2025-12-electrical-sub-owners-bay-area

# Campaign: Electrical Sub (20-500) Bay Area
**La Growth name:** Electrical Sub (20-500) Bay Area
**Audience:** SMB & MID - Electrical owners - San Fran
**Leads:** 240 | **Reply rate:** 4%

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## LinkedIn path (connection accepted)

### Step 1: DM #1 (after accept)
Hey {{firstname}}, thanks for connecting. I'm building a takeoff solution for commercial construction. It automatically ingests PDF blueprints and spits out light schedules with quantities and all electrical equipment that goes into the job. I'm purposefully going out to folks like yourself to validate my product approach and the problem space, acting as a soundbing board more than anything else.

Would you be open to call to a 15 minutes call and give me feedback on what I've got so far?


### Step 2: DM #2 (if no reply)
I'm now inviting a handful of people to try it out for a couple of weeks so they can experience it on their projects. What's a good email to send the invite to?


### Step 3: DM #3 (if no reply, no email)
You can also just send me a sample project at alexei@usevawn.com and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces.


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## Email path (accepted, has email)

### Step 4: Email #1
**Subject:** Building a takeoff tool for electrical suppliers
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm building a takeoff solution for commercial construction. It automatically ingests PDF blueprints and spits out light schedules with quantities and all electrical equipment that goes into the job. I'm purposefully going out to folks like yourself to validate my product approach and the problem space, acting as a soundbing board more than anything else.

Would you be open to call to a 15 minutes call and give me feedback on what I've got so far?

Alexei


---

## Email path (NOT accepted)

### Step 6: Email #1
**Subject:** Building a takeoff tool for electrical suppliers
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm building a takeoff solution for commercial construction. It automatically ingests PDF blueprints and spits out light schedules with quantities and all electrical equipment that goes into the job. I'm purposefully going out to folks like yourself to validate my product approach and the problem space, acting as a soundbing board more than anything else.

Would you be open to call to a 15 minutes call and give me feedback on what I've got so far?

Alexei


### Step 7: Email #2 (if no reply)
**Subject:**
I'm now inviting a handful of people to try it out for a couple of weeks so they can experience it on their projects. What's a good email to send the invite to?

Alexei


### Step 8: Email #3 (if no reply)
**Subject:**
You can also send me a sample project and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces.

Alexei

# Retro: 2025-12-electrical-sub-owners-bay-area

**Campaign:** Electrical Sub (20-500) Bay Area
**Audience:** SMB & MID - Electrical owners - San Fran
**Leads:** 240 | **Overall reply rate:** 4% (from La Growth header) / 0.8% from leads.csv (2 replies)

## Summary

Worst-performing campaign across all 7. Only 10 out of 240 connections accepted (4%), and only 2 replies — both negative. The core problem: **owners of small electrical subs don't engage with LinkedIn outbound.** 95% of connections stayed pending. The few who opened emails (13%) still didn't reply. This audience either isn't active on LinkedIn, doesn't respond to cold outreach, or both. Geographic targeting (Bay Area only) may have further limited the pool.

## Channel Metrics

| Metric | LinkedIn | Email |
|---|---|---|
| Contacted | 5 | 49 |
| New contacts / Received | 240 | 46 |
| Connection accepted / Opened | 10 (4%) | 32 (70%) |
| Replied | 0 (0%) | 2 (4%) |

Key insight: **LinkedIn was essentially dead** — 4% acceptance, 0 replies. Email had 70% open rate but only 2 replies (both negative). The audience reads emails but doesn't engage with cold outreach from unknown software founders.

## Reply Analysis

### Positive (interested) — 0 of 2

### Neutral (redirect) — 1 of 2
- **Owner @ Daniels Electric Power & Light** (San Jose): "I'm not a tradesperson, nor do I have any on site experience, so I'm probably not the best fit" — wrong targeting, this owner doesn't do field work

### Negative (not interested) — 1 of 2
- **Owner @ Gurries Electric** (Fremont): "Thanks, but I'm not interested." — clear rejection

## Content Analysis

**Positioning:** "I'm building a takeoff solution for commercial construction. It automatically ingests PDF blueprints and spits out light schedules with quantities and all electrical equipment."

**Issues:**
1. **No founder credibility upfront.** Unlike later campaigns that lead with "former EE and PlanGrid dev," this DM#1 jumps straight into the product pitch. The audience has no reason to trust or care.
2. **Generic "commercial construction" framing.** Doesn't speak specifically to electrical sub-contractor pain points. Later campaigns that named the specific trade ("div 26 jobs", "electrical gear BOMs") performed better.
3. **"Validate my product approach" framing.** Asking owners to be sounding boards — these are busy people running companies, not product advisors. Later campaigns shifted to "try it for free" or "get feedback on a demo" which performed better.
4. **"What's a good email to send the invite to?" (DM#2)** — asks for email from people who haven't even replied to DM#1. Too aggressive.

## Who Replied vs Who Didn't

**Repliers (2):** Both titled "Owner", both Bay Area, both small electrical companies. But neither was a good fit — one said they're not a tradesperson, the other simply wasn't interested.

**Non-repliers (238):**
- 154 titled "Owner" (64%), 18 "Business Owner", 9 "Company Owner", 5 "Owner/Operator"
- 95% never accepted the connection request
- Only 45 had "Construction" as their industry — many had no industry listed (LinkedIn profile not filled out)
- Only 10 had any industry data at all beyond Construction
- Very few had detailed LinkedIn bios — these are hands-on electricians, not LinkedIn power users

**Key finding:** Small electrical sub owners are not LinkedIn-active. They run their businesses, go to job sites, and don't engage with LinkedIn outreach. The 4% acceptance rate tells the whole story.

## Hypotheses for Low Performance

1. **Wrong channel for this persona.** Small business owners in trades are not LinkedIn-active. Phone, email from referrals, trade show networking, or industry forums (Mike Holt, Electrician Talk) would be more appropriate channels.
2. **Geographic constraint too tight.** Bay Area only = ~240 leads total, a finite pool. And Bay Area electrical contractors may skew toward residential/tech-sector work where takeoffs are less common.
3. **Owner ≠ estimator.** Owners of 20-500 employee subs delegate estimating. They're not personally doing takeoffs, so the product pitch doesn't resonate with their daily work. The later "estimator turned PM" campaign (13%) targeted the actual user, not the company owner.
4. **No credibility hook.** The message leads with "I'm building a takeoff solution" — no personal background, no social proof, no reason to engage. Later campaigns that opened with "former EE and PlanGrid dev" performed 3-5x better.
5. **Product-centric vs problem-centric.** Message describes what the product does, not what problem it solves for the owner. No mention of time savings, bid speed, or competitive advantage.

## Recommendations

1. **Don't target owners of electrical subs via LinkedIn cold outreach.** This audience doesn't engage. If targeting owners, use warm intros, referrals, or trade events.
2. **Target estimators and PMs instead of owners.** The `estimator-pm-active` (13%) and `estimating-services` (18%) campaigns show that the people who actually do takeoffs respond much better.
3. **Remove geographic constraints** unless specifically testing a local hypothesis. The Bay Area limitation cut the pool and didn't improve quality.
4. **Always lead with founder credibility.** "Former EE and PlanGrid dev" is a strong hook that later campaigns used effectively. It should be in the playbook as a standard opener element.
5. **Lead with the problem, not the product.** "Are takeoffs a bottleneck for your team?" beats "I'm building a takeoff solution."

## Proposed Playbook Updates

**Candidate universal learning (needs 2+ campaign confirmation):**
- "Always lead with founder credibility (former EE + PlanGrid dev)" — this campaign omitted it and was the worst performer; later campaigns that included it performed 3-5x better. Will validate against remaining campaign retros.
- "Target the actual user (estimator/PM), not the decision-maker (owner)" — owners don't engage; estimators do. Needs cross-campaign validation.

## Proposed Persona Updates

No persona doc exists. Recommend NOT creating one for "electrical sub owners" since this audience is not viable for LinkedIn outbound. Instead, note in the playbook that owners are a poor LinkedIn target.

No leads linked to this campaign yet.