A B2B tech startup in the United Arab Emirates booked 684 demos in 4 months with us and added $1.31 million to its annual recurring revenue (ARR). Cold email was the main channel, sent from 50 email accounts at about 1,250 emails a day. LinkedIn outreach with warm email follow-ups ran at the same time.
LinkedIn alone could not deliver the demo volume
The startup needed more demos than LinkedIn could book. One LinkedIn account can only contact a limited number of people a month. Even with 3, 4 or 5 accounts, the monthly volume can fall short of the target.
So we did not try to scale on LinkedIn. We made cold email the main engine and kept LinkedIn as a second strategy running beside it.
We built the trust assets, then two outbound tracks
The first month went into building the system. In order:
- A video sales letter. We created a new video sales letter (VSL) and added it to the startup's website, so a prospect who checked the company after a message found a clear explanation.
- LinkedIn profiles. We optimized the profiles that would send messages and prepared them for outbound.
- Cold email at scale. We set up 50 email accounts to send about 1,250 emails a day, every day, with 6-step sequences.
- LinkedIn plus warm email. Outreach on LinkedIn, followed by emails to people who had already seen the sender there.
Both tracks ran together from then on, because we needed more volume than LinkedIn could give.
Cold email carried the volume
| Item | Number |
|---|---|
| Email accounts | 50 |
| Emails per day | About 1,250 |
| Emails per account per day | About 25 |
| Cold email sequence | 6 steps |
| Build month | Month 1 |
| Live months | 3 |
Spreading 1,250 emails across 50 accounts keeps each one at about 25 a day. That is the per-mailbox limit we plan our cold email campaigns around.
684 demos in 4 months, 228 a month once live
| Result | Number |
|---|---|
| Demos booked | 684 in 4 months |
| Average per live month | 228 |
| Added to ARR | $1.31 million |
Because month 1 was the build, all 684 demos came in the three live months. When the numbers were reported, a lot of opportunities were still in the pipeline.
Two things were hard. Testing messaging, angles and sequences took a lot of time, and for a startup it is often the only way to find what works. Keeping weekly and monthly volume high took constant attention.
What this means for a SaaS or tech startup
If your demo target is bigger than your LinkedIn accounts can reach, cold email is the channel that carries it. That volume needs many inboxes on separate sending domains, each warmed up before it sends, and a clean list under all of them.
Decide who runs the demos before the volume arrives. 228 demos a month is about ten every working day.
This is not easy. It takes time, effort and resources, and it only pays off when paying customers already get value from the product. If they do not, more demos will just show you that sooner.
More results and next steps
- Outbound for SaaS and tech startups
- How we run cold email campaigns
- All case studies and pricing
Smirnov Consulting Group is a Prague-based B2B outbound lead generation agency that runs cold email and LinkedIn campaigns for B2B companies and books qualified sales calls.
