// Case study details

// Case study details

40 Booked Calls Per Month. Pre Product-Market Fit.

40 Booked Calls Per Month. Pre Product-Market Fit.

Net Zero is a UK-based sustainability and automation platform. Their product helps businesses manage and report carbon emissions, automate utility bill processing, and streamline ESG workflows. With regulatory pressure rising and ESG obligations tightening across industries, the commercial case for their platform was growing but the market was fragmented and buyer urgency was uneven. They came to us with an honest problem: three very different verticals, no clear ICP, no strong product-market fit, and several competing product bets. Rather than guess which market to go after, they needed a way to find out.

Net Zero is a UK-based sustainability and automation platform. Their product helps businesses manage and report carbon emissions, automate utility bill processing, and streamline ESG workflows. With regulatory pressure rising and ESG obligations tightening across industries, the commercial case for their platform was growing but the market was fragmented and buyer urgency was uneven. They came to us with an honest problem: three very different verticals, no clear ICP, no strong product-market fit, and several competing product bets. Rather than guess which market to go after, they needed a way to find out.

The Results

40+

Reel Views

Pre PMF

New Followers

7 weeks

New Followers

Trusted by 200+ founders

Video

The Challenge

Net Zero's internal outbound had produced 6 replies in three weeks. The copy was inconsistent, the data was low quality, and there was no clear signal about which vertical represented the strongest near-term commercial opportunity. Construction, utilities, and accounting each valued different parts of the platform. Construction cared about contract risk and future tender requirements. Utilities cared about reducing manual invoice processing costs. Accountants saw a potential new service line. None had shown repeatable traction. The risk of guessing wrong was real. Doubling down on the wrong vertical would burn time, budget, and credibility. They needed live market data — not assumptions — to make the call.

Our Strategy

A three-vertical signal-driven outbound system. Each vertical got its own ICP build, its own messaging framework, and its own personalisation logic — all designed to surface real buyer intent rather than just generate volume.

CONSTRUCTION  Contract Risk and Regulation

•  Hook: ESG reporting now directly impacts who wins future bids

•  Personalisation: Named clients, live project data, and tender commitments from company websites

•  Trigger: Future contract risk — firms need auditable carbon metrics to compete

•  Subject line style: Quick question re: your work on [PROJECT NAME]

UTILITIES  AI Automation Replacing Manual Invoice Teams

•  Hook: Cut 70-90% of invoice processing workload with AI

•  Personalisation: Hiring data for data-entry clerks, large invoice-processing team signals

•  Trigger: Labour cost reduction — these buyers care about operational costs, not ESG

•  Value prop: Replace the cost of an entire team without changing internal systems

ACCOUNTING  Partnership-Led ESG Expansion

•  Hook: Add an ESG reporting service to your practice with zero additional staff

•  Personalisation: Named clients, niche specialisms, partner bios

•  Trigger: Revenue expansion — a new service line with no headcount required

•  Value prop: Partner-led go-to-market with Zeroto10m doing the delivery

The GTM Company Flywheel

Net Zero is the most compelling proof of the flywheel as a discovery tool, not just a growth tool. They came to us without product-market fit across three different verticals. Their own outbound had produced 6 replies in three weeks. We used real market signals — regulatory pressure, hiring data, contract risk, invoice processing teams — to build three distinct messaging strategies and let live buyer behaviour tell us where the real demand was. Each reply, each booked call, each objection fed back into sharper positioning for the next wave. In 90 days, that loop produced 40 booked calls a month and a clear strategic answer on where to focus.

The Results

Email Performance

Metric

Result

Emails Sent

12,750

Leads Generated

5,790

Replies

196

Reply Rate

3.39%

Positive Replies

32

Positive Reply Rate

16.33%

Bounce Rate

1.02%

LinkedIn Performance

Metric

Result

Connections Sent

3,258

Connections Accepted

1,589

Acceptance Rate

48.8%

Messages Sent

1,227

Message Replies

397

Reply Rate

32.4%

What the Data Revealed

Construction: Highest engagement came from contract-risk framing with specific project references. Buying trigger is future tender requirements — ESG is not yet urgent but is becoming a commercial necessity.

Utilities: Highest urgency from cost-reduction and AI automation angles. These buyers care about labour costs, not ESG. The platform's invoice automation capability is the real hook.

Accounting: Strong partner interest. Revenue expansion without headcount is a compelling offer. Best suited to a partner-led go-to-market rather than direct sales.

The strategic outcome: Utilities ranked first for near-term ROI, Construction second driven by tender pressure, Accounting third as a partnership play. Net Zero went from guessing to knowing.

Category

Tech

Year

2024

Platforms

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