Solutions
Startups need a first sales motion that works before they hire into it. Scaleups need more pipeline than their current team can produce. Both can hand the top of the funnel to senior callers in Sydney: target lists, phone calls, email and LinkedIn follow-up and qualified meetings in your calendar, while your team runs the meetings and closes.
Quick answer
Different problems, the same first step: a working motion with real calls behind it.
You have early customers, usually won by the founders, and no one whose job is to find the next ones. You need to learn which segment, message and buyer convert, and you need meetings while you learn. What you get is pipeline, plus weekly written reports on the segments that responded, the openers that worked and the objections you will hear.
Founders still doing the prospectingYou have a sales team and a motion that works, but not enough qualified meetings to hit the next target. Hiring SDRs means recruitment, ramp and management before any extra pipeline appears. We add a phone-first outbound channel alongside your team, into a new segment, a new region or the accounts your team never gets to.
Scale outbound without hiringOutbound amplifies a working offer. It does not create one.
Not sure where you sit? Read when early stage startups should start outbound.
Three ways to start outbound. Each has a place, and many companies use more than one.
| Founder-led outbound | First in-house SDR | Outsourced team (Nousu) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first calls | Whenever the founder has time | After recruiting and onboarding | 2 weeks from sign-off |
| Ramp | None, but limited hours | 3.0 months on average, per The Bridge Group's 2025 research | Senior callers from the first call |
| Management load | The founder's own time | Hiring, coaching and call reviews | A weekly report and review with us |
| Commitment | None | Salary, on-costs and notice | 3-month initial term, then rolling monthly |
| If it doesn't work | Founder time lost | Managing an exit | Meeting floor from month two, with a credit per meeting below it |
| What you keep | Founder knowledge, often undocumented | One person's experience | Pipeline, plus weekly written reports on what worked |
| Cost | Founder time | Salary plus on-costs | Starting at $7,000 a month |
Ramp figure: The Bridge Group, SDR Models, Motions & Metrics: 2025 Research Report.
The full comparison is in Nousu vs an in-house SDR. If you have no outbound function at all, start with you don't have an SDR team yet.
Less than most founders think. A good partner helps shape all of it in week one.
First 90 days
What happens
Week 1. At kickoff we agree the profile, the buying triggers, the messaging and what counts as a qualified meeting.
You get
A written brief.
What happens
Weeks 1 to 2. We build and verify the list, find direct dials and wash numbers against the Do Not Call Register.
You get
An approved list.
What happens
From week 3. Senior callers start calling 2 weeks from sign-off, with email and LinkedIn follow-up between calls.
You get
First conversations with your buyers.
What happens
Weeks 3 to 8. Meetings are qualified against your criteria and booked into your calendar. Openers, segments and lists are tuned every week.
You get
Meetings your team can run.
What happens
Weeks 9 to 13. The campaign runs at a steady pace, about 8 qualified meetings a month for most clients, within a range of 6 to 20. The meeting floor applies from month two.
You get
A day 90 decision: continue, expand or change.
The week-by-week detail, including what your side has to do, is in the first 90 days of an outsourced SDR engagement. If you would rather run it yourself, here is how to build B2B sales pipeline in 90 days.
Many scaleups use outbound to test a market before they hire there.
A focused campaign tells you whether the segment responds, which message lands and what a qualified meeting looks like, before you commit to local headcount. See expanding into a new market.
Two anonymised engagements from our case studies, with the figures as published.
3 months engagement · 20 meetings per month · $720K pipeline
Read the HR software case study6 months engagement · 8 meetings per month · $2.3M pipeline
Read the logistics case studyFAQ
What founders and sales leaders ask before they outsource outbound.
Written by Harry Constant, Founder, Nousu Collective.
Book a 30-minute call. Tell us your stage, your buyers and what the next quarter needs, and we will map what a campaign would look like.
Starting at $7,000 a month. Exact fee quoted after a 30-minute call.
