Before I write to anyone on a lead list, I look at each row and ask four boring questions.
First, is there a source URL? If a row says a company uses some tool, I want to click through and see where that claim came from. A page I can open beats a confident label every time.
Second, when was it observed? A stack note from last month is useful. One from two years ago is a guess dressed up as data. If there's no date, I treat the row as unverified.
Third, is there a named person? Not a role, not info@, an actual founder or admin with a name. If I can't say who I'm writing to, I'm not ready to write.
Fourth, are the unknowns left blank? I trust a list more when it says "unknown" than when every cell is filled. Filled cells that nobody checked are how you end up opening an email with the wrong tool, the wrong title, or a person who left in 2023.
None of this is clever. It just stops me from sending 200 emails that start with a wrong assumption. If a row fails two of the four, I drop it and move on. Fewer rows, better first lines.
This is roughly the checklist I built StackShortlist around, if you want to see how the rows look: https://stackshortlist.dev
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