Uplane
Julius Körfgen built Uplane, software that automates the manual creation of ads, after first closing customers through cold LinkedIn outreach and discovery calls. He sold before writing code, then built a working demo in one week. Uplane reportedly reached $1M ARR in about six months and now charges a fixed fee plus a share of ad spend.
Julius Körfgen left the work of building ten thousand ads by hand to build Uplane, software that automates that process. He sold to his first customers before writing a line of code.
- •Framing cold outreach as learning about a problem, rather than pitching, got prospects to share candid problems they would not have revealed in a sales conversation.
- •Requiring a paid commitment before building filtered out polite interest and forced a real test of demand.
- •Tying pricing to a share of ad spend aligned Uplane's revenue with customer results, which made the sales pitch easier to make.
- •Fast response times gave a small team an edge over slower incumbent agencies, which matters in a market where buyers value speed.
- •Building a working demo within one week, while keeping it honest rather than fake, gave prospects tangible proof that converted into customers.
- 1.Identify a workflow you or others have done manually at scale, such as creating ads, and talk to people who do it daily.
- 2.Send cold LinkedIn messages that present yourself as exploring a problem and ask a few questions, rather than pitching a product.
- 3.End each discovery call with a specific commitment to return within a set time, such as a week, with a proposed solution.
- 4.Ask for payment before building anything, even a small amount, to confirm the business case is real.
- 5.Build a functional demo quickly that solves the core problem for the prospect, then iterate with paying customers.
- 6.Price around an outcome you can measure, such as a fixed fee plus a share of the results the customer cares about.
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