Subscribe here | Unsubscribe here | Dec 18 2025 | FIV #107

✅ Today's Checklist:

QUICK LINKS

🛠️ Frameworks. 1-hour guide that shows how businesses are using tactics like waitlists to generate $30k-300k MRR.

🤖 AI video production. A powerful AI combo to create realistic scenes.

⚙️ Vibe coding. The barrier to building mobile apps just disappeared. How he built an app in 19 minutes.

💡 Ideation. 9 prompts to force ChatGPT to expose your most profitable ideas.

🚀 Closing. 9 ways to get more clients.

How to Build a Warm Pipeline from Your "Dead" List

Most advice says to "clean your list" and forget the people who never open.

I think that's backwards.

If you're a founder, your so-called "dead" list might be the highest-upside asset you own—because expectations are low, sunk cost is already spent, and you can take swings you'd never try on your "precious" active list.

In this issue, I'll show you how I'd use AI to turn that cold, ignored list into a warm, segmented pipeline in a few focused passes—without being spammy, needy, or cringe.

Step 1: Treat your "dead" list like a lab, not a graveyard

First, why does this matter?

Instead of assuming "they're not interested," I frame it like this:

"We haven't given them a reason to care recently."

AI lets you figure out why in a systematic way—then respond at scale.

Step 2: Let AI tell you who's actually "dead"

Before sending anything, I want a rough diagnosis.

Export the list (CSV) from your ESP or CRM with whatever you've got: email, name, company, role, signup source, tags, last open, last click, last purchase, whatever.

Then I'll:

"You're a lifecycle marketer. Here's a sample of my cold list with columns for signup source, company, role, and last activity.

– Group these contacts into meaningful segments based on behavior and attributes.

– For each segment, guess why they might have gone quiet.

– Suggest 3 reactivation hypotheses for each segment."

What I'm looking for are patterns like:

Now your "dead" list isn't one blob. It's a set of hypothesis-driven segments you can treat differently.

Step 3: Design honest, segment-specific reactivation angles

Be very direct with cold subscribers.

Instead of "Hey, did you miss us?" energy, I go with something like:

"You signed up for X a while back. We haven't exactly earned your attention since then. That's on us. We've changed a few things. Here's what might now be useful for you…"

Use AI to help you find the right tone for each segment. For example:

"Based on this segment description and context, write 3 reactivation angles that:

– Acknowledge we dropped the ball

– Focus on what's changed (product, content, offers)

– Make it safe and easy to either re-engage or opt out."

You're not begging. You're inviting.

Step 4: Build 3–4 "micro-offers" that feel like a win

Instead of "just checking in," I want every reactivation email to contain a micro-offer—a tiny, high-value next step.

Examples that work well with cold lists:

Prompt:

"Given this segment [paste description] and this product [describe your offer], suggest 5 tiny, high-value micro-offers that:

– Take under 15 minutes for them to consume or respond to

– Are directly tied to the outcome our product creates

– Feel like a no-pressure win, even if they never buy."

Now instead of "we're back," you're saying: "I have something small and genuinely useful for you—right now."

Step 5: Let AI write a 3-email reactivation arc (per segment)

For each major segment, I like a simple, punchy 3-email sequence:

Feed it all to AI:

"You're a lifecycle copywriter. For this segment [description] and this micro-offer [describe], write a 3-email reactivation sequence that:

– Is written founder-to-founder

– Acknowledges we've been quiet

– Focuses on what's in it for them

– Ends each email with one simple action."

You can then tweak tone to match your voice, but AI gives you a strong, fast starting point.

Step 6: Add lightweight personalization without going creepy

You don't need 100% bespoke emails. But a little signal goes a long way.

If you have job titles, company names, or signup sources, tools like Clay, Apollo, or simple spreadsheets + ChatGPT can help you generate personalized snippets.

Example prompt:

"Create 10 short one-line openers for [Segment: SaaS founders who signed up for our pricing webinar but never engaged].

Each line should:

– Acknowledge they care about pricing

– Sound human and casual

– Avoid fake familiarity or flattery."

You can then merge those lines into your email as dynamic fields:

"Because you originally joined us from the pricing webinar, I thought you might like…"

It still feels like a broadcast, but it reads like it was written with them in mind.

Step 7: Turn replies into a warm, prioritized pipeline with AI

The goal isn't just opens; it's conversations.

When replies start coming in, you can paste each one into AI and ask:

"Summarize this reply in 2 sentences.

– What is this founder's main goal?

– What's blocking them?

– How warm are they on a 1–5 scale?

– Suggest the next best, low-friction step for me to offer."

You can use that summary to:

Suddenly, this isn't a "dead list." It's a filtered set of people who just told you, with their behavior and words, where they stand.

Step 8: Learn from the ones who still don't respond

Even silence is data.

After the main campaign, I like to send a very simple, one-question survey to the truly unresponsive:

"If you're open to sharing, which best describes why you haven't engaged?

A) No longer relevant

B) Too busy

C) We missed the mark on topics

D) Other (optional short answer)"

You can then paste the responses into AI:

"Analyze these short survey answers.

– Cluster them into themes

– Suggest 3 changes to our offers, content, or targeting that would better serve the right people and gracefully release the wrong ones."

That's reactivation and product and positioning research you got nearly free.

If you run this play, the upside isn't just a few reactivated leads.

You get:

You're not resuscitating a corpse.

You're discovering which parts of your market still have a pulse—and giving yourself a system to turn that into a warm, founder-ready pipeline.

While Everyone Fights on Meta and TikTok, the Smart Money's Moving Here

If the first half of this issue was about working smarter, this part is about spending smarter.

AppLovin just rebranded its ad platform as Axon, and it quietly reopened to new advertisers on October 1st after being completely closed since June.

Access is referral-only and we were given a small batch of invites—perfectly timed for Q4.

If you run ads, this is worth paying attention to: AppLovin reaches over 1B daily active users across mobile gaming, yet fewer than 1% of advertisers are on the platform—meaning there's still major arbitrage potential.

Early eCommerce brands are already seeing META-level performance and up to 20–30% incremental growth.

Plus, new advertisers who spend $5K get $5K in ad credits, and if you use our Founder IV referral code (see below), you'll unlock an extra $2.5K (that's $7.5K total in ad credits).

👉 Sign up here using referral code TJMMCI1HJG for an AppLovin demo**.**

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