How I actually build lead lists without buying garbage databases

Been in the web data space for a while and this comes up constantly with SaaS founders. Everyone wants the "10,000 verified emails" shortcut.

Here's the problem - purchased lists are stale the moment you buy them. People change jobs, emails bounce, and that data was scraped once then resold to 200 other people hammering the same inboxes. Sub 1% response rates and a torched domain reputation is what you get.

What actually works is building from public signals. Job postings tell you what tools a company uses and what problems they need solved. GitHub shows their stack. LinkedIn company pages show growth. Product Hunt tells you who just shipped something and probably needs adjacent tooling. None of this is secret.

I automated the collection - pipelines that pull job postings mentioning specific technologies, cross-reference company size, flag ICP matches. Took a day to build, runs on its own.

200 leads where you know the stack, recent hires, and growth stage will outperform 5000 random emails every time. The founders winning at outbound can tell you exactly why they're reaching out to each company on their list.