Most founders think cold email is just spam.
Romàn built a $2.5M/year SaaS off the back of it.
He's the third founder on the My First Dollar series, and the strategy he shared completely changed how I think about outreach.
Full interview here → click to watch
The blueprint flip.
Most people do cold email like this: they write a message about their product, explain why it's great, and ask for 15 minutes of the recipient's time.
It probably looks a bit like this:
This is a real cold email I received the other day that follows this exact format.
Think about that from the other side for a second. A stranger wants to take your time. You don't know them. You don't care about their product. Delete (that’s what I did!).
But Romàn does it differently.
Instead of asking for a meeting, he offers a free blueprint. A document, a video, a playbook, basically something genuinely useful that his target audience would actually want.
His email is simple. Something like: "I put together a guide on how we book 100+ meetings a week using cold email. Want me to send it over? Just reply yes."
And people do. It's low effort, no commitment, and they're getting something for free.
This was one of Romàn’s email templates that booked him over 500 demos in a month.
Then inside the blueprint, at the very bottom, there's a link to book a demo or start a free trial.
This is a section from the actual blueprint that Romàn sends out when they reply "yes”.
Here's the clever part. By the time someone clicks that link, they've already read the guide. They already trust Romàn. They've chosen to book the demo. It's not outbound anymore, it's inbound.
He gets over 500 replies a month doing this. More than 10 people a day responding to his cold emails. He told me that's more than most founders get in their DMs on X or LinkedIn combined.
Why this matters even if you never send a cold email.
The underlying principle works everywhere: give before you ask.
Most people lead with what they want. "Buy my product." "Book a call." "Check out my app." Romàn leads with what the other person wants, and then lets them come to him.
You can apply this on X, on LinkedIn, in DMs, even in newsletter CTAs. If you give someone something useful first, they'll pay attention to whatever you say next.
The other thing he said that stuck with me.
I asked Romàn why he prefers cold email over social media for early-stage startups. His answer was honestly really practical.
If you post on social media and your idea flops, you've pivoted publicly. That's hard to do every two weeks. With cold email, you can test a market quietly. Send a thousand emails, see if anyone bites. If they don't, pivot and try again. Nobody saw you fail.
He said cold email is easier than going viral on X, easier than going viral on LinkedIn, easier than making a YouTube video. It's just the right people, a good offer, and basic infrastructure.
Full interview → click to watch
Question for you: what's your biggest challenge right now when it comes to getting people to see what you're building? Reply and let me know, it helps me decide what to cover next.
See you next Tuesday.
You've got this.
- Rob
