making it shorter made it worse
(he went from a wall to invisible)
A founder DM’ed me last month after reading one of my newsletters.
Said he’d already tried to fix his outreach twice.
The first version was a wall. Four paragraphs. His whole background, 3 case studies, a pricing breakdown, and a calendar link. All in message one.
He sent 100 of those. 2 replies. Both said “thanks, not right now.”
So he did what everyone tells you to do. He made it shorter.
The second version was 2 sentences:
“Hey [name], saw your company is growing. Would love to connect.”
He sent 150 of those. 8 replies, mostly wanting to know who he was and why he was reaching out to them. All of them went nowhere.
He went from feeding a baby with a firehose to sounding like the last 40 messages they’d already deleted.
Both versions had the same problem.
I see this constantly. Not just with him, but with almost every founder who sends their own outreach or hands it to a setter without testing it first.
You’re either saying too much and burying the one line that would have gotten a reply, or saying too little and giving them nothing to reply to.
The fix isn’t simply shorter or longer. It’s knowing which line is the signal and building everything around it.
Here’s a quick test you can run on your last 5 opening messages right now. Takes about 3 minutes:
1️⃣ Pull up your last 5 opening messages.
The ones you actually sent. Not ones that only live in a doc.
2️⃣ For each one, count the asks.
How many things are you asking them to do or think about? More than 1 = firehose. You’re splitting their attention before they’ve decided to care.
3️⃣ Now remove your name and your company from the message.
Read it as a stranger. Would you know why you’re getting this message? No = ghost. You blended in with everyone else.
4️⃣ Read it one more time.
Is there a question the prospect could answer in under 10 seconds without doing any work? No = no reply path. You made it hard to respond, so they didn’t.
If you’re firehose on 3 or more:
Your best line is buried inside a wall. It’s in there. You just surrounded it with 4 sentences that diluted it.
If you’re ghost on 3 or more:
You sound like a template. The prospect has no reason to believe this message was meant for them specifically.
If you’re both on different messages:
Your sequence has no consistent signal. You’re swinging between extremes because you haven’t found the line that works and committed to it.
That test shows you WHICH side you’re on.
But it won’t show you which specific line is the signal and which ones are killing it.
That’s what the Outreach Teardown does.
You send me your sequence or a few conversations that dead-ended.
I tear into it and send you back a recorded walkthrough within 48 hours.
Every leak named, every fix explained.
2 spots left this week.
$297. If I don’t find at least 3 things leaking your replies, every dollar back.
~Artia
P.S. If after the teardown you want me to rebuild the whole thing... new opener, new follow-ups, reply handlers, the full flow from first message to booked call... your $297 rolls in.