What's up, it's Zayd.

Last week I was scrolling LinkedIn and saw another post celebrating a "record year."

Great news, obviously.

But nobody ever shares the full picture. The months where growth stalled. The features that flopped. The "average" numbers that don't look good in a screenshot.

So here's everything from Valley's 2025. The wins, the struggles, and the metrics we're not supposed to talk about.

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Zayd’s Picks

My favorite finds of the week

• How to consistently go viral - Nikita Bier (link)

• Marketing playbook for $1m ARR in 12 months (link)

• 5 important learnings from the founder of Default (link)

• Sales is often a search of a side door/cracked window (link)

• How to generate demand on autopilot (link)

• Market segmentation insights for b2b startups (link)

The Numbers Everyone Posts vs. The Numbers That Actually Matter

Valley's 2025 looked phenomenal on paper. 1,800+ inbound demos. Zero ad spend. 4x MRR growth.

But here's what those highlight reels miss: We started the year slow as hell. Q1 and Q2 were rough. Growth was flat. Churn was eating our gains.

Everything turned around in Q4. But if you only saw our December numbers, you'd think we'd been crushing it all year.

That's the problem with startup metrics on LinkedIn. You see the summit, not the climb.

Product Performance: What 7.3 Million Prospects Taught Us

Here's what actually happened inside Valley this year:

Volume:

• 11,974 campaigns launched (5x last year)

• 7,365,039 prospects added

• That's 20,000+ new prospects added every single day

Performance:

• 8.3% average reply rate across all campaigns

• 1.75% interested response rate

• Translation: Reach 1,000 people/month, expect ~18 qualified leads if you're average

The industry average for cold email is 1.5-2% reply rate.

Valley's hitting 8.3%.

That's not because we're magically better than email. It's because LinkedIn is a fundamentally different channel. People check LinkedIn to network and do business. They check email to delete spam.

But here's the part nobody talks about: averages are misleading.

Our top 25% of users see 25-40% reply rates. Our average user? 8.3%.

Same product. Wildly different results.

Why? Three things:

1. Message quality (AI can't fix lazy thinking)

2. List quality (garbage in, garbage out)

3. Consistency (sporadic outreach gets sporadic results)

If your results suck, it's probably not the tool.

The Warm Outbound Breakthrough

We launched warm outbound features this year- targeting profile viewers, post engagers, and website visitors instead of cold lists.

The results weren't just better. They were a different category entirely:

Warm outbound campaigns:

• 2.3x higher reply rates

• 2.6x higher interested-response rates

• Consistently outperformed cold outreach across every segment

Here's why this matters:

Everyone's obsessed with personalization at scale. Better research. Better copy. Better targeting.

But we've been solving the wrong problem.

The issue isn't HOW you message someone. It's WHEN.

Warm outbound works because timing beats personalization. Someone just viewed your profile or engaged with your content. They're already thinking about your space.

That's the signal. That's when you reach out.

Cold outbound is spray and pray. Warm outbound is fishing where the fish are biting.

Signal-based warm outbound on LinkedIn is the highest-performing outreach motion today. Nothing else compares.

Growth Engine: How We Booked 2,600 Demos Without Paid Ads

Inbound (1,800 demos):

• One-person growth team (that's Shubh)

• Zero dollars spent on paid ads

• Grew organic search from 33.6K to 1.7M impressions

How?

Founder-led content. Period.

I post on LinkedIn 5-7x/week. Not motivational garbage. Not company updates. Tactical insights from building Valley.

People don't buy software from companies. They buy from people they trust.

Outbound (800 demos):

• 90% booked by Valley (yes, we use our own product)

• 2 people managing the entire engine

• Launched mid-year, already at hundreds of demos/month

If you're not using your own product to grow, you're missing the plot.

Self-Serve (800+ signups since September):

Note: Self-serve signups ≠ paying customers.

But it created a new segment of users who want to try before they buy. Different buying psychology. Different conversion rates. Different retention patterns.

Both can work. Both require different approaches.

A few areas we lacked -

1. Close rate on sales calls: We booked thousands of demos, but our closed-won rate was below the industry average. We’re implementing better systems to reduce no-shows, qualify better, and bring our close rates to well above industry standards.
   

2. Activation and onboarding: Since we added a self-serve version later this year, we realized that users would pay, sometimes be confused about where to start, and then optimize to see great results.
   
   We’re working on building a better onboarding experience using improved product UI and customer support.

Interesting Patterns We Noticed

Most signups happened on Wednesdays.

No idea why. But if you're launching a campaign, maybe start mid-week.

We cut churn significantly from last year.

Healthy ARPU. No single customer dominates our MRR. This is what sustainable growth looks like.

Lead gen agencies became our highest NRR segment (100%+).

They start with a few seats. Land a new client. Buy more Valley seats. Repeat.

Perfect expansion motion. No enterprise sales cycle. No security reviews. Just value driving more value.

We landed some big names: Bolt.new, UiPath, Confluent, Nagarro.

Great for social proof. But the agencies paying $400/month that expand to 50 seats? That's the real business.

What Actually Moved the Needle

If I had to do 2025 over, here's what I'd focus on:

1. Get warm outbound to market faster

We knew this was the unlock. Should have shipped it in Q1, not Q3. Cost us 6 months of growth.

2. Founder content from day one

Started posting consistently in early 2025. Should have started in 2023. Two years of compounding content missed.

3. Hire for the motion, not the milestone

We hired people thinking about where we'd be in 12 months. Should have hired for where we were in month 2.

4. Track leading indicators, not lagging

We obsessed over MRR. Should have been watching activation rates, time-to-first-campaign, messages-per-week.

By the time MRR moves, you're already behind.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Valley grew 4x this year. We're proud of that.

But it wasn't steady growth. It was survival, iteration, and finally figuring out what works.

Q1-Q2 were rough. We questioned positioning. Changed ICP. Rebuilt features. Watched competitors raise massive rounds while we bootstrapped.

Q4 saved the year.

We also hit two huge revenue milestones this year.

How I Can Help?

Let me book sales calls for you while you're reading deodorant scent descriptions.

I built Valley to be your automated SDR and empower AEs. Get started today and watch your calendar fill up with qualified leads.

How can we work together 🏔️

1. See more of Valley’s messaging examples, feel free to roast them:

   https://coolmessagebro.com/

2. Generate more demos for your company using LinkedIn: https://meetings.hubspot.com/zayd-from-valley/tryvalley
   

3. Become a Valley partner and get 20% recurring commission for every user you bring in: https://withvalley.notion.site/valley-affiliate-partner-program