God, I remember being exactly where you are now. that uncertainty is brutal when you're pouring hours into outreach and hearing nothing back.
For most software businesses, cold calling rarely moves the needle unless you've got a massive team hammering the phones day in, day out. Email is more scalable, sure, but honestly? you're lucky to see 1-3% response rates unless you get surgical with targeting.
What shifted things for me was ditching the spray-and-pray approach. Instead of blasting 500 generic emails, I'd spend my time on 20-30 prospects who actually fit our ideal customer profile. Find a real hook - they posted about a pain point we solve, hired for a role that signals a need, expanded into a new market - and reference that specifically. It makes people feel seen.
On the company structure thing: absolutely set up a proper business entity and a domain. it's not expensive and it makes a world of difference for credibility. Emailing from a Gmail address as "just some person" made it ten times harder to get taken seriously.
One thing that honestly changed everything was adding personalised video to my outreach. A 30-second recording where I mention their company by name and a specific challenge - response rates shot up. People can tell when you've actually done the homework versus copy-paste volume.
what kind of businesses are you targeting? Have you nailed down your ideal customer profile yet?
