How Alfie Built Prosp AI

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Maven Club is where serious builders go behind the scenes. Founders and GTM/Product leaders share the real playbooks and key learnings—stuff you won’t find on LinkedIn.

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Today’s feature: Alfie, co-founder of Prosp AI—a LinkedIn automation tool born from his years running a cold outreach agency. Frustrated by the inefficiencies of manual personalization and fragmented tools, Alfie shut down his agency and teamed up with a technical co-founder to build something better: AI-driven, hyper-personalized LinkedIn messaging with automated voice notes.

Since then, Prosp has grown fast—powered entirely by a GTM playbook that’s focused, scrappy, and extremely replicable.

Here’s how they did it—and what you can learn from their journey.

1. Great Startups Begin Where the Process Breaks

Before Prosp AI, Alfie was duct-taping together a LinkedIn outreach system using scraping tools, GPT prompts, and automation platforms like Expandi. It worked—but just barely.

The real turning point came when he met Yann, a technical founder building a more seamless way to generate live, personalized LinkedIn messages. Alfie saw the vision, shut down his agency, and went all in.

“We were getting traction from our messages, but it was a nightmare to maintain. I thought, there has to be a better way to do this.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• If you’ve already hacked together a manual process that works, you might be sitting on a product idea.
  

• Your pain is your moat—build from what frustrates you most.
  

• Look for areas where you’ve created unnatural scale through workarounds. Those are often goldmines.

2. Win by Doing What Others Won’t

Prosp didn’t just build another automation tool. They built one that could scrape live LinkedIn data (including posts and company info), feed it into AI, and output real, personalized messages and even automated voice notes.

This wasn't just about personalization—it was about showing up in someone's inbox with something truly relevant.

“Instead of saying ‘Hey Daniel, I work with marketers,’ we can say, ‘Hey, love what you’re building at Maven. Great idea bringing founders and GTM leaders together.’”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• In crowded spaces, the deepest product wins—not the loudest one.
  

• If every competitor is following the same script, change the format or rewrite the playbook.
  

• Consider adding emotional or sensory depth—like voice—to transactional workflows. It stands out.

3. Your ICP Is Discovered, Not Decided

Alfie didn’t find his ideal customer on day one. But after onboarding a variety of users, it became clear that agencies and outbound sales teams had the strongest product pull. These teams needed multi-account control, inbox reminders, and rotation features—things Prosp could deliver better than anyone.

“We refined our ICP by working with agencies. The more specific we got, the more excited they became about the tool.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• Start broad if needed—but don’t stay there. Let real usage and feedback shape your ICP.
  

• A single customer managing multiple accounts is worth 10x one-off users.
  

• Every feature request is a clue. Pay attention to who’s asking—and why.

4. Use the Product to Sell the Product

Every single early user of Prosp came from LinkedIn. And here’s the twist—they were brought in using Prosp itself.

By creating high-performing lead magnet posts and using the tool to reach out to engagers with AI-personalized voice notes, Alfie closed users without a traditional sales funnel.

“Every early user came from LinkedIn—through outreach done by Prosp itself. It made the sales cycle so simple.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• Your product can be your best sales rep if it can show value during the acquisition process.
  

• Don’t just say what your product can do—use it to do it.
  

• The closer your GTM strategy is to your product’s core function, the more cohesive your brand and experience will feel.

5. Teach First. Sell Later.

Prosp’s early growth wasn’t driven by ads or feature dumps. It came from content that taught people how to win—like how to write effective DMs or why voice notes increase replies.

Only after people saw the value did they ask: how are you doing this?

“Our lead magnets never pitch Prosp. They just show what’s working—and people want to know how we’re doing it.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• People don’t want more tools. They want better outcomes. Show them how to get there.
  

• Lead with frameworks and mental models. Let your product be the obvious next step.
  

• Value-first content builds trust—and trust converts.

6. Focus Like a Founder, Not a Marketer

Most early-stage founders try to do too much—email, Twitter, SEO, LinkedIn, outbound, ads.

Alfie didn’t. He focused 100% on LinkedIn—until it stopped scaling. Only then did he expand.

“There are only so many hours in the day. You have to force yourself to ignore everything else and double down on what’s working.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• One product. One message. One channel. That’s your early-stage playbook.
  

• Don’t diversify until you’ve fully extracted the value from your best-performing channel.
  

• Time is your scarcest resource. Focus is your leverage.

7. Price to Lower Friction—Then Win on Value

Prosp priced itself at $59/account, below most competitors. Not to undercut—but to get prospects in the door. Once inside, the value (AI, voice, inbox features) did the selling.

“We’re not competing on price. We’re using it to get people curious—then the features do the real work.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• Pricing isn’t just about profit. It’s part of your acquisition funnel.
  

• Use price to reduce risk for the buyer, then overdeliver.
  

• You don’t have to be the cheapest. But you do have to be the easiest to try.

8. Segment Your Messaging—Just Like Your Product

As Prosp scaled, one-size-fits-all messaging didn’t work. So Alfie created micro-content tailored to his top segments: solo founders vs. agencies.

“Instead of talking about DMs in general, we now post ‘how solo founders get replies’ or ‘how agencies scale to 10K messages.’ That’s what hits.”

What Founders Can Take Away:

• Speak to one person, not the crowd.
  

• Each segment has unique goals. Tell their story, not yours.
  

• The more tailored your content, the more it feels like a solution—not noise.

Final Thought: Simplicity Wins. Focus Compounds.

Alfie’s journey is a blueprint for early-stage traction:

• Build from pain
  

• Focus on one channel
  

• Let usage guide your ICP
  

• Use your product to prove its value
  

• Deliver value before you pitch
  

If you’re stuck trying to do too much at once, take a step back and ask: What’s already working—and how can I do more of just that?

Until next time,
Maven Club