If You're Still Waiting for That LinkedIn Reply, This Is For You

Hey builders.

This one is for you if you have an amazing idea, genuinely believe you can solve a real problem, and have seen roughly zero dollars for it so far.

First, credit where it is due: the fact that you are still in the fight is already more than most people manage. It is exhausting. I know, because I lived every one of the mistakes I am about to list.

The Three Mistakes I Made in a Row

When I started, my pattern was this:

1. I did not understand who my target audience was, or whose problem I was actually solving.
2. I built the product end to end before a single validation call.
3. I reached out to hundreds of people who did not have the specific pain I was trying to solve.

And when it was time to actually talk to a real person, I always found a reason to delay. "One more feature." "This part isn't polished enough yet." "Let me redo the landing page first."

My ego was running the company. Not because I was arrogant, but because I did not know how to run a sales call. I did not know who to reach out to. And delaying felt safer than finding out I was wrong.

The Uncomfortable Realization

Eventually I started actually researching the market. The truth was brutal.

I had no target audience. I had built something I thought people would use, but I had never exchanged a single real word with the person I was building it for. I did not come from their world. So what business did I have solving their problem?

Let's be honest. Most "AI-native" and "Agent-powered" tools shipped in 2026 start with AI and Agents in the copy because we do not actually know what problem we are solving. The prefix does not rescue the pitch.

The world is moving fast. Incumbents are losing ground because they cannot adapt quickly enough. That is the opportunity. But it still comes back to one question: how do you actually reach the people you want to sell to?

I Tried Cold Everything

I wanted to talk to VPs of Sales. Sales team leads. Individual reps. Anyone who could tell me whether my idea had a pulse.

So I entered the world of cold emails and thousand-LinkedIn-message campaigns, praying for a reply.

Here is the truth: even after a thousand messages, almost nobody responds. The people I was trying to reach get sales pitches every single day. Their inboxes are mass graves. LinkedIn notifications are noise.

If you are in a go-to-market role reading this, you already know. It is not that you are rude. It is that you cannot physically respond to every cold pitch and still do your actual job.

The Gap Nobody Talks About

Now that we can all ship software in a week, writing code is the cheap part. Finding the right person to validate with, price against, and eventually sell to? That has gotten harder, not easier.

So the question that eventually broke my brain was this:

What if I could just book a conversation with someone who actually has the problem, and pay them for their time?

Why It Has to Be Paid

The obvious counter-question from the other side is: why would they get on the call?

The answer is payment. Their time is worth something. The more senior the person, the higher the rate. A senior leader charges around $200 a conversation. Mid-level operators start around $150.

But payment alone would create a worse problem: people taking calls for the money and nothing else. So the system is built with guardrails:

• Each Insider has a hard cap on how many calls they can take in a period. Nobody runs this as a side hustle.
• After every session, both sides review each other. Bad actors drop out fast.
• Every profile is reviewed manually before approval. Not everyone gets in right away, and that is on purpose.

The goal is to cut down the first round of cold outreach, reach people who are genuinely open to a real conversation, and occasionally turn one of those conversations into your first real customer.

How It Works

• Signup is free on both sides.
• Payment only happens when both sides agree to the call.
• Built for B2B founders who are tired of praying for replies to LinkedIn DMs and cold emails.
• Every profile is reviewed by hand. Not everyone gets through. We are allergic to spam, dormant profiles, and time-wasters.

Who Can Join

Anyone with an idea.

Who Gets Prioritized First

Founder side: clean website, active on LinkedIn, real conviction about the problem you are solving.

Insider side: real and active LinkedIn profile, and a personal onboarding call with our team.

The Hard Truth

If you are still praying for a reply to your thousandth cold email, the problem is not your copy. The channel is dead for this purpose.

Book one real conversation with someone who actually owns the problem. See what happens next.

Talk to an Insider →