Rob Liu

How we built ContactOut to 8 figures in revenue. The Most Actionable Startup Course Ever with screen shares, step by step tactics, and case studies with 1 million+ views More actionable than YC (Y Combinator) Startup School =) Check it out below 👇 youtube.com/playlist?list=…

Tracking traffic is important, but not all traffic converts. But did you know that 70% of pages don’t get traffic? It's not just about getting indexed; it's about which pages bring results. In our experience, 70% of our programmatic SEO pages don’t bring in any traffic. So, we’ve learned to deindex or redirect underperforming pages to preserve our indexing budget. Beyond traffic, we need to know if the traffic converts. For example, 'Katy Perry email' might drive clicks but won’t convert well for a B2B contact tool like ContactOut. So, we track keywords that lead to paying customers and optimize our strategy based on purchasing intent. The lesson? Index smartly, track conversion, and refine your strategy for long-term success. Want more startup tactics? Check out my past posts and Youtube channel (search for 'Rob Liu Athena VC').

Link building can skyrocket your SEO rankings quickly. But only if you're doing it the right way. We've built over 800 backlinks by consistently reaching out to websites that mention us and asking for a link back. It's not rocket science, but it requires dedication and volume. We track each link, domain authority, and build date using a simple tracker. Here's our email script: "Hey, I noticed you mentioned us—would you kindly link to our site as well?" It's that straightforward. It's not always about fancy strategies but rather steady, persistent outreach. We also cross-promote, but only with legitimate sites that have traffic and aren't part of spammy link networks. Consistency + genuine outreach = long-term SEO growth.

Outsourcing your team can save you serious cash. But don’t assume lower cost means lower quality. We hired a 14-member team in the Philippines, each earning between $600 and $1,000/month. These talented people build 10 links per month per team member, personalized for each site. They were trained using resources like Ahrefs and Brian Dean's link-building courses. If you're looking to scale up, regions like Eastern Europe and South Africa are also great options. Here’s what I ask when hiring: "How would you write a pitch to get ContactOut included in Neil Patel’s blog?" It shows me how they think and approach tasks. What’s been your best strategy for scaling your team and keeping quality high?

Link building is the no. 1 way to rank in Google. But not all backlinks are created equal. While link building is covered extensively online, I’ve found some strategies that have really worked for ContactOut. One is finding sites that link to your competitors and asking them for a link. You can also offer your product for free in exchange for a review. Another option is a link exchange—some say Google frowns on this, but I’ve seen great results, especially with three-way exchanges, where one site promotes you and you promote another. Finally, search for brand mentions where your company is discussed but not linked, and ask those webmasters to add a link back to your site. These methods helped us build thousands of quality backlinks and significantly boost our Google rankings. How are you building your backlinks?

Backlinks are key to getting indexed by Google. But they aren't the only factor that matters. We often focus on backlinks, but there are several factors Google considers for indexing—user visits via Chrome, links in Gmail, and even Google Ads campaigns. While these may sound unproven or experimental, it's worth thinking creatively. Could running ads to boost Chrome user traffic help? What if you used platforms like Mechanical Turk or Microworkers to pay people small amounts to visit your site and add it to their favorites? These are ideas we haven’t fully tested at ContactOut, but it’s interesting to explore. In practice, we’ve stuck with the basics—links, sitemaps, and ensuring our pages provide value. But when you're aiming to get millions of pages indexed, experimenting outside the box could make the difference. What creative methods are you using to boost your indexing?

Getting your pages indexed by Google is the easy part. But getting millions of pages indexed? That’s where it gets tricky. When we first started at ContactOut, we submitted pages in bulk—half a million to a million at a time—to Google Search Console. While we have about 7.8 million pages indexed now, it wasn’t as simple as hitting "submit." Here are three key lessons we learned about indexing at scale: 1. Domain authority matters. It's not just about links. Google looks at user behavior, engagement, and the overall quality of your domain to determine how much trust it should give to your pages. 2. Keyword selection is critical. Popular names or terms like "Bill Gates email" have a better chance of getting indexed compared to random, obscure names that don't get searched often. 3. Internal linking helps. We structured our site with sitemaps and internal links to ensure every page had a pathway from the homepage and cross-links to related pages. Ready to scale your SEO efforts? Make sure you’ve got the right strategies in place for indexing, or you’ll be left wondering why your pages aren’t ranking.

Most people think scraping content is just about gathering data. But it's actually the foundation for creating valuable insights. It's not enough to simply scrape and repost content—you need to add value. At ContactOut, we took this a step further by analyzing data to generate meaningful insights that help our users. For example, we used LinkedIn data to analyze profiles and create personality graphs, estimating communication skills, creativity, and even potential salary ranges based on job title and location. We didn’t stop there. By scraping job postings, we could also determine a company’s tech stack—just by identifying the technologies mentioned in their job listings. ZoomInfo, one of our competitors, leverages similar data to build org charts by analyzing job titles and roles on LinkedIn, determining who reports to whom. The key takeaway: simply scraping data is just the beginning. The real value comes when you analyze it, create unique insights, and deliver something that genuinely helps your users.

Most people think content creation is time-consuming and tedious. But what if you could automate it and still add value? Here’s a strategy my friend used to build a podcast search engine by scraping podcast episodes and transcripts. He created a site that highlights the most listened-to episodes for each podcast—thousands of pages now rank on Google, driving traffic to his site. Now, let’s take it a step further. You can scrape YouTube video transcripts and feed them into ChatGPT to rewrite the content as unique blog posts. This method works on a large scale, but of course, you’ll need to human-review the content to ensure it adds real value and passes as unique for SEO. For example, we scraped LinkedIn profiles, fed them into ChatGPT, and generated personalized articles on industry leaders like Bill Gates. Not only is this a quick way to create content, but it also helps us stand out with unique, high-quality information that users (and Google) love. The trick is to ensure the content isn’t just a duplicate. Even if you automate it, it still needs to provide genuine value, or else Google will drop your rankings as users bounce.

Most startups fail because they build before validating. But you don’t need to spend months building something nobody wants. The trick is to start by generating data and pages programmatically. Here's how we did it at ContactOut to create millions of pages that drive significant traffic and revenue. Step one: Get the data. We bought pre-scraped data sets from services like CoreSignal and Kaggle. These datasets contain LinkedIn profiles, Crunchbase company data, and even flight tracking information. You can purchase entire scrapes of popular directories for a few thousand dollars up to six figures, depending on the source. Next, we used this data to create programmatic SEO pages, targeting high-value keywords—like famous people or companies. For example, we built pages for profiles like Bill Gates and other notable names that attract lots of searches. These pages drive massive traffic without needing to manually curate each one. If you’re just starting, you can scrape data yourself or hire experts through services like Upwork. But for us, it was more time-effective to let a professional scraping company handle it. By leveraging available data, you can quickly test whether your product or idea resonates with your target audience—without wasting months on development. Keep your experiments fast, gather insights, and pivot based on what you learn. Ready to get started? The key is to stop overbuilding and start validating with real data.

Ranking for high-competition keywords is overrated. You don’t need to target difficult keywords to win in SEO. When you’re targeting millions of keywords, like we do at ContactOut, keyword difficulty becomes irrelevant. We’re not focusing on a few highly competitive keywords. Instead, we take a broad approach—targeting millions of pages and letting the volume and diversity of keywords work for us. Take email finder, for example. The top-ranking pages on Google have only a few thousand pages in total. Meanwhile, our competitors, with millions of pages—like RocketReach and Apollo—don’t rank for high-competition keywords. Why? Their authority is spread too thin across all those pages. The truth is, if you’re targeting millions of keywords, you won’t rank for the competitive ones right away. But that’s not the point. We’re playing the long game. We build breadth, not just depth. So, how can you apply this method? Start by generating a massive list of potential keywords. We used common names for our person + email search strategy. You can also check large directory sites like Crunchbase for popular business names or Indeed for professions. In the world of SEO, sometimes less competition equals more results. Don’t just chase the hard-to-rank keywords—cast a wider net and watch your traffic soar.

Finding high-traffic keywords isn’t enough to win SEO. Most people stop at finding high-volume search terms— but there’s so much more to it. At ContactOut, we didn’t just target generic keywords like “email” or “Yahoo email.” We got specific. We started with person name + email modifiers, but then we took it further. First, we compiled lists of the most common first and last names and combined them to get millions of full names. Then, we ran them through Ahrefs to find which names had the highest search traffic—like “James Smith email.” But we didn’t stop there. We scraped LinkedIn to see who had the most followers—people like Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Why? Because if they have a lot of followers, they likely have a lot of people searching for their emails. We also checked Ahrefs to identify the LinkedIn profiles with the most SEO traffic and analyzed which social media profiles, like Facebook and Twitter, were pulling in search traffic. Finally, we looked at competitors like Rocketreach to see what keywords they were targeting—there’s no shame in learning from your competition! You can start with high-traffic modifiers, but if you want to dominate SEO, you need to dig deeper and innovate on what others are doing.

SEO drives millions of visitors, but here's the twist. Most people don't know how to scale SEO into a revenue-generating machine. At Contact Out, we drive over 1 million monthly visitors through programmatic SEO, contributing eight figures to our revenue. This strategy isn't just about getting traffic—it's about building it at scale. Let me show you how. We built 7 million pages targeting person name + email searches. These pages generate millions in traffic, just like Canva's pages for templates or Airbnb's location-based vacation rental pages. Start with smart keyword research: a key term (like "email") and a modifier (like "Elon Musk"). But here's the trick: not all traffic converts. Focus on keywords that lead to sign-ups or sales. For example, Airbnb avoids advertising "New York hotels" because it doesn't convert for them. Tools like Ahrefs give more precise search volume than Google's Keyword Tool. By combining clickstream data with Google's numbers, we see real insights into what users want. Ready to unlock massive growth through SEO? Let’s build something big. Visit athena.vc to learn more, and let’s accelerate your startup’s success.

Finding a mentor is easier than you think. But building a long-term relationship is the real challenge. When I first spoke to Doug Hall, the first sales hire at Glassdoor, I asked specific, actionable questions. - How did he create sales collateral? - What metrics did he track? - How did he train new reps? I kept digging deeper: - “Show me your sales scripts,” - “What were your compensation plans?” That’s how you get the most out of a mentor session. After the session, how do you keep the relationship going? Simple. Be thankful. Say, “I got a lot out of this session, would you be open to mentoring me once a month?” Offer to pay for their time (even if they decline). With time, I built up a “personal board of directors” in every area: growth, sales, product, and life—people like Santosh, who helped build ZoomInfo, and Doug, who eventually joined me full-time as Head of Sales. It all starts with asking the right questions and offering value. Who’s on your personal board of directors?

"Who do you turn to for business mentorship?" Most people overlook this question, but it’s crucial. Whenever I start a new business, I break down my plan into key areas: product, hiring, marketing, and sales. Then, I find mentors who’ve succeeded in each of those areas before. Whether it’s someone who built a product like mine, hired in a similar geography, or executed marketing in the right channels, they’ve walked the path I’m on now. I connected with Doug Hall, who was the first sales hire at Glassdoor and VP of sales at one of my competitors. The insights he shared on the sales process were invaluable. Beyond business, I reach out to experts I admire—authors, podcast guests, and anyone who has done something I’m learning about. Before a mentorship session, I always read their content, listen to their interviews, and prepare intelligent, specific questions. I avoid asking them to solve my problems directly because they won’t have the context, but they can provide valuable lessons from their past experience. For example, Santosh, who helped build ZoomInfo, shared how they sourced phone number data by crowd-sourcing email signatures from sales reps’ inboxes. That’s a piece of advice I wouldn’t have known without asking, and we implemented a similar approach at Contact Out. So, don't reinvent the wheel. Build on the knowledge of those who’ve done it before, ask specific questions, and apply the lessons where they fit. Who’s the next person you’ll reach out to for mentorship?

Everyone thinks mentorship is out of reach unless you pay. But you can offer value without money. One of the best ways to get a mentor’s attention? Help them promote their personal brand. Here’s an example: I emailed the head of recruiting at McKinsey and offered her a 10-minute interview for an audience of over 1 million people. It’s a win-win—I got valuable insights, and she got to expand her brand. Another approach is to ask for expert opinions. I’ve used this to get advice from authors like Adam Grant and James Archer by simply asking for their thoughts on a topic for my blog. It helps them build their brand, and it creates free content for you. By offering something valuable, you build relationships—and that’s how mentorship happens.

Everyone thinks millionaire mentors are out of reach. But they’re more accessible than you think. When I was building ContactOut, I reached out to mentors like James Clear and Santosh Sharan—people who helped grow multi-billion-dollar companies. How? Simple: I offered money, made a specific request, and showed I valued their time. Many mentors, even millionaires, are open to helping if you legitimize your ask. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, agreed to a consultation for $500, and the insights were worth far more than that. With Santosh, I connected via an introduction and asked for specific advice about scaling sales in data tools—again, offering to pay for his time. Want to connect with mentors that can 10x your business? Just ask.

Most people think startups should succeed in 2-3 years. But the truth is, success takes 10 years or more. Y Combinator advises aiming for 5-7% growth per week, but that’s not always realistic. At ContactOut, we didn’t grow for months, even years, and then suddenly grew 10x. The key is to set goals, learn from what doesn’t work, and keep testing. Every week, ask: What’s the highest impact thing I can do to grow my business with the least effort? The biggest mistake I see? Giving up after 2-3 years. It takes 10 years to become an expert in anything—medicine, law, and yes, entrepreneurship. I don’t know anyone who’s stuck with a startup for 10 years and isn’t making a million in profit. Perseverance is half the battle. Are you willing to stick it out? Keep pushing, and success will follow.

Most startups think big tests take months to complete. But the truth is, the best tests can be done in a week. At ContactOut, we break everything down into weekly experiments. Every Monday, the team posts their previous week's goals, what they learned, and their plans for the next week. The goal is to learn something new every week—improving our product, refining our process, and avoiding wasting time on things that don't work. For example, we recently tested an AI email writer that uses ChatGPT to draft personalized emails based on LinkedIn profiles. We’re constantly improving our sales pipeline and refining our product features. The result? Continuous growth without getting stuck in long cycles. Want to grow your startup faster? Test, learn, repeat.

Building a startup takes time—but you don’t have to build everything at once. In fact, you shouldn’t. Start with one product line, one feature, or even white-label an existing solution. Amazon only sold books before becoming the “everything store.” Zapier began with a single integration, and Airalo resells mobile data with a white-label provider. By focusing on one small thing first, you can validate demand and get to market faster. Take ContactOut, for example. We could’ve launched much quicker by aggregating and reselling competitor data instead of building everything from scratch. SpaceX’s first move? Elon tried to buy rockets from Russia before deciding to build his own. The lesson? Build quickly, test fast, and avoid spending time on things people don’t want.