RouteSafe targets staff engineers and engineering managers at 30–300-person SaaS shops deploying Next.js/Astro/Remix apps with active CMS-driven slug churn. The first 100 leads come from GitHub repos with active redirect lists, LinkedIn deploy-incident posts, and headless-CMS agency partners. The concierge offer is a free 48-hour manual route audit — we diff the last three deploys, deliver a broken-slug report and redirect stub, and use the findings to qualify design-partner candidates. Three signed design-partner LOIs in 60 days with at least one real caught slug proves the wedge; failure to reach that bar, or a false-positive rate above 10%, triggers a shelve decision.
1. Positioning
RouteSafe is the pre-merge route gate — not a post-deploy crawl. Recommended execution positioning: the only tool that annotates the PR introducing the break with the specific slugs that will 404, before the merge button lights up. One-sentence cold-outreach hook: 'RouteSafe posts a Checks annotation on every PR that will create a 404 — before the merge button lights up.'
2. ICP
30–300-person SaaS or headless-CMS-driven marketing shops in the US (UK/EU secondary). Buyer: Engineering Manager or VP Eng. User: Staff/Senior Engineer who merges PRs on a shared route tree. Stack signal: GitHub Actions + Next.js/Astro/Remix + Vercel/Netlify. Exclusions: pure backend APIs, internal tools, air-gapped GitLab, monolith deploy cycles >2 weeks.
3. Buyer persona
Alex — Staff Engineer at a 30–150-person SaaS shop — owns the deploy pipeline and has been paged twice for a broken slug from a CMS rename. She knows the post-deploy crawl is too late. She opens cold emails only when the first sentence names the exact pain she's lived. She responds to engineers writing to engineers: direct, technical, one testable claim.
4. Trigger events
Hot-lead triggers: a broken-slug post-deploy incident just happened; a CMS editor renamed a page without updating redirects; a framework migration orphaned legacy slugs; a post-mortem action item says 'add a CI check'; the team added a headless CMS and content editors now control URL paths; a deploy-reliability engineering role just posted.
5. Lead sources
Three channel types: (1) Direct outbound — GitHub public-repo search for Next.js/Astro repos with active redirect rules, cross-referenced to 30–300-person companies via Apollo/Clearbit; LinkedIn Sales Navigator for 'Staff Engineer' + deploy-incident posts. (2) Partner — headless-CMS agencies (Sanity/Contentful + Next.js), 20% rev-share referral. (3) Inbound/community — Vercel/Netlify forum threads on 404/redirects; Dev.to/Hashnode authors who wrote about slug pain; Twitter/X screen-recording threads.
6. First 100 lead list strategy
Pass 1 (40): GitHub search for Next.js/Astro/Remix repos with redirect rules + recent routing commits; resolve to company + staff engineer via Clearbit/Apollo. Pass 2 (35): LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Staff Engineers/EMs at 30–300-person SaaS who posted on CI/CD reliability in the last 90 days. Pass 3 (25): top Vercel/Netlify/Dev.to forum authors on 404/redirect threads — warm; DM on-platform first. Enrich all 100 with GitHub handle, stack, and deploy-incident signal.
7. Cold call script
Ring → 'Hey [name], this is [your name] from RouteSafe — quick. We build the pre-merge route gate for GitHub Actions — annotates the PR before merge with every slug going to 404. [Pause.] Saw [company] has an active redirects list in next.config — usually means the team's been burned once. [Let them answer.] Not selling on this call — just 10–15 minutes to understand how your team handles this today. Would you have time this week?'
8. Cold email script
Subject: the slug that'll 404 after your next deploy. 'Hi [name], We found [company]'s repo — you have [X] redirects in next.config. That list is usually a sign someone's been bitten by a rename that didn't make it in. RouteSafe is a GitHub Action that annotates the PR before merge with every route that will 404 — and generates the redirect stub in one click. No crawling source. 15 minutes to show you on a real PR? [Calendar link]'
9. LinkedIn / trade forum script
After engaging a deploy-incident post: 'Hey [name] — saw your post about [specific pain]. We're building RouteSafe: a GitHub Action that catches broken slugs in the PR before merge. No pitch — just mapping where the gap lives for teams your size. 10 minutes this week?' Forum: provide useful answer then 'This exact gap is what we built RouteSafe to catch — happy to share early access.'
10. Partnership outreach script
Target: headless-CMS agencies (Sanity/Contentful + Next.js, 2–15 person). Subject: 'referral arrangement — broken-slug CI gate for your clients.' Offer: 20% of first 12 months per referral that converts. No exclusivity, no minimum. Co-branded setup guide per client stack. Asks for a 20-minute call to confirm fit.
11. Discovery questions
12 questions: last slug-rename incident narrative; current pre-merge redirect check process; redirect-list ownership; CMS editor slug-rename frequency; time to trace 404 spike to commit; value of pre-merge annotation; existing merge-blocking Checks; internal approval path for new Check; pricing-reaction ($49 Solo vs $199 Team); design-partner fit (30-day feedback for first-year-at-cost); stack/CI provider; additional sign-off required.
12. Objection handling
Screaming Frog/Ahrefs → post-deploy not pre-merge, complementary; lychee → doesn't model slug renames, RouteSafe diffs the manifest; Too expensive → $20/repo to avoid one SEO incident; Not my decision → ask who owns Checks, offer one-pager to forward; Send me info → two-minute screen recording. Plus: too small, too big, security egress concern.
13. Offer test (concierge MVP)
Manual Route Audit: $0 for design partners, $299 one-time for others. Manually diff last three deploys against production route manifest, identify every orphaned slug, deliver redirects.json stub + gap summary within 48 hours of read-only repo access. Tests repo-access willingness before polished product and whether the gap is visible enough to pay to fix.
14. Pricing test
Solo $49/mo (1 repo, no EM sign-off needed); Team $199/mo (10 repos, below $250 procurement threshold); Growth $499/mo (50 repos + SOC 2 evidence packet); Enterprise custom $1,500–$3,000+/mo (self-hosted + SSO + SLA, phase-4 only). Track which tier first 50 visitors click — no 'most popular' badge initially.
15. Landing page CTA test
Three variants sequential: (1) 'Apply to design-partner cohort' — win ≥5% of unique visitors; (2) 'Run a free route audit on your repo' — concierge framing, win ≥8% + 30% schedule call; (3) 'Add RouteSafe in 4 lines' — self-serve install, win ≥12% click-through + 20% complete install. Sequential not split — product surface changes in 60 days.
16. Design partner criteria
Must-haves: ≥50-path public route tree with CMS-controlled slugs; GitHub Actions CI; merge to main within 14 days; async feedback 60 days; paid by day 90 ($99/mo design-partner rate OK); logo listing permitted; no exclusivity. Preferred: Next.js/Astro + Vercel/Netlify + Sanity/Contentful. Disqualifiers: air-gapped CI, active security audit blocking integrations >30 days, <5 deploys/month.
17. First customer conversion process
12-stage CRM: raw lead → first touch sent → discovery call booked → pain confirmed (real incident) → demo/POC offer → concierge audit delivered 48h → LOI/paid trial initiated → integration live on main branch → first real catch captured → 30-day check-in → conversion to paid at day 60 → expansion signal monitoring.
18. 30 / 60 / 90 day goals + kill criteria
Day 30: 100 outreach, 30 discovery calls, 3 LOIs, ≥3% outbound-to-LOI conversion. Day 60: 3 design partners on real PRs, ≥1 caught slug each, 50 additional pipeline, false-positive <10%. Day 90: ≥3 paid, $600+ MRR, 1 case study, 0 churned. Kill if: <3 LOIs from 100 attempts; ≥50% say 'we can check this ourselves'; false-positive >10% unfixable; ≥2 partners cite CMS gap as blocker; 0 real caught slugs by day 90.