Startup Sales Stack: What Got OneThirtyFive to $50k/Month in Year One
Left: April 2024 | Right: December 2024
Why May 20th Matters
May 20th, 2024 will always be a special day in OneThirtyFive’s history. It’s not when I locked in the onethirtyfive.com domain (that was 2018), nor when I left my full-time role to build a service company blending human outreach with AI (that was earlier in 2024). But it is the day we hired our first employee, Nate Simon, and brought on two summer interns, Henry Ahn and Anthony DiSisto. That day marks what I consider our official go-live.
Without those three, we wouldn’t have been able to welcome our first client, Lumos Scientific, and begin what’s now shaping up to be our own hockey-stick (135-degree) growth curve.
One Year Later
It feels great to sit here a year later and reflect. What began with one full-time employee plus two interns is now a team of eleven (Nate’s still here!), and our monthly revenue has grown from $0 to $50k. When we got started, covering salaries came straight out of pocket. A year later, we’re in a more stable place, now operating profitably and have recently expanded our office by 50% to keep up with growth. At this rate, we may need even more room by year two.
Instead of a cliché list of “lessons learned,” I want to share the tools that helped us grow, honed through a year of real experimentation. Whether you’re an early-stage founder, sales leader, or small business owner, I hope you find something valuable to apply to your own journey. We’re still a scrappy, bootstrapped startup, and while some of the links below are affiliate links, I’m only recommending tools we genuinely use and believe in.
The Stack
Software
Phone System with transcription capabilities - Dialpad
We started with Dialpad due to its free transcription and easy APIs. This let us auto-send transcripts to Google Docs and analyze them with ChatGPT. While we now use a different dialer for prospecting, Dialpad remains our office line.
Parallel Dialer - Koncert
We kicked off 2025 with Koncert and haven’t looked back. The tool is intuitive and the support team is excellent. It’s increased our outreach volume and client meeting rate significantly.
Email Sequencing - Instantly
No silver bullets here, cold email has been noisy over the past year. But Instantly's analytics are top-notch. The ability to see volume-based engagement (like "opened 23 times") helps us quickly ID semi-warm leads for call campaigns.
LinkedIn Sequencing - Dripify
I’ve been a Dripify fan since before I started OneThirtyFive as a way to get in front of a larger range of prospects. When we started up, I trialed a few others in case I was missing out on something but Dripify’s ease of use had me coming back. Fun fact: LinkedIn is our #2 meeting source, but phone remains our top-performing channel by a wide margin.
All-In-One Outbound - Lemlist
If we want to blend email + LinkedIn sequences, Lemlist is our strongest all-in-one platform.
Datasource for Email and LinkedIn + Signals - Apollo
Simple to use and ~1/30th of the cost of ZoomInfo. If they had a more affordable option for direct numbers it would be my sole data source option (see below for that one). They also offer a wide range of other tools like intent scoring, signal filtering, and website viewership analytics.
Datasource for Direct Numbers - Seamless
At 1k contacts pulled per day Seamless has been second to none for finding direct numbers at an affordable cost. While it’s not perfect, it gets the job done for us and the overall accuracy has hit the mark.
Job Posting for Early-Career Biz Dev Roles – Handshake & LinkedIn
While we haven’t found a clear winner between the two, Handshake and LinkedIn have consistently outperformed traditional job boards like Indeed, where applications tend to be more volume-driven than intentional. Handshake, in particular, has been valuable for attracting interns and recent graduates.
We’re always looking for self-motivated, early-career BDRs who want to grow with a fast-moving team. Learn more and apply here.
Hardware
Headset - Jabra Evolve2 65 Flex Wireless - $230
On the pricier side but these bad boys do the trick in our office especially in our open workspace, where noise cancellation is a must.
Desks - Claiks Electric Standing Desk - $99
Don’t let the affordable price fool you, these desks are sturdy and reliable.
Desk Chair - Mimoglad Modern Ergonomic Office Chair - $93
We tried a handful of chairs last summer and this came out as the winner. Easy to assemble and provides comfort for our team throughout the day.
Miscellaneous
Competitive Video Game - Baseball Stars 2
A 90s arcade classic that keeps the competitive spirit alive in our office.
Coffee - Cameron's Coffee Roasted Whole Bean Coffee, Breakfast Blend
We ran an office-wide blind taste test with a variety of coffee beans, and this one came out on top. Bonus: it also happens to be one of the most affordable options on the market.
Office Space (Cleveland, Ohio) - The Caxton Building
Affordable, downtown, and independently owned. Right next to Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage Arena. We love being here.
Outsourced Business Development Shop - OneThirtyFive
We practice what we preach - modern, AI-powered phone prospecting. If you're a startup or small business looking to scale your outbound, reach out out at kevin@onethirtyfive.com or DM me on LinkedIn.
Sales Candidate Screening - Rep2x
Born from our internal hiring process. Candidates role-play with AI to prove their skills before interviews. Now available to other companies and individuals looking to stand out. We’re still providing free trials to a handful of early adopters, reach out to claim yours.
Here’s to year two and beyond.
Special thanks to those that helped us get to our first anniversary: Nate Simon, Henry Ahn, Anthony DiSisto, Mitchell Dailey, Kaden Tong, Owain Crute, Evan McVay, Jeremy Hy, Lauren Devin, Sean Mulloy, Aaron Rucker, Sasha Gorbacheva, Lizzie Bruce, Gabe Othman, Kevin Doyle, Dr. Amar Desai, Chad Riley, Ryan Edgerly, Jacob Sheridan, Sean Weaver, Sarah Cannon, Joe Marino, John Schuler, Gerri Leon, Jack Greco, Dan Ringen, Dexter Bachelder, Andy Renk, Brendan Cullen, Jonathan Mokri, Jessica Prchlik, Jason Conway, Bob Stein, Chinwe Onyeagoro, Arthur Emma, Christian Mosley, Susan Gall, Tim Gall, Scott Stollwerk, Kory Rosenberg, Andrew Mayo, Vince Gerbec, Steve Struble, Emily Devin, Patrick Manfroni and Ben DeFranco, for watching my dog on a daily basis.
