Zero to Launch · Session 03 · Wed Sep 2, 2026
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Outbound Agents
A live board, a survey of the first ten, then the method
Ship AIPhoenix, ArizonaPress → to begin
What Ship AI is
Builders showing each other the work.
- Builders & founders
- Phoenix
- Free, always
The best AI education isn't behind a paywall or on a stage — it's in the open, for free.
The room
We're becoming grokbot.community.
- Same room
- Same work
- New name
Ship AI stays the program. The community name is catching up to the thing we actually talk about.
Your host
Santos Hernandez
Founder & Host
Founder and Lead Product Engineer building agentic AI systems. Founding product hire at ZBD — the money layer for games — $0 to $12M ARR, the EU's first MiCAR approval, and money transmitter licenses in 26 states and D.C. He started Ship AI to give Phoenix builders a room where you show the work, not talk about it.
Lead gen, enrichment, outbound — on the board.
- atlas.desic.xyz
- Lead Engine
- GTM
desic is in GTM. This is the Lead Engine we run. Then three companies that published how their first ten arrived, and the method you'd run this week.
Tonight
- 01The board: find, enrich, send
- 02Why the first ten look nothing like a funnel
- 03Three companies, the same shape
- 04An ICP you can write an email to
- 05Outbound that gets replies
- 06After they reply: the call, the pilot, the stall
- 07A pipeline you can show a judge
- 08Twenty accounts and a sequence, built live
Sponsors
Ship AI is looking for corporate sponsors
Every tier is published, $1,000 through $10,000, and cash, credits and hours sit on the same ladder. We're flexible on purpose: there's an opportunity at every price point, and a custom arrangement is always on the table.
shipai.club · Free, always
Where we are
- Aug 5GTM Engineering
- Aug 19Zero to $3,000
- Sep 2Outbound Agents
- Sep 16Unfair Advantage
- Oct 7Ship the Surface
- Oct 14Agentic Growth
- WeekendHackathon
Six Wednesdays, then the weekend. Every session is free and standalone — you don't have to attend all of them to compete in October, and catching up late is explicitly allowed.
Act one
The survey
Three companies published how they started. Steal the shape, not the logo.
Every famous B2B company looks like a machine in year five. In month three it was a founder and a list of names.
The board is the live look. The survey is the shape. The playbook after it is how you'd run the same thing this week.
The survey · 01 / 03
Stripe: "Right then, give me your laptop."
Paul Graham · Do Things that Don't Scale
- The ICP was the YC batch — a room they could name, not "developers who need payments."
- If someone said yes, the Collisons installed Stripe on the spot. YC still calls it a Collison installation.
- They didn't send a link. Sending a link is how a yes becomes a maybe overnight.
Who is your YC batch — the twenty people who already trust you enough to open a laptop?
The survey · 02 / 03
Amplitude: one paid yes, then the diaspora
Spenser Skates · first customer, July 2013
- They talked to about thirty companies before writing the product. The first paying customer was Super Lucky Casino.
- Skates later said he should have asked for money earlier — free users were the wrong companies.
- That champion was an ex-Zynga PM. The next customers were other ex-Zynga PMs. The graph is a reference, not a funnel.
If tonight's design partner said yes, who are the five people they could introduce by Friday?
The survey · 03 / 03
Segment: a year to two paid deals
Peter Reinhardt · YC interview
- They open-sourced on Hacker News. The first users were those threads — a named room again.
- It still took almost a year to close the first two paid contracts. Usage is not a pipeline.
- The product they scaled was found later, on a sales trip: five customers described the same S3-to-warehouse job. They went and listened.
What would you learn if you sat with your five warmest users and only asked what they already do with you?
Three companies. One shape.
| The room | The first move | What compounded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | YC batch | Install it now | One founder told another |
| Amplitude | Ex-Zynga PMs | Ask for money | Champion intros |
| Segment | Hacker News | Ship, then sit with them | The job they were already doing |
Named room. Founder in the room. A paid yes. The next deal starts warm. None of this is a 500-email sequence.
The shape, written down
- A roomTwenty names you can actually reach.
- A first yesPaid, or scoped so it produces a story.
- A championThey can introduce the next five.
- Then a processThe sequence, the stages, the sheet.
The playbook in acts two and three is that process. It is not how you get the first yes. That is the survey.
None of them started with five hundred emails.
Outbound is how you refill the list after the room you already have. If you cannot name the room, the sequence has nowhere to go.
Act two
Who, exactly
The whole method rests on this. Get it wrong and every email after it is aimed at nobody.
If you can't name twenty real accounts, the ICP is still too broad.
An ICP you can write an email to
- Companysize · stage · stack · industry
- Rolethe pain and the budget
- Triggerwhy now, not someday
- The testtwenty names, no shrugging
Specific enough that some companies obviously don't qualify. Stripe's first room was YC, not "any company that takes payments." If nothing gets excluded, you've written a description of the market rather than a filter.
The person with the problem and the person with the budget, named separately. They're often not the same human. Write to the problem holder; give them the sentence they'll forward.
The thing that just happened — the raise, the hire, the migration, the public complaint. Amplitude's trigger was ex-Zynga PMs who had just lost their internal analytics. That's a why-now, not a persona.
Open a doc and write twenty real companies that fit. If you stall at eleven, the ICP is still too broad. Session 04 on Sep 16 takes the same narrowing all the way down to the one-liner and the pitch.
Four fields. Everything tonight — the list, the email, the sequence, the pipeline — is downstream of getting these right.
Where the twenty names actually come from
Warm first
- People who already reply to you
- A community you already post in
- A champion's old teammates
- The five users you'd text
Then cold
- Job posts and stack pages
- A raise, a hire, a migration
- A public complaint
- The sequence, after the room
Stripe started in the batch. Amplitude started in a diaspora. Segment started on a thread. Cold email is how you leave the room — it is not the room.
Community is a room you can name
- A roomA meetup, a Discord, a thread. People who already reply.
- Shared workWorkshops, not a broadcast.
- A few stayThey show up. They tell a friend.
- The next twentyYou write the list from the room.
This room is the example. You do not need a thousand members. You need twenty people who come back.
Then expand to content
- Record the fixProblems your ICP is already having.
- Record the talkThe presentation, once.
- Cut shortsThe same talk, in pieces.
- Post itLinkedIn, Instagram, X.
One recording should die as twenty posts, not one upload.
Learn what travels before you buy attention
LinkedIn, Instagram and X will tell you what gets seen, what gets a reply, and what dies. Do not buy ads until the first ten clients — outbound or inbound — have told you what resonated.
- X
Act three
Outbound, then the call
The sequence gets you the reply. Everything after that is a human.
Outbound
Volume
- Send 500
- Merge tags
- Follow up 7 times
- Reply rate < 1%
- Domain burned
Relevance
- Send 20
- You read their site
- Follow up twice, then stop
- Reply rate you'd tell people
- Domain intact
Twenty good emails take an afternoon. Five hundred bad ones take an afternoon too.
What a good first touch does
- Proves you lookedOne specific line about them that couldn't be in anyone else's email.
- Names the problem, not the productThey care about the thing that's broken, not your architecture.
- Asks for something smallFifteen minutes, or a yes/no question. Not a demo, not a deck.
- Fits on a phone screenIf it scrolls, it's a document — and nobody reads documents from strangers.
The sequence, touch by touch
- Day 1 · the hookthe line only they could get
- Day 3 · the proofa different angle, not a bump
- Day 7 · the sidewayswrong person, right company
- Day 14 · the closeleave without grovelling
One specific observation about them, the problem named in their language, and a small ask. Four sentences. The agent drafts the observation from real research; you read every one before it sends.
Not "just following up". A second reason to care — a number, a screenshot, a customer sentence from someone who looks like them. If your first email led with the outcome, this one leads with the evidence.
Change the angle or change the recipient. Ask whether they're the right person rather than asking again for the meeting. "Who owns this?" gets answered more often than "do you have fifteen minutes?"
One line: you're closing the loop, here's the thing that might be useful anyway, door's open. No guilt, no fake deadline. Break-ups get replies precisely because they ask for nothing.
Four touches, then stop. Everything up to the reply is automated; the moment someone answers, a human takes it. Every one of these links to a page — Oct 7 is the session that makes sure the page agrees with the email.
The fifteen minutes, after they reply
- Their Tuesdaywhat they do today
- The triggerwhy they answered
- Who elsethe second human
- Qualify or walkbudget · yes · now · a date
Walk the current job in their words. Segment's later AE opened a meeting with twenty minutes of this before anyone touched a deck. The product comes second.
The raise, the migration, the thing that's on fire this month. If there isn't one, this is a nice conversation and not a deal.
Interest, in this program, means they brought someone else. Ask who has to say yes, and whether you can meet them. One champion is not a committee.
Can they pay, who can say yes, do they need it this month, and when. If you cannot answer all four on the first call, walk. Size the deal against what they already spend on the problem — seats, the current tool, the integration — not what it costs you to deliver.
The agent stops at the reply on purpose. Everything after this is a human.
After they reply, the week
- The callThe fifteen minutes you just ran.
- A channelShared Slack, not a thread that dies in email.
- A next stepWritten, dated, owned.
- A weekly check-inYou set the pace. They don't have to.
You go quiet first, the deal dies. Start the procurement paperwork before the pilot Friday, not after.
Act four
The stall, and the story
Where B2B deals die is the arrow before signed. Where they compound is the paragraph you wrote before the call.
What actually moves a deal
- AwarenessThey replied. That's the whole bar for this arrow.
- InterestA real call happened, and they brought someone else to it.
- EvaluationSecurity review, procurement, a pilot scope.
- DecisionSigned. Where B2B deals stall is the arrow before this one.
- OnboardingThey got value without you in the room.
- ExpansionWhere B2B economics actually come from.
The pilot, before you offer it
- Scopeone job, one team
- Successa number you both say
- Commercialpaid, or story rights
- Kill datea Friday on the calendar
A design partner is not "try the product." It is one workflow, one team, a start date. Stripe's version was the install — value before anyone left the room.
What would make them keep it. Written down. If you cannot name it, you are giving away software and calling it a pilot.
Amplitude's lesson: free users were the wrong companies. Charge something, or get the logo, the sentence, and the intro in writing. Preferably both.
Length, and what happens if it doesn't work. Decided before the call, not during it. A pilot without an end date is a stalled deal with a nicer name.
One paragraph you could paste into a proposal. That's the homework the guide already asked for.
Where the deal dies
The stall
- The person who can spend isn't on the call
- Security review, nobody owns it
- Your champion left
- Stuck in vendor paperwork
What you do
- Name the second human on the first call
- A questionnaire with a name on it
- A written next step, dated
- A price their company can actually pay
If they can't buy it the way they already buy things, the deal dies in paperwork. That is why Evaluation never becomes Decision.
When they go quiet
Don't
- Just checking in
- Another deck
- A fake deadline
- Guilt
Wow them
- Ship the thing they asked for
- A sixty-second Loom of it
- A sentence from a company that looks like them
- A feature they can take upstairs
Give them a reason to come back that isn't a calendar invite.
Champions → advisors → references
- 01One champion inside one account
- 02A roadmap preview they can take upstairs
- 03A quotable customer sentence
- 04A priced intro — credit on their renewal
Feed them something they can present as their idea. The next deal is an intro with a price on it, not a favor. Scope, length, and the sentence, decided before the call.
Referrals
The ask
- Who else has this problem?
- Five names, not a newsletter
- You write the email they forward
- A credit on their next invoice
Why it lands
- They already said yes
- The next deal starts warm
- Cheaper than any sequence
- Amplitude's graph was this
Ask after the yes, not in the first email. The intro is a priced ask — a credit, not a favor.
Expansion is a trigger, not a calendar
- Eighty percent of seatsThey're about to hit the wall. That's the ask, not a Q4 reminder.
- A feature only in the next tierThey're already using the thing you charge more for. Name it.
- Three people every dayOne champion is a pilot. Three daily users is a company that will fight to keep it.
You will not have this graph tonight. Write the triggers now so you recognize them when they fire.
A spreadsheet is a fine CRM
| Column | What "moved" means | |
|---|---|---|
| Account | The company, the person, the trigger | |
| Stage | An event, not a feeling | |
| Last touch | Date, and what you sent | |
| Next action | A verb and a day. Empty means dead. |
In October a judge will ask what moved last week. Receipts are 30% of the score. An anecdote is not a pipeline.
Do this tonight
/icp-builder
reading the product…20 named accounts, 4 filtered outwrote 03-b2b/accounts.md
Defines the ICP tight enough to write to, then builds the named account list. Start with the warm room from the survey — then fill the rest. It drafts; you check every row.
Then write the sequence
/outbound-sequence → /funnel-metrics
drafting 1 touch + 2 follow-upsstages instrumentedwrote 03-b2b/README.md
First touch, two follow-ups, and a break-up that doesn't grovel. Then instrument the stages, and add /bi-agent for the weekly read.
After tonight · 01 / 01
You can also follow this guide to stand the agents up.
Gojiberry · 13 outbound agents in Grok Bot
- They open-sourced the whole outbound team.
- Thirteen agents inside Grok Bot. You give the objective.
- The thread is the setup. Comment BOT if you want them to send it.
Your first ten will not look like Stripe's graph.
They will look like twenty names, a few replies, one pilot paragraph, and a sheet you can read out loud. That's the case you can show in October.
Thank you
Dan & Workuity
Platinum sponsor · The venue
Workuity Biltmore hosts and sponsors every meetup in this series and the October weekend. Dan gives this community a room before it has anything to show him — thank him on your way out.
Sponsors
Put your name on the next six months
Ship AI is seeking corporate sponsors, and the prices are published on purpose — $1,000 to $10,000, settled in cash, credits or hours. There's an opportunity at every price point and a custom arrangement is always on the table. Scan for the menu, or find Santos.
shipai.club · Free, always
Say hi
- X@5antoshernandezBuild in public — arguments welcome.
- Discorddiscord.gg/kZSJMNveYMWhere tonight's links, slides, and skills land.
- Work with medesic.xyzWant systems like these built and run for you? That's my team.
Everything is open source — the deck, the skills, the template repo. Take it all.
The first ten are a room, not a funnel.
Next
Unfair Advantage — Wed Sep 16, Workuity Biltmore
Why should anyone pick you over the thing they already use? Value prop, USPs, positioning and the pitch — written live, cut, said out loud, cut again.
shipai.club · Free, always