How to research a company before cold outreach

Most cold emails fail before they are written: nobody opened the prospect's website first. This is the 5-minute routine I used when I prospected 30–40 accounts a day. It works with or without any tool.

The 5 pages that matter

1. Careers

Open roles are the best “why now” you will find. Hiring three SDRs means they are scaling outbound. A RevOps or operations hire usually means a process is breaking. A new location in a job ad tells you about expansion months before a press release.

2. News or blog

Look for anything from the last three months: a new office, a product launch, funding, a partnership, a big customer. One recent fact beats “I came across your company” every time.

3. Team or About

Smaller companies list the founder, the head of sales and operations by name. That is half your contact research done. Read the founder story too: a personal detail (“introvert turned top 5% sales rep”) makes a far better opener than the company tagline.

4. Customers and case studies

If their customers look like yours, they are probably a fit. If they sell what you sell, close the tab, or write to them as a potential partner instead. Careful with numbers here: “$250K ARR” in a case study is their client's result, not their revenue.

5. Pricing

Public prices versus “contact sales” tells you about deal size and how they buy. Self-serve companies rarely need a 45-minute discovery call in your first email.

Turn it into a first line

Pick one fact, not five. Connect it to the problem you solve, then ask one question:

• Fact: “Saw you're opening a Chicago branch in January.”
• Problem: “A second warehouse usually means parts picking gets harder to keep on spreadsheets.”
• Question: “How are you planning to handle it there?”

Who to write to

Write to the person who owns the problem, not the most senior name on the page. For a new warehouse that is operations, not the CEO. If the site lists nobody you can trust, check the company's LinkedIn page instead of guessing.

When to skip the company

• They sell the same thing you do to the same customers.
• Nothing on the site has changed in two years.
• They are clearly too small or too large for your offer.

Doing it 40 times a day

The routine takes 5–10 minutes per account. LeadScout does the same reading on the website you have open: it goes through those pages, gives a fit score against your ICP with the reasoning, lists the people published on the site and writes a first email from the facts it found. Usually in under a minute.

FAQ