How Jalasoft added $250,000 in ARR with LinkedIn Outbound
"You’re making me look good."
Challenge
Twenty years of referral-driven growth left Jalasoft without a reliable top of funnel
Jalasoft builds and places nearshore software engineering teams for US companies, and it runs its own university to train them. It grew from six employees to roughly 1,500 in twenty years, with about a hundred clients on the books. Almost every one of them arrived the same way: through existing client growth or a referral.
Jalasoft wanted a more predictable way to create new opportunities. Greg Holbrow, Jalasoft's CRO, wanted each seller generating 5 qualified discovery calls per month. Instead, the entire team combined was producing less than that.
Jalasoft had already tried other solutions. Purchased contact lists went nowhere. Then a lead generation agency spent two hours learning exactly who Jalasoft sells to, only to return with a target list that did not resemble its actual buyers. Greg canceled the contract midway through.
LinkedIn was the obvious next step because it's that place that companies turn to when they are looking to build software engineering teams & hire talent.
"It's a real thing that we've never really had much of a top of funnel. If I can get the people on the phone who need to hire engineers, we have a really good shot. It's just a matter of getting the people on the phone."
Solution
Uptown built a LinkedIn outbound channel targeting engineering leaders responsible for bringing in outside talent.
The campaign ran through Alex Bohrt’s LinkedIn profile, so every conversation started with a real person at Jalasoft.
Uptown targeted VPs of Engineering, CTOs, and Engineering Directors at US software companies that could realistically bring on a team of five or more. It gave Jalasoft a direct path to the buyers its referral network was not consistently reaching.
The messaging centered on what actually separates Jalasoft from a typical staffing vendor: its company-owned university, blended teams of senior engineers and recent graduates, alignment with US working hours, and long engineer tenure.
As the market responded, Uptown continuously refined the targeting, positioning, pricing language, and follow-up strategy. Uptown managed every reply that came back, answered the questions and objections that followed, and converted interested prospects into booked meetings.
Uptown worked with Jalasoft to:
- Prioritize engineering decision-makers who were actively posting on LinkedIn and more likely to see and engage with the outreach
- Build the campaign around Jalasoft’s strongest differentiators instead of positioning it as another nearshore staffing provider
- Manage every reply and converted the interested ones into booked calls
"If we search for prospects who are actually posting on LinkedIn, we should have better results in acceptance rates and response rates, because they are actively working on LinkedIn. It makes total sense."
Results
Jalasoft added $250,000 in ARR with LinkedIn outbound.
The engineering leaders Jalasoft had struggled to reach started answering.
The campaign generated 86 positive replies from VPs of Engineering, CTOs, and Engineering Directors. In Jalasoft’s business, one strong conversation can turn into a team of engineers that remains with the client for years.
Two of those early conversations became clients.
The results included:
- $250,000 in new annual recurring revenue
- 86 positive replies from engineering leaders at US software companies
- A consistent channel to reach VP & C-Level engineering leaders, a demographic Jalasoft had struggled with in the past.
Those initial placements also created room for expansion. Jalasoft’s model is built to grow within successful accounts, and its largest existing client had expanded from five engineers to fifty in just ten months.
"It has been a hard year in terms of new clients for Jalasoft, so we're happy that we could close deals from LinkedIn."
-Martina Barreneche, Account Manager at Jalasoft
