Field Notes /field-notes
Field Notes
Essays from running outbound experiments on real client pipelines. Specific, occasionally wrong, written down so the next campaign starts further along.
Pinned By Joe
Cold outbound is an experiment platform, and most teams don't have one
When teams say they 'test outbound,' they usually mean they swap two subject lines and pick the one with more opens. Useful, but not the thing that moves the floor.
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- 22 May 2026
The cold email moat is a context graph, not a prompt
Most teams treat AI outbound as a prompt-engineering problem. The actual compounding asset is the typed context graph underneath, and most teams don't have one.
- 21 May 2026
Why your AI cold emails sound AI (and what actually fixes it)
AI emails don't sound AI because of the model. They sound AI because of three structural failures the prompt can't reach.