Why we relaunched our bootstrapped startup ColdClicks

A few months ago, I was regularly sharing updates on the growth of our startup, ColdClicks—an AI-powered cold email personalization tool. For those unfamiliar, ColdClicks makes it easy to send personalized emails in bulk by creating unique, relevant messages for each recipient. It was a solid solution, and in just six weeks, we managed to hit $600 MRR. The traction looked promising, and things were moving in the right direction.

But despite the progress, we made the difficult decision to shut things down.

I know—shutting down a growing business might sound crazy. So, why did we do it?

Here are the main reasons:

• Pricing pushback: We were getting more and more feedback that our pricing wasn’t resonating with users.
• Changes in AI: The rapid evolution of AI meant that our product needed to be much more than what it started as.
• Lack of a competitive moat: We didn’t have enough to differentiate us from the competition in a meaningful way.

It was a tough call, but in the end, we went back to the drawing board. We reassessed, refined, and ultimately rebuilt. Now, I’m excited to announce that we’ve launched ColdClicks V2!

What’s New with ColdClicks V2?

If you follow our blog, you’ve probably seen the detailed breakdown of what’s changed, but here’s the quick version:

• Massive price reduction: Our opening lines are now as low as $0.01375 per lead, making us 10 times cheaper than many of the competing tools.
• Free and improved data enrichment: We now pull data from multiple providers, giving you a richer, more complete view of your prospects without additional costs.
• Enhanced personalization: Our AI has evolved to learn the tone and content style from your examples, so the emails feel even more authentic.
• Flow automations: You can now set up automations triggered by API or tools like Zapier and Make, streamlining your outreach workflows.

And the biggest game-changer? Our data moat. ColdClicks V2 now pulls over 50 actionable insights on your prospects and their companies from sources all across the web—completely free. This data supercharges our AI, making the personalization process smarter and more impactful. No other tool in the market offers this level of deep, data-driven personalization.

So, while shutting down the first version was tough, it led us to create a far superior product. If you're interested in exploring cold email to grow your start-up I created a step-by-step guide on how to get started.

It's an insane channel for growth, especially for bootstrapped startups as it's very low cost but completely scalable.

If you have any questions, or decide to give cold email a try let me know here! Or tweet me @ https://twitter.com/3Dperils I’d love to hear from you.