How Paraform Turned Cold Call Hangups Into 5-Minute Sales Conversations

Before Paraform became the go-to hiring platform for the world's most important companies, founder John Kim was scrolling through job boards, hitting up prospects one by one.

"Before Apollo, our early outbound was super manual and pretty chaotic," John recalls. “There was no structure.”

For a recruiting marketplace trying to prove they could compete with traditional hiring methods, this scattered approach was becoming a serious constraint.

Paraform went from manually scrolling job boards to winning their first 100 customers with Apollo. Now, sophisticated outbound campaigns bring in 130+ new customers and 300+ new roles on the platform every month. Their journey shows why choosing the right scalable tools from day one matters more than most startups realize.

From Chaos to Smart Outbound

Once the Paraform team could prospect systematically with Apollo, the transformation began.

Now, Paraform could build targeted prospect lists, enrich them with accurate contact data, and run email sequences. John and his team also use AI to capitalize on intent signals like fundraising news and career pages to match leads into the right sequence. No more manual job board hunting.

The team got smart about leveraging their success stories like when the platform filled a difficult role of staff level cloud security engineer role in New York City. They could quickly use Apollo to find companies with similar roles open, find the right buyer, and reach out with relevant proof.

“The moment when we realized our outbound strategy was working was a ‘hell yes’ moment,” remember John.

Adding cold calling without missing a beat

As the Paraform team grew and onboarded their first BDR, John knew they needed to diversify their go-to-market approach. Cold calling was the obvious next step, but it could have meant shopping for new vendors, managing integrations, and training the team on multiple platforms.

Instead, they simply activated Apollo's Dialer. “I really liked how simple and easy it was to start using and how seamless the transition was,” John says.

There was a learning period for finding and honing their cold call pitch. They created a rapid feedback loop in a Slack channel, where the BDR would share call recordings for real-time review and iteration.

This rapid improvement cycle was game-changing. "We went through a lot of these recordings, found out where the drop-off was, and solved it."

Cold calls went from 30 seconds before using the Apollo Dialer to nearly five-minute conversations. Instead of getting hung up on immediately, they were having meaningful conversations that led to booked demos.

Moving fast while getting the timing right

This ability to jump into another feature in Apollo was key, according to John. Speed is everything when you’re scaling quickly, and having to evaluate a new tool or manage vendor switches interrupts your momentum.

“A lot of startups don’t anticipate how quickly your go-to-market motion and your workflows will have to diversify and scale, especially as you hit an inflection point," he explains.

But speed alone isn't enough when it comes to outbound. You have to get the timing right too.

"Before using Apollo, we tried different sources for emails and phone numbers, but they were just wrong a lot of the time," John notes. Poor data kills your ability to time outreach properly and tanks conversion rates.

With reliable contact information and the ability to spot intent signals, Paraform can now time their outreach more precisely. "I actually enjoy watching ads or getting cold emails if they're relevant to me," John says. "How do we get as close to the right time for the right person to make the experience better?”

Because Paraform built their foundation on Apollo, they could pivot to cold calling without missing a beat while maintaining that timing precision across channels. "Having a tool that's all-in-one that supports different use cases, like email sequencing, calls, enrichment, is a very big advantage."

"Apollo prevented us from slowing down," John says. "We could just run at the speed we wanted to."

The evolution continues

Paraform’s outbound evolution — from chaotic manual prospecting to their first 100 customers from outbound to more advanced multichannel campaigns — remains central to their growth strategy.

As John puts it: “Apollo allowed us to scale, go to market, and hit our revenue goals.”

Within just one year, Paraform has 10x'd employees to 55, filled 900+ roles for the world's best companies, and helped recruiters make $30M+ on their platform.

“We really believe that there's nothing that changes the world faster than the right person working on the right problem,” as John explains Paraform’s mission. “And to achieve that at scale is just such a great feeling.”