How Zevenue Got Its First Clients (Not Through Cold Email)

We got our first clients through Slack. Not cold email.

I find that ironic, given that we now run outbound systems for a living. But the origin of Zevenue had nothing to do with outbound. It started with failed software and a lot of free advice.

The Software Nobody Wanted

In 2020, I was building software. It was a B2B product that I was convinced would work. I spent months on it. I talked to some people, built features, talked to more people, built more features. The usual first-time founder loop.

Nobody wanted it.

That’s not entirely fair — a few people were politely interested. But “politely interested” doesn’t pay bills and it doesn’t validate a product. I didn’t have paying users, I didn’t have real traction, and I was running out of conviction that the product itself was the answer.

What I did have was a lot of time spent in founder communities. Slack groups, mostly. On Deck (ODF), a few others. I was in these communities partly to find users for my software, but what I actually ended up doing was answering questions. B2B growth questions. Outbound questions. “How do I get my first 10 customers?” questions.

I knew this stuff. I’d been an SDR and head of sales before starting the company. I’d lived the cold email grind. I understood deliverability, list building, messaging, and the mechanics of getting meetings from nothing. So when people asked questions, I gave detailed, useful answers.

The Pivot I Didn’t Plan

Two things I’d internalized from people like Gary Vee and Jordan Crawford: be extremely helpful and expect nothing in return. That sounds like a cliche, but the distinction matters. I wasn’t “being helpful” as a strategy to get clients. I was genuinely just answering questions because I knew the answers and I liked helping.

But something happened that I didn’t anticipate. People started messaging me directly. Not about my software — about growth. About outbound. About how to actually get pipeline moving.

And they didn’t just want advice. They wanted to pay for it.

The pattern was clear. The real value I had wasn’t my half-built software. It was my understanding of sales and modern GTM — the practical, operational knowledge of how outbound actually works. The communities had surfaced that value in a way that no amount of cold outreach to sell my SaaS product ever could have.

So I pivoted. I shut down the software and built Zevenue.

Four Rules for Communities

Every few months, a new community launches and the gold-rush mentality kicks in. People flood in looking for clients, looking for partnerships, looking for leads. Most of them flame out because they treat communities like a lead gen channel instead of what they actually are — rooms full of people trying to figure things out.

Here’s what actually works.

1. Be as helpful as you can

Answer questions you’re qualified to answer. Be specific. Don’t give vague “it depends” advice when you can give someone an actual playbook or a recommendation they can act on today. The bar in most communities is low — most responses are surface-level. Being genuinely helpful stands out because so few people do it.

This doesn’t mean writing a novel in response to every question. Sometimes it’s a two-sentence answer with a link to a resource. The point is to add real value, not to perform helpfulness.

2. Never pitch

The fastest way to destroy credibility in a community is to turn every conversation into a pitch. You know the people I’m talking about — every answer ends with “…and if you want help with this, my company does exactly this. DM me.” It’s transparent, it’s annoying, and people remember it.

If your advice is good, people will look at your profile. They’ll see what you do. They’ll reach out if they need it. You don’t have to sell. The work sells itself when the context is right.

3. Don’t expect anything back

This is the hardest one. You’ll answer dozens of questions and help plenty of people who never become clients, never refer you, never even say thank you. That has to be fine. If you’re keeping score, you’ll eventually stop helping the people who don’t look like leads, and the whole thing falls apart.

The moment community participation becomes a calculated ROI exercise, you start optimizing for the wrong things.

4. Ask for help when you need it

Communities are reciprocal. Don’t just be the person who gives advice — ask questions when you’re stuck. Share what you’re working on. Be honest about what you don’t know. This makes you a real member of the community instead of someone who shows up to dispense wisdom and disappear.

The truly great communities — like On Deck, which literally screens for helpfulness during their application process — are built on this foundation. People who genuinely want others to succeed. That’s not soft. It’s how networks compound.

The Lesson

Zevenue’s first clients came from relationships I built by being useful in rooms where people were trying to figure things out. No pitch deck. No outreach sequence. No funnel.

That doesn’t mean outbound doesn’t work — we’ve built our entire business around proving that it does. But the foundation of Zevenue wasn’t a go-to-market strategy. It was showing up in communities, giving away what I knew, and letting the work speak for itself.