u/ImpactInnovationLab

I'm building out cold outreach for a B2B biz. Solo for now, maybe 2 of us in a year. Done with the manual gmail + spreadsheets thing, it's already breaking and I haven't even hit volume yet.

I'm a heavy Claude user (have the Max plan for other stuff) so part of what I'm trying to do is actually leverage that for sales outreach too, not just have it sit there.

Here's what I've pieced together so far and my main questions:

1. CRM is the first call. Looking at folk premium ($48) vs attio standard ($34). Both modern, both have claude MCP integration. Folk is cheaper and has sequences built in. Attio has the first-party claude thing going on. Genuinely stuck here. Any thoughts?
2. For finding emails and sending I'm between apollo basic ($49) and lemlist multichannel ($87). Apollo has deeper filters from what I can tell. Lemlist has waterfall enrichment and people keep telling me their claude MCP is the best of any outreach tool right now. $40 difference adds up though. Any preference from anyone? Any other player out there? Seems expensive this part.
3. I might use a verification email tool like zerobounce or bouncer - not really sure if this part is needed actually. Seems to be about 15 a month.
4. For orchestrator, i'm skipping n8n/make/zapier for now. Feels like claude can orchestrate via the MCPs directly and I don't want another layer to maintain until I actually need it. Do I need it?

All in this lands me around $100-130/mo which I have no idea if it's reasonable or not...

Would love honest takes from people who've been through this! Thanks!

I'm building out cold outreach for a B2B biz. Solo for now, maybe 2 of us in a year. Done with the manual gmail + spreadsheets thing, it's already breaking and I haven't even hit volume yet.

I'm a heavy Claude user (have the Max plan for other stuff) so part of what I'm trying to do is actually leverage that for sales outreach too, not just have it sit there.

Here's what I've pieced together so far and my main questions:

1. CRM is the first call. Looking at folk premium ($48) vs attio standard ($34). Both modern, both have claude MCP integration. Folk is cheaper and has sequences built in. Attio has the first-party claude thing going on. Genuinely stuck here. Any thoughts?
2. For finding emails and sending I'm between apollo basic ($49) and lemlist multichannel ($87). Apollo has deeper filters from what I can tell. Lemlist has waterfall enrichment and people keep telling me their claude MCP is the best of any outreach tool right now. $40 difference adds up though. Any preference from anyone? Any other player out there? Seems expensive this part.
3. I might use a verification email tool like zerobounce or bouncer - not really sure if this part is needed actually. Seems to be about 15 a month.
4. For orchestrator, i'm skipping n8n/make/zapier for now. Feels like claude can orchestrate via the MCPs directly and I don't want another layer to maintain until I actually need it. Do I need it?

All in this lands me around $100-130/mo which I have no idea if it's reasonable or not...

Would love honest takes from people who've been through this! Thanks!

wife is doing her first tri soon. me and the kids (6 and 8) are setting up at multiple spots on the course with signs. they're going to be hand-drawn and slightly menacing.

so far we've got "never trust a fart" on the list, which is my favourite one! and they think it's hilarious!

what's your favorite triathlon/marathon sign? helping a couple of kids brainstorm here