Solo founder building niche B2B software, cold email stats look decent, but need a reality check on my metrics and next steps
Hey everyone,
I am a solo founder bootstrapping a vertical B2B software startup for a very niche industry. We are a couple of months out from our official launch, but I have started early outreach. Since my market is tightly defined, I already have direct access to business emails and phone numbers, so I didn't have to buy a sketchy list or scrape blindly.
I just finished running my first cold email campaign to test the messaging. Here are the exact numbers:
\* Delivery Rate: \~97%
\* Open Rate: \~37%
\* Click-Through Rate: \~14.86%
\* Unsubscribe Rate: \~1.5%
The call to action was to get early access / join the waitlist. Out of that first blast, I managed to get 1 enterprise employer to actually sign up and join the waitlist.
I’m prepping my second email campaign to go out to the same list this week, but since I’m doing this completely solo without a co-founder or marketing team to bounce ideas off of, I’m trying to figure out how to interpret these numbers.
For context on the sequence: the first email announced that the software exists and is coming soon. The upcoming second email shifts focus entirely to how the software solves their specific operational bottlenecks.
For those of you experienced in B2B outbound:
- Are a 37% open rate and a \~14.86% CTR actually decent for a cold vertical B2B campaign, or am I misreading the signal?
- Landing a single enterprise sign-up on blast #1 is that a reasonable baseline conversion, or a sign the funnel needs a tighter hook before email #2 drops?
- What do you think about the angle of shifting the second email directly to solving operational bottlenecks after the initial announcement? Any tips on how to structure it without fatiguing a small, niche list?
Appreciate any blunt feedback.