If you’re a founder, freelancer, or small team doing your own outbound — you don’t need a $20,000 stack to generate leads.
You need a simple, effective toolset that helps you:
Find good-fit prospects
Write messages that convert
Track and follow up
Here are the tools I’m using or recommending to clients in 2025 — all tested, founder-friendly, and lean.
For: Finding leads + enrichment
âś… Massive B2B database
âś… Great filters for job titles, tech stack, funding
âś… Exports clean, validated emails
Pro tip: Use it to build your first 50-person list based on your ICP.
For: LinkedIn scraping + outreach automation
âś… Extract LinkedIn profiles, event attendees, commenters
âś… Automate connection requests or messages
âś… Integrates with Sheets, Notion, CRMs
Pro tip: Scrape followers of your competitors or similar products.
For: Automated prospecting workflows
âś… No-code builder for scraping, enriching, and triggering outreach
âś… Pulls from Apollo, LinkedIn, Clearbit, and more
âś… Connects to email tools and CRMs
Pro tip: Set up a workflow to find new hires at startups — then auto-personalize messages.
For: Lead list tracking (yes, still)
âś… Lightweight
âś… Fast to update
âś… Easy to hand off to a VA or teammate
Pro tip: Include columns for “ICP Match,” “Custom Hook,” and “Last Contacted.”
For: Email verification
âś… Prevents bounce rates and spam flags
âś… Super cheap for peace of mind
âś… Drag-and-drop email lists
Pro tip: Run verification before every cold email batch.
Tools are just multipliers. The real work is defining who you’re selling to, what you’re saying, and why it matters to them.
That’s why I built the Lead Generation Templates Kit:
Message prompts
Vendor list
Lead tracker
ICP guide
SOP for getting started
It’s what I’d use today if I were building my first 50 leads from scratch.
#leadgen #b2bsales #coldemail #outbound #founders #startupgrowth