170 cold emails. 0 replies. Here's the ICP mistake I made — and what finally worked.

I've been building Velor — an AI customer support agent for small B2B SaaS teams. The product works. Getting first customers has been harder.

Here's what I got wrong.

The mistake: targeting up-market

My original ICP was "Series A SaaS companies with 50+ employees." Made sense on paper — bigger budget, defined CS teams, clear ROI.

So I sent 170 cold emails to Head of CS roles at funded SaaS companies. Crafted the sequences. Personalized the openers. Zero replies.

Not a single one.

Why it failed

Funded companies at that size already have tooling. They have Zendesk contracts, Intercom deals, vendor review processes. My cold email was asking them to rip all that out.

The actual buyers — the ones with budget authority AND the pain — were much smaller. Founder-run. No CS headcount. The founder IS the support team.

What finally worked

I stopped emailing Head of CS and started thinking about who would respond to an unsolicited email from a solo founder.

Other solo founders.

Specifically: fintech and HR/payroll SaaS companies with 2-15 employees where the founder is drowning in support tickets. No CS team, no Intercom deal, no vendor procurement process.

Messaged a few of them directly. Got a trial customer within a week.

The ICP reframe

Wrong: "Series A SaaS, 50+ employees, CS team in place"
Right: "Pre-Series A, founder-run, 2-15 people, $500K-$2M ARR, support is eating founder hours"

The difference: the second ICP actually replies to cold outreach. They don't have a procurement process. The founder can just say yes.

Takeaway

If you're getting zero replies, the problem probably isn't your copy. It's who you're emailing. Funded companies with CS teams are hard to sell into cold. Founder-run companies drowning in support tickets are desperate for help.

Find the desperate ones first.

Has anyone else made a similar ICP mistake early on? Would love to hear how you course-corrected.