Most prospecting starts with a company filter. Industry, headcount, country. Then you stare at the list and try to think of something relevant to say.
I've had better luck flipping the order. Pick the software first, then find the companies that already run it.
Say you've built an add-on for a helpdesk tool. A list of 100 companies in "SaaS, 10 to 50 people" tells you nothing about whether they'd care. A list of 100 companies that actually run that helpdesk tells you what your first question is before you've written a word. "How are you handling X in it today?" is a real question. "Are you open to a quick chat?" isn't.
It also changes who you write to. The person who set up the tool, often a founder or an admin at a small company, knows its gaps. They're the one who'll answer, or tell you plainly it's not a problem for them. Both answers save time.
A few things I've learned doing it this way:
- Check the evidence yourself. A page or script you can see beats a label.
- Keep it to one tool per batch so the email can be specific.
- Don't pretend you know more than you do. Mention the tool, ask the question, stop.
The list gets smaller. The replies get more honest.
I built StackShortlist to make that first step faster, one list of companies per technology you pick: https://stackshortlist.dev
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