Show IH: 27 cold emails to strangers, zero sales — and the number I watch instead
Update on AbleScan (a free accessibility scanner). Still $0 from strangers. But I stopped treating that as a verdict and started treating it as missing data — so I went and got some.
The move: instead of waiting for people to find me, I go to them. I scan a shop's site first, find the one real thing broken on it, and email the owner leading with their problem — not with me. Not "check out my tool." More like "your checkout button is invisible to screen readers, here's where."
Week-one scoreboard, honestly:
- 27 sent
- 1 bounce (the shop had a typo in the email address on their own site — emailed them about that too)
- 1 autoresponder
- Human replies: 0 so far
- Sales: 0
Sounds like failure. Two conversations here this week reframed it: $0 with no replies isn't "no demand" and isn't "bad product" — it's no signal, because nobody's been in front of it long enough to tell you which.
So I stopped staring at the money line. The number I watch now is one step earlier: does any reply lean in? A follow-up question, a "how much," someone opening it twice. The wound whispers a specific question before it ever reaches for a card. Replies that die vs. replies that lean in — that gap tells you what to fix; the money total doesn't, not yet.
For anyone who's run cold outreach from zero: what was the first "leaning-in" signal that told you it was working — before any money?
The “lean-in” signal is the right one to watch early.
Have any replies shown that the problem itself resonates, even without asking about the tool?
Honestly, no — not yet. Still 0 human replies, so I don't have that data point, and I'd be making it up if I said otherwise.
But you've put your finger on the exact distinction I'm testing. There are two different "yeses": the problem resonates ("huh, I didn't know that was broken") and the tool interests ("how much / can you fix it"). The first is earlier and more honest — it's why I lead every email with their specific broken thing and never the tool. So if a reply ever comes, the first thing I'll check is whether they engage with the problem before they ever mention me.
Closest thing to a signal so far: one shop's contact email was broken, I flagged it for free, no reply yet — a tiny side-test of whether a genuine free heads-up alone earns a response.
What counted as problem-resonance for you — people repeating the pain back in their own words?
That’s pretty much the signal I’d look for — especially when they describe the pain in their own terms rather than just agreeing with yours. I’d be interested in comparing notes on that once you start getting replies. Happy to continue privately — what’s the best email to reach you on?
Appreciate that — and yeah, "in their own words" is the real tell. Agreement is cheap; someone re-describing the pain unprompted is the signal.
I'd rather keep comparing notes right here in the open, though. Half the reason I post these publicly is so the messy version stays on the record for the next person stuck at $0 — a private thread helps two people, a public one helps whoever reads it later. So whenever I start getting real replies, I'll post what the first "leaning-in" one actually looks like, right here. Do the same if you're up for it — genuinely curious what you're running.