Building a $25M outbound engine from scratch.
Atom29 — a copper wire processing operation connected to Copper Recycling Corp through its ownership — could process insulated copper wire at real margin, but had no way to source supply at scale. With less than $500 a month in tooling budget, I built the outbound system — lead sourcing, CRM automation, scripting, multi-channel outreach — and ran it until demand outpaced the business's ability to deploy capital.
Role
Operations & Revenue Systems
Industry
Scrap Materials
Timeline
12 Months
Region
U.S. East Coast
Starting point: A guarded, relationship-driven industry where sourcing happened through word of mouth. No pipeline, no CRM, no outbound infrastructure to build on.
Result
$25M
ARR
The Opportunity
While working on operations, I built the brand, visual identity, and company website. That proximity revealed an untapped opportunity: the processing capability was there, but no structured effort to turn it into a growth engine.
The company relied on existing relationships but had no system to expand beyond them. Nobody in the industry was running structured outbound. That was the opening.
The timing amplified the opportunity: copper had reached $5 per pound, meaning even marginal pricing improvements were worth real money to scrap yards. A transparent, high-volume buyer entering the market at that moment had a structural advantage — if someone built the system to reach them.
The market
Fragmented, opaque, relationship-driven. No centralized way to find or reach decision-makers at scale. Copper at $5/lb meant every yard was paying attention to pricing.
The capability
A processing facility with excess capacity and capital ready to deploy — separating copper from insulation at real margin.
The gap
No outbound system to connect the two. The company had capital and capacity but was waiting for supply to come to them.
The Outbound Engine
Lead sourcing → Multi-channel outreach → Qualification → Revenue
How It Got Built
I owned every part of the growth engine except the final executive close — strategy, systems, data, messaging, and execution. Built with tools I'd never used before, in an industry I had to learn from scratch.
Aggregated 7,000+ leads from public data
No existing database to work from. Aggregated thousands of scrap yard contacts across the East Coast, then segmented by size, material type, and estimated volume to prioritize outreach.
Built the outbound system from zero
Configured Close CRM as the central hub — pipeline stages, automation sequences, integrated dialer, and multi-channel cadences across phone, email, and SMS. Learned the platform from scratch and designed every workflow.
Learned the industry, wrote every script
Had to learn copper futures markets, grading terminology, and industry pricing — building my own reference guides to use between calls. Then wrote all cold emails, call scripts, and follow-up sequences, iterating until the messaging converted.
Ran high-volume, trust-first outreach
100+ calls per day in concentrated sprints across thousands of East Coast scrap yards. The pitch was straightforward: pricing tied to COMEX, clear grading standards, and honest explanations for every downgrade. In a market where yards expected to get lowballed, that clarity was disarming — and it converted.
Discovered consolidation leverage
Through conversations, I discovered that some players had already consolidated purchasing across hundreds of yards. Shifting to target these relationships alongside the yard-by-yard approach unlocked significantly larger contracts from a single conversation.
Qualified leads through to handoff
Managed full pipeline from first contact through qualification — confirming pricing, material readiness, and truckload volumes. Once accounts were locked in, warm handoffs directly to the CEO for final contract execution, logistics scheduling, and same-day wire transfer on pickup.
What Made It Work
Wire Processing Line
Automated separation · Grade #1 output
This is an industry where people get burned by close friends and family members. The tolerance for risk with new business partners is near zero — which meant leading with honesty wasn't just a strategy, it was the only way in.
Remembering people's names, following up without pressure, and offering genuinely fair pricing built relationships that compounded. Each converted account made the next one easier through referrals and trust.
Same-day payment on pickup
Wire transfer completed before the truck leaves. In an industry where yards routinely get stiffed or wait weeks, same-day payment closed more deals than any pitch.
Transparent pricing and grading
Pricing tied directly to COMEX with clear grading criteria. When a load got downgraded, yards heard exactly why. That honesty was so uncommon it became a competitive advantage on its own.
Data-driven iteration
Tracked conversion by script, segment, and region. Refined messaging and targeting based on what actually worked — not assumptions. Approached the pipeline like a product: measure, learn, improve.
Seeing the structure beneath the market
Recognizing the hidden consolidation in the market — and shifting strategy to target it — turned a yard-by-yard grind into a leverage game.
The Result
$25M
annual recurring revenue in 12 months
For context, I was originally hired to support the retail scrap yard operation, which was generating under $1M annually. The outbound engine I built targeted a separate line of business entirely — and produced 25x the revenue of the operation I was hired into.
No inherited accounts, no marketing-generated leads, no existing infrastructure. Every tool, script, and workflow was purpose-built.
The system worked so well the company hit its capital ceiling multiple times. They were acquiring so much material that working capital and processing capacity — not demand — became the bottleneck.
Proved that SaaS-style pipeline discipline — segmentation, conversion tracking, message iteration — can unlock massive value in traditional industries that have never seen it.
See more work
Nobody asked for a
$25M pipeline.
The opportunity wasn't in the job description — it came from paying attention, learning the market, and building toward what the business actually needed. That same instinct shapes how I approach product work.
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