On this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL sits down with Colin Hirdman — lifelong entrepreneur, co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, and the founder behind Rainmaker, a white-glove service that ethically automates LinkedIn outreach to turn connections into real revenue. If you’re tired of AI-driven spam, lazy “Hey {FirstName}” messages, and outreach that feels like it was written by a toaster… Colin is your antidote. This episode is a playbook for B2B founders, sales leaders, and growth teams who want to win on LinkedIn with what still beats automation every time: authenticity, micro-targeting, and consistency. Rainmaker’s “Authentic Engine”: why human still wins Colin explains how Rainmaker was born from his own growth experiments. After years of growth hacking through email and LinkedIn, he discovered he consistently got better outcomes on LinkedIn — so he built a repeatable system, then offered it to others. His key point: you don’t need Rainmaker to do this. You can run the entire strategy manually. Rainmaker just makes it easier to execute at scale. The core framework is what matters: campaigns tailored to micro-audiences education-first outreach (not pitch-first) and authentic interactions that build trust over time Because nobody wants to be sold to on LinkedIn… but almost everyone is open to being educated. The founder-friendly growth habit: 25 people/day Colin shares a simple rhythm that even solo founders can replicate: connect with 15–25 people a day, Monday to Friday, during working hours. That adds up to roughly 500 new outreach touches per month, staying safely under LinkedIn’s limits. With a typical ~20% connection rate, your network grows steadily — and compounding kicks in. His hygiene rule is equally practical: if someone doesn’t connect within 30 days, withdraw the invite. Then re-approach later with relevance, not desperation. LinkedIn growth hacks that aren’t gross Colin dives into smart ways to build targeted prospect lists without spamming: LinkedIn Events: attend events your ideal buyers attend (even competitors’) and build a relevant list Proxy audiences: use thought leaders in your niche as filters to find “people like them” Sales Navigator: hone in on micro-audiences with precision The goal isn’t volume. It’s relevance. Why first connections matter more than people realise Colin makes a point too many teams miss: being a first-degree connection unlocks real visibility and optionality — messaging access, richer context, and more ways to engage meaningfully. In other words: audience-building isn’t vanity. It’s infrastructure. Automation guardrails: ethical vs banned This episode also draws a hard line between automation that supports authentic outreach… and automation that gets you flagged or banned. Colin is blunt: if your automation is inauthentic, it won’t work — and it shouldn’t. You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger at a conference and ask for a meeting in sentence one. LinkedIn is no different. Spam is lazy, and the market is tired. The story behind the strategy Alongside tactics, Colin shares his entrepreneurial journey — including the “criminal justice grad” twist and the accidental early startup sale that set him on his path. It’s a reminder that growth isn’t reserved for the perfectly credentialed — it’s built by people who test, learn, and iterate. Why this episode matters If you’re building in B2B, this conversation is a modern growth blueprint: stop spraying messages start teaching micro-audiences build consistency into your calendar and use automation to support authenticity, not replace it Because in a world flooded with AI outreach… human wins — when it’s done with intention.