Why OutreachStud.io

TLDR: Leads are hard to get and, because of the bad experience I had with the services I picked, I lost trust in the existing solutions that are SAAS based. Good lists that are enriched using a lot of effort and ingenuity are then placed in the hands of third parties that are not trustworthy.

Early 2025, Google abruptly terminated most advertising campaigns for our small business, claiming our products (HTTP proxies, SOCKS, VPNs) facilitated "deceptive behavior" - an accusation as absurd as blaming knife manufacturers for criminal acts committed with their products.

Having deliberately diversified traffic sources to avoid dependency on any single platform, the search for alternatives began immediately.

With SEO being handicapped heavily by AI summaries that started to creep in, offering a clear insight into the next shape of the industry - that strategy was out of the question. We're still banking on it but the time for impact is really high anyway so we need more alternatives. This quest eventually led to discovering the r/coldemail community on Reddit and cold emailing in general which emerged as a compelling strategy for connecting with potential business partners and customers. The landscape, however, revealed a complex ecosystem requiring numerous tools, accounts, and services. While some providers offer comprehensive solutions, others demand assembling a fragmented technology stack.

First service evaluation

Embracing the learning process, the decision favored a comprehensive provider that appeared to offer everything I needed. While the company name remains confidential, sufficient details will emerge to paint a clear picture.

After preparing a robust database of 28,000 leads using external tools, the import process began through their dashboard. Several outgoing email accounts were procured (as part of the same service), followed by a waiting period for proper warmup before any sending takes place. Instant results were part of their name and motto so I was pumped.

Returning weeks later to launch the inaugural campaign revealed a disturbing pattern: essential features invariably resided on premium tiers - everything I needed was always present on a higher plan, tier or plan extras. Despite the frustration, calculations suggested that assembling an independent stack or coordinating multiple providers (enrichment, warming, sending, tracking) would prove significantly more expensive without prior experience. Within minutes, $500 vanished from the budget without dispatching a single email still.

Campaign creation unveiled another peculiarity: leads required re-importing into individual campaigns despite existing in their own respective lists. The import process consistently failed after processing 753 leads, generating too-broad error messages that communicated nothing to me. Multiple attempts yielded identical results stating that an error occurred. I meticulously verified any account limitations to make sure I wasn't exceeding quotas - usage remained well below any thresholds.

Support inquiries met automated responses and eventual human intervention that promised resolution within "60-90 minutes, as it's quite hot on chats". No joke, it's what I got.

After days of silence I began seriously considering any refund possibilities. To my surprise, I discovered that their terms explicitly prohibited refunds, effectively writing off the $500+ investment. To quote:

5.3 No Refunds. ALL FEES PAID UNDER THIS AGREEMENT ARE NON-REFUNDABLE AND NON-CANCELLABLE. Subscriber acknowledges and agrees that Company will not issue, and Subscriber is not entitled to receive, any refunds, reimbursements, or credits of any kind, including but not limited to partial, prorated, discounted, or promotional refunds, regardless of whether the Company Service is used, unused, or terminated early by Subscriber. This no-refund policy applies to all subscription plans...

The frustration became palpable. Exhausted by endless bot interactions and unresponsive support staff, the decision to cancel came swiftly. With coherent thoughts barely translating to proper keystrokes I also ask them to delete my account and all associated data as I could not trust them with my credit card on file anymore. I had this bad taste before and it almost always ends up with several more charges due to their incompetence or outright fraudulent behavior.

While the financial loss remained manageable, it proved sufficient motivation to explore alternatives. The prospect of another $500 evaporating during the next billing cycle was unacceptable. That sum is subjective to the reader. For some it might be a lot, for others - peanuts. For me it is VERY much considering the fact that I did not send a single email in this entire period.

Second service evaluation

Persistence demanded another attempt. The next provider allowed bringing personally-owned domains (which I purchased through GoDaddy) into their warmup pool. My configuration included two addresses per domain across five domains, totaling ten addresses - a modest but adequate amount for getting my feet wet in a niche that was alien to me. After two weeks, monitoring the warmup progress revealed disturbing discoveries.

You see, my initial domain import encountered SMTP/IMAP connectivity issues with one address, necessitating manual verification which I did with the help of Mozilla Thunderbird. Running macOS with minimal restarts meant numerous applications operated continuously in the background and this was the case for Thunderbird. Unexpected out-of-office notifications began appearing in the connected inbox but I assumed them to be part of a normal warmup activity. Curiosity killed the cat however, so I prompted deeper investigation into these automated responses.

The out-of-office messages originated from legitimate companies, including several major enterprises. These communications contained active links to genuine products and services, some featuring functional promotional codes.

Further investigation uncovered a shocking revelation: the email addresses were being utilized for unauthorized cold email campaigns that were not mine. The volume wasn't excessive, under the radar with merely 5-10 messages daily, staying below warmup quotas while completely undermining trust in the platform. After a masimum of 1-2 minutes they were deleted from the inbox.

This was my final straw - fool me twice, shame on me.

Brings us back - Why OutreachStud.io

For all of the above and because I could not trust another SAAS in this space. People work way to hard for their leads and campaigns for it to be handled by third parties that do not have their best interest at heart.

I love building dashboards and I am a full-stack programmer in need of a side project. 20+ years of experience and I can confidently say that I have what it takes to build a solid product that I would be happy to use for my outreach needs.

They say the best projects ideas come from frustration. This one certainly does!

How can you help?

Even though I am determined enough to build this project on my own, time is of the essence here since I am unable to work on it full-time. With a big audience, the licensing should allow for some income eventually but those times are still far ahead.

I would love to do it full-time or even bring a developer or two on board to help speed things up. If you are interested in helping out, have a look at our Patreon page or GitHub Sponsors section.

Other possible ways would be to star our project on Github, share it on your social media channels or provide exposure in any way you can. Exposure certainly helps bringing much needed awareness to the project.