Instead of a case study this week, here’s an early sales play to put in your playbook. Hopefully you enjoy this style of content. If so, please let me know!

Many founders I talk to have no idea how to find leads for their B2B product/service. Let’s look at a very simple way to find and generate leads. 

Search on GetKoala.com → Export to CSV → Import to email automation → Reach out.

This is a technique I used this week for a startup I am helping build. I have no relation to or benefit from recommending this tool; it just works well!

The Play: GetKoala.com for B2B prospecting

Here’s how to use GetKoala.com for prospecting:

Step 1: Go to https://getkoala.com/companies/

Step 2: Filter down to the industry and location you care about 

The filters are relatively simple, but useful for early prospecting/conversations. Industry, location, employee count, and tech stack are useful dimensions to narrow the list. Applying the filters I care about narrowed the list down to 500 companies that fit my early adopter definition.

Step 3: Export records to a CSV (or manually review records if you only need a few)

The export will be sent to your email address as a link to download. You can use a burner email address if you don’t want to provide your real email.

Why Koala and not another lead gen tool?

A dimension of information that Koala has (and many others don’t) is the tech stack used by the prospect. This can provide an easy conversation starter for you and inform your own product development. 

In my case, I’m looking for architecture firms in the United States that are using AutoDesk Revit. I’m considering building a plugin for Revit so I would like to hone in my prospecting on companies that are already using Revit. That results in 500 companies. Here’s my exact results.

We can also run a simple calculation to determine how popular a specific technology is with our target users. In my case, there’s 22,000 companies that fit my search, but only 500 companies are confirmed to be using the technology I’m targeting to integrate with. That’s only 2% of my target market. Is there another technology that is more widely used that I should be targeting? Or is it difficult for Koala to confirm if that technology is being used? I’m not sure, but upcoming user interviews and more market research will confirm it.

I’m sure this information isn’t 100% accurate, but it is a pretty good trend indicator and facilitates interesting experiments/discussions.

Then what?

Next, I can combine the company information with Instantly or Apollo or LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find specific contacts at those companies that are likely to be users/customers of my product. I’ll put my one-liner and one-paragraph messaging in front of those prospects and see if they’re compelled enough to talk to me.

If you want to see a write up on email automation tools (like those listed above), let me know. I have run very successful campaigns and very disappointing campaigns that I would be happy to write about.

What do you think?

Do you like this style of content? Should I document more plays for you to use? Let me know by interacting with this post or find me on X or LinkedIn 

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