I am no stranger to outbound sequencers. Years ago, when I ran a global HR startup and we were looking for new customers, I set up personalized campaigns in Apollo. More recently, when I built an outbound agency, we used Smartlead and Instantly—and wound up generating nearly $1B in pipeline for our clients. I have spent large stretches of my life in the existing outbound sequencers, building and testing campaigns. And if there is one emotion to describe how those parts of my life had felt, it would be this:
Utterly frustrated.
It's not that tools like tools like Smartlead and Instantly don't work. They do, kind of. But it's only a few minutes into using any of these tools that you start running into problems:
- They're slow. When you run lots of campaigns, things move at a glacial pace.
- They're buggy. Your most important campaigns often don't work as intended.
- The UI and UX is maze-like. Hard to navigate.
- When you have a problem, you often get sent to offshore, Level 1 support.
- They don't feel as though they're actually built for growth people to run campaigns at scale.
- They lack all the non-obvious features you wish a sequencer would have.
Running outbound in today's tools is a little like what it would feel like to drive around a racetrack in a Model T. So I started talking to other growth people, GTM engineers, and outbound experts—people like Eric Engoron, who helped build Clay and would later help me build the foundations of Za-zu.
Everyone was saying the same thing:
Today's tools are frustrating, but they're all we have.
They aren't anymore.
Za-zu is the outbound sequencer built for growth people
So many pages like this one just show you a feature comparison table. If you want to see that, then you can go here (Za-zu v. Smartlead) or here (Za-zu v. Instantly). We think the high-level differences are just as important, though. Read the list below. If you like what you see, you may want to try Za-zu.
- Our UI and UX are gorgeous. More importantly, they are clean. Simple.
- Our support team won't gaslight you. Instead, you'll be connected directly to a developer.
- Our product is lightning fast and it actually works—no laggy, buggy interface.
- We're built by people who love outbound (who worked at companies like Clay and Aurora).
- We believe that growth people, GTM engineers, should run outbound.
- We believe in defaults. That there
is a best experience for most users and that we should build it.
Anyone who has paid for software knows that there is a material benefit to the makers of the product being people who are like you. Who understand you. Who get it.
Our vision for the future of outbound is one where a small team of talented growth people—often called GTM engineers or growth ops—is running personalized campaigns at scale. SDRs and AEs, in this future, will do what humans are uniquely good at: getting on calls and closing people.
Downstream of this idea is the thesis that cold email is not a mysterious creative endeavor. It is a scientific project. It is for systems-minded, resourceful people. Outbound functions at companies and outbound agencies should look like a machine: create campaigns, test them rigorously, optimize, then rinse and repeat. No intuitions or gut feelings. Just raw data that drives revenue.
We are building Za-zu for a future where smart growth people are building, automating, and rigorously testing outbound campaigns. Where they are using a sequencer that they actually enjoy—a sequencer that enables them to execute their most ambitious ideas, instead of holding them back. If you are one of those people and you'd like access to Za-zu, you can
reach out to me here for early access.
