Instantly AI Marketing Playbook: The Cold Email SaaS That Hit $5M ARR in 12 Months

Instantly AI is a cold email SaaS that defied conventional startup wisdom.

Built with no outside funding, no paid ads, and no Silicon Valley backing, the company skyrocketed from zero to $5 million in annual recurring revenue within just 12 months.

The Reddit Post That Sparked a $5M SaaS Empire

Raul Kaevand met his future co-founder on the r/cofounder subreddit.

They first collaborated on a travel app that quickly failed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the experience laid the groundwork for a critical pivot.

Raul—armed with a background in agency work and sales—proposed building a SaaS focused on automating cold outreach.

The idea originated from pain points he personally experienced while scaling a lead gen agency.

How a Lead Gen Agency Became a Scalable Software Business

Instantly was born out of necessity.

Raul’s agency, which generated between $30K and $50K per month, struggled with the high cost and complexity of managing email accounts and outreach tools.

They built a simple internal tool to streamline operations. That tool became Instantly.

The agency's own clients became its first 20 users.

When usage spiked and results became undeniable, the team shut down the profitable agency to double down on SaaS.

The Flat-Fee Pricing Model That Killed Per-Seat SaaS Fees

Most email automation tools, like Apollo and Snov.io, charge on a per-seat or per-email-account basis.

Instantly rejected that model.

Instead, they offered flat monthly pricing with unlimited email accounts.

This positioned them perfectly for agencies that needed to scale without skyrocketing costs.

Clients saved thousands per month and flocked to the platform.

This One Feature Boosted Email Open Rates Overnight

Email deliverability is the Achilles’ heel of cold outreach.

Instantly introduced a "Warmup" feature that allowed users to simulate real back-and-forth email threads with other Instantly users.

This warmed up new email accounts, drastically improving sender reputation and boosting inbox placement.

Better deliverability led to higher open and response rates, reinforcing the product’s core value.

Sending 5,000 Emails a Day to Sell the Tool That Sends Emails

Raul and the team used Instantly to sell Instantly. They scaled up cold outreach using over 80 domains and hundreds of inboxes.

Each inbox sent 30 emails per day, amounting to over 5,000 cold emails daily.

A sample message:

"We built a tool that helped us hit $100K MRR—want to see it?"

With a 1% positive reply rate and 25% close rate, a setup costing $225/month could generate $13K in MRR—a 60x ROI.

This approach was heavily influenced by a conversation Raul had with Alex Berman, who told him:

"If Instantly was mine, I'd just get more domains."

That simple advice became a pillar of their growth strategy.

$350K in Cash from a Risky AppSumo Launch

Despite AppSumo’s reputation for attracting low-LTV customers, Instantly launched there in February 2022.

Internally, there was some hesitation about the risks of offering lifetime deals.

But the potential exposure and user feedback won out.

They sold 3,491 lifetime deals, grossing $350K, with $69K net to reinvest.

More importantly, it created early user feedback, community buzz, and a base of thousands of users.

This move gave them early traction and helped validate the product.

Built a Facebook Group of 18K Users Without Ads

Instantly created a Facebook group titled "Cold Outreach Masterclass by Instantly."

They chose the name strategically—optimized for Facebook SEO with terms like "Masterclass" and "Cold Outreach."

The group became a hub for cold emailers.

Around 3,000 members came from the AppSumo launch.

The rest joined from organic traffic via Twitter, the website, and weekly webinars.

The founders personally moderated the group, replied to questions, and kept the discussion high-quality.

This hands-on engagement built user trust and long-term loyalty.

How They Crushed Churn by Coaching Users Before They Quit

Instantly didn’t wait for churn to happen—they anticipated it.

They tracked user inactivity. If someone hadn’t launched a campaign in 20 days, the team followed up.

They also introduced free onboarding help and full-service migrations from competing platforms.

They turned support into proactive enablement.

Churn dropped because users were succeeding sooner.

Twitter Threads, Cold Email Roasts, and SEO That Actually Works

Co-founders Raul Kaevand and Nils used Twitter to share case studies, playbooks, and wins.

They launched a YouTube series roasting bad cold emails and rewriting them live—an educational format that resonated.

Their blog published actionable articles on cold outreach, prospecting, and growth.

They also ran webinars, created onboarding flows, and answered FAQs with short videos.

All of this content doubled as SEO fuel and community onboarding.

Their approach also helped build a secondary venture, Salesfeed.io, which used many of the same cold outreach systems to grow its client base.

The Infrastructure Behind 80+ Email Accounts and Zero Spam Flags

To scale successfully, the team managed 80+ domains and inboxes.

They used Instantly’s own tools to warm them up.

Authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC were configured properly.

Replies from every account were routed to Unibox, a unified inbox.

The result: their emails hit the inbox—not spam—and response rates stayed high.

The Cold Email Campaign Formula They Used to Hit $100K MRR

Every campaign started with an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

They sourced leads using less common databases like BuiltWith and Crunchbase, not just Apollo.

Copy was brief and highly targeted.

They used specific language—regional slang, mission-driven messaging, and relevant terminology.

CTAs were light-touch:

"Mind if I send more info?"

Each campaign tested 10–30 variations.

Results were tracked across opens, replies, meetings, and deals closed.

The Follow-Up Strategy That Turned Replies into Revenue

When replies came in, the team didn’t rush into scheduling calls.

They often sent Loom videos, personalized for the lead’s use case.

Pricing was held back until after value was established.

They followed up across multiple emails—never pushy, always intentional.

The result was a smoother sales flow and higher conversion.

How They Closed Thousands of Deals Without Traditional Sales Calls

Initially, they ran live demos.

Over time, they replaced most with recorded walkthroughs and self-guided flows.

Calls were reserved for qualified leads: right budget, timeline, and fit.

Demos featured real inboxes and campaign data.

Case studies were shown first to establish trust.

They documented common objections and trained the team with those answers.

Many deals closed in one or two calls—or none at all.

Systems Over Hustle: How They Removed Themselves From Daily Ops

Once revenue stabilized, the founders built systems to run the business.

They created SOPs for everything—sales, onboarding, support, and outreach.

They hired developers to improve the product.

Launched an affiliate program to scale without cold outreach.

By documenting every process, they freed themselves to focus on strategy.

The Final Playbook: Everything a SaaS Founder Needs to Copy

Instantly AI’s growth wasn’t a fluke.

It was the product of tactical execution stacked over time.

• Start with services to fund your SaaS.

• Build a product that solves your pain.

• Use cold outreach for validation and growth.

• Share everything you learn in public.

• Replace yourself with systems.

Above all, be consistent.

Credits to Raul Kaevand and Tom Hunt for the insights.

Top Tweets of the day

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