized outreach at scale
• Run continuously without manual intervention

What's next: The SDR role will evolve from manual prospecting to pipeline management:§

• Technical skills become more valuable
• Process and product mindset is essential
• Copywriting remains critical for templates

The bottom line: Founders should build cross-functional teams with both sales expertise and systems thinking. This shift will invert decades-long beliefs about selling, allowing companies to grow faster and more efficiently.§