Pump.co, a Y Combinator-backed cloud cost optimization startup, started with no outbound cold email infrastructure and a novice GTM engineer leading the effort. Using Smartlead, they rapidly built a scalable outbound sales system, sending over 130,000 emails monthly and generating close to $200K in revenue within the first month.
Claire Hardesty is the founding GTM engineer of Pump.co, which is a San Francisco-based startup helping companies manage and reduce their cloud expenses. Their typical customer profile includes SaaS companies with 11-50 employees, often in Series A funding rounds, experiencing rapid growth and rising cloud bills.Â
When their head of growth operated as a contractor, Pump.co lacked foundational infrastructure for outbound email campaigns.
Out of college with no prior outbound experience, their GTM engineering lead was tasked with building this function from scratch alongside a small team.Â
They quickly realized the complexities of modern outbound sales stacks, including handling domain management, cold email routing, and integrations with enrichment and CRM tools.
Pump.co chose Smartlead for its intuitive user interface and powerful automation capabilities, finding it especially accessible for users with limited technical background. Key elements of their setup included:
The user highlighted several differentiators that made Smartlead essential to Pump.co’s outbound success:
Critical for quick onboarding and ongoing management by non-experts
Immediate chat responses and root cause troubleshooting prevented prolonged downtimes
Visibility into account status, domain health, and lead funnel ensured no leads slipped through
Spintax and easy editing allowed flexible, personalized campaigns without complexity
Worked well with Clay, Zapmail, Heyreach, and other tools for a multi-channel outbound approach
Pump.co continues to deepen its use of Smartlead and explore additional channels like SMS and Twitter outreach to further enhance engagement as they scale.
By partnering with Smartlead, Pump.co transformed from having zero outbound infrastructure to a high-volume, revenue-generating sales machine in record time. The accessible platform empowered a new grad marketer with no cold email experience to build, optimize, and manage a complex outbound system driving significant business impact.Â
This case exemplifies how startups in growth phases can leverage Smartlead to build effective outbound execution from the ground up confidently.
Well, if Pump.co can do it, so can you. Sign up for Smartlead’s 14-days free trial to see how you can do the same.
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Founder, StackOptimise
Smartlead's combination of automation, unlimited inboxes, and easy campaign management has completely transformed how we run cold email campaigns.
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Founder, Cold Email Hackers
We have about 15 companies and we use Smartlead for all of them.
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One of the things I love about using Smartlead is the deliverability feature. If they landed in the bounce or spam folders, we could resolve this quickly.
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I want to continue to use Smartlead to make operations more seamless - the plan is to bring more clients here and build more SOPs.
Founder, FueltoFly
Smartlead listens to the agencies and customers and builds according to what people want, that has really made things easier for us.
Founder, OutboundSync
We build an infrastructure product, and OutboundSync communicates with Smartlead itself. I love the webhook and API. They're really well done and keep getting better.
Founder, Axoleads
With SmartDelivery, you can put all of that in the hands of the tool. It ensures your emails land in inboxes, and by running a simple test, you can see if you're hitting the mark.
Founder, Claygen
Deliverability is the cornerstone of cold email outreach. You could have the best email copy in the world, but if no one is seeing it, it's useless. I really love the feature where you can actually give client accesses to your clients.
Co-Founder, Cymate
I do not want to switch to another software. Pick a solution you trust, stick with it, and keep refining your copy.
CMO, Avalanche Capital
Managing large volumes of emails through multiple inboxes used to be a logistical nightmare. With Smartlead, the process is seamless. We book thousands of discovery calls through cold emails. These campaigns are generating leads at a scale we never thought possible.
Founder, Growth Engine X
We came for the unlimited inboxes, and we stayed for the API. 1.5M cold emails/month, 7,767+ inboxes managed.
Head of Community & Ecosystem, TxtCart
You cannot replace having 10,000 touches with potential clients. When you have that much distribution and reach, you really start to see incredible results. The simplicity of Smartlead made all the difference. It doesn't require you to be a technical wizard.
Founder, Hyperke
Smartlead has been a game-changer for us. It increased our appointment volume, improved ease of use, and offered valuable features. 80% increase in appointments/month, peak of 276 appointments in a single month.
Founder, Kinetyca
Smartlead has been our cold email backbone from day one. The platform evolves constantly, keeping pace with how deliverability and personalization need to work today. 21% overall reply rate, $175K in 4 months for multiple B2B clients.
Founder, Reachflow
Smartlead is centered around deliverability and constantly evolving. Their API is not like any other platform. Smartlead covers all our needs. The focus on core features like deliverability and API integration is unmatched.
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Our approach to crafting conversational emails led to reply rates that many of my peers thought were unattainable.
Co-Founder, letstrike
We've grown on zero capital, zero marketing, purely cold emailing - and that's the story we love to tell. The best approach is no approach if you can't handle domain meltdown. The second best is something like Smartlead that's built from the ground up for deliverability at scale.
Founder, Fenixtal
Smartlead's white-labeling and automation let us punch above our weight. The 12M euros sales potential? That's what happens when you combine human creativity with Smartlead's precision.
Co-Founder, Digital Creativs
Nine out of 10. Ninety percent of our clients are on Smartlead unless they come in with an existing setup. That's the default.
Co-Founder, BuildingReach
At the end of the day, you have to take a bet on one tool or another. It was a no-brainer taking that bet on Smartlead. We had to even turn down the volume of our marketing campaigns - Smartlead was capable of driving more volume than our sales team was able to fulfill.
Founder & MD, Prospectiv
Since starting the business in January of this year, we've already generated $200K in sales exclusively from cold email. Smartlead has been central to our operations and has exceeded our expectations.
Founder, Growthlynk
There's so much stuff built on top of it. I would be dead if I had to rebuild it with another tool. I can manage hundreds of senders easily. I can send hundreds of thousands of emails.
Founder, Corebits
The platform's HubSpot integration, real-time Slack updates, and advanced campaign customization have been game changers for our business and our clients'.
Founder, Apex Ascension
From day one, we've never used anything else.
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