Meet the people behind the campaigns

This week’s Forge Expert is Mateusz Sekta, Founder and CEO of Vanderbuild, a GTM engineering agency. He finished second in the world at the first Clay Cup.

In this edition, Mateusz breaks down a campaign he used to test interest in GTM Engineering courses, understand what the market wanted and see what came from those conversations.

Why does outbound get six weeks when SEO gets years?

Nobody expects SEO to pay off in a month.

Outbound often gets a few weeks, a meeting target and a verdict.

I think that is too narrow.

Someone who does not buy today can still give you useful feedback, become a partner, refer someone or come back when the timing is right.

1. Pick the job before writing the campaign

We were looking at GTM Engineering courses.

Before selling anything, we wanted answers to three questions:

• Is there real interest?

• Where is the market today?

• What are people actually looking for?

That meant the campaign had to start conversations first and book meetings second.

If you are testing a new idea, decide what you need to learn before you write the campaign.

2. Use Outbound to test the market

Here is how the campaign performed.

From August 3 to September 21, 2026:

• 257 people contacted

• 80% connection acceptance rate

• 563 messages sent

• 97 replies

• 37.7% reply rate

If you are testing a new offer, read the replies as closely as you count the meetings.

Look for repeated questions, objections and problems. That tells you what people care about before you take the offer further.

3. What came from the replies

The replies helped us understand what the market wanted.

They also led to potential partners for our next business line and gave us an audience we could segment and keep nurturing.

Want to talk outbound with Mateusz?