I've noticed quite a few people asking how to start outbound when money's tight. After running campaigns for clients, I've put together a minimum valuable outreach (MVO) approach that works. Here's how I'd do it if I had only $150 and a clear target audience.

1. Solve the lead problem
Leads are expensive - $300+ for 10k names. Skip paid lists. Use free public directories instead. Ask Claude: "what are the 15 most popular free company directories in [your niche] similar to Clutch?" You'll find businesses not even listed on typical B2B databases.

Universal B2B goldmines:

Manta
Yelp for Business
Bloomberg/Reuters company profiles
Owler
SaaSHub + AlternativeTo
Sortlist, The Manifest, DesignRush, GoodFirms
Agency Spotter, Semrush Agency Partners
StackShare, Peerlist Launchpad
Uneed, Indie Hackers, etc.

Once you have those URLs, scrape each page using EasyScraper or InstantDataScraper extensions. Free or cheap.

2. Solve the copywriting gap
AI can write solid copy if you feed it enough data. Paste your scraped CSV into Claude with a prompt: for each domain, find what they sell, target audience, size, priorities (hiring signals, new products, blog posts). Tier them: A = perfect fit, B = possible, C = not fit. Then take tier A companies and dig deeper: testimonials, hiring, funding, pain indicators. Ask for a one-sentence cold email angle connecting a real detail to your offer.

Feed all the JSON back and cluster companies by shared patterns. Write one template per cluster, not one generic template. If it still sounds generic, rewrite in your voice using the data you've gathered.

3. Solve the tools stack
Don't overspend. Here's the optimal low-cost stack for 30k emails/month (~$140 total):

Plusvibe: cheapest sequencer (sending, warmup, reply management)
MillionVerifier: cheapest email verification
Maildeck: cheapest mailbox provider
Porkbun: cheapest domain registrar

4. Solve deliverability

Google Workspace: best baseline. 18-22 cold sends/inbox/day. Warm up 15 days min (20-25 recommended) at 20-25 emails/day targeting 30-35% reply rate, +2-3/day ramp. Max 5 inboxes per domain.
Outlook: budget volume. 3-5 cold sends/inbox/day, warm up 5-7 days min (10-14 ideal), 100 inboxes per domain. No links, no tracking, no ESP matching. Upgrade to Premium for +50% volume.
Private SMTP: buffer only, never primary. 11-14 sends/inbox/day, 3-4 week warmup. Delivers 35-50% worse than Google. Use on dedicated IP and treat burned inboxes as replaceable cost. Never use shared SMTP pools.

That's everything I know about starting outbound from scratch and keeping costs down. Anyone else got a better approach for newbies?

One reply noted that scraping directories is a grind if you're after partners instead of clients - they recommended tools to automate finding signals from social posts. Another person pointed out manual verification still takes time. Also, a commenter asked where I actually source the leads - the directory scraping is the primary method. Plusvibe got a shout-out as a solid affordable option.