I spent the last 15 years writing code, and back in 2016 I built OceanWP, a WordPress theme that ended up running on more than 500,000 websites. I sold it in 2019, took a long break to figure out what I actually wanted to build next, and I'm now back with my wife Maria building our next SaaS together.
This playbook is a sequence of 4 Claude prompts. You paste the inputs, Claude produces real working output, you take the output to the next step. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes from a blank ICP brief to 25 personalized DMs ready to send on LinkedIn.
Industry data shows personalized signal-based LinkedIn outreach hits 25-40% reply rates compared to 1-2% on cold lists. The system below is built to consistently produce the kind of message that lands inside that 25-40% band.
Tools you need: a LinkedIn account (free tier works, Sales Navigator is faster), Claude Opus 4.7 access (Claude.ai, Anthropic API, or any tool that lets you bring your own key), and 30 minutes.
The whole system is anchored on a precise ICP description. Vague ICP equals vague output equals 1% reply rates. Spend the 5 minutes here and the next 25 minutes deliver.
<aside> ⚠️ This step outputs a STRUCTURED BRIEF, not Boolean queries. The Boolean queries get generated in Step 2. If Claude returns Boolean queries here, the prompt has been mis-followed and Step 2 will produce broken URLs.
</aside>
Open Claude and paste this prompt. Replace the bracketed parts with your actual specifics:
You are an ICP definition expert. Help me write a clean structured ICP brief that I will paste into a separate prompt for LinkedIn search URL generation.
CRITICAL: Output ONLY the structured brief in the format below. Do NOT output Boolean queries. Do NOT combine fields with AND/OR. Do NOT generate URLs. Just the raw structured brief, one item per line where listed.
I sell: [describe your product or service in one sentence]
My best 2 to 3 past or ideal customers: [describe them by role, company stage, what they were trying to do when they bought]
The main pain my product solves: [the specific pain in 1 sentence]
Output format (use exactly these 5 sections, one item per line in lists, no Boolean syntax anywhere):
1. JOB TITLES (5 to 7 titles, one per line, no quotes, no parentheses, no AND/OR)
- Title 1
- Title 2
- ...
2. INDUSTRIES (3 to 5 industries, one per line, broadest first)
- Industry 1
- Industry 2
- ...
3. COMPANY SIZE (one line, employee count range)
- e.g. 11 to 200 employees
4. COMPANY STAGE (one line, pick relevant)
- e.g. early stage to growth (Seed to Series B)
5. HEADLINE SIGNALS (3 to 5 phrases the prospect uses in their LinkedIn headline when they are in-market, one per line, no quotes, no AND/OR)
- e.g. scaling team
- e.g. building from zero
- e.g. raised seed
End of brief. Stop here. Do not append Boolean queries, examples, or LinkedIn search strings. Those come from the next prompt.
Output you will get: a 5-section brief with plain text items per line. You save it somewhere accessible. You paste this brief into Step 2 prompt as the ICP context.
<aside> ✅ Concrete example output Claude should return:
</aside>
<aside> 👉 How this step works in plain English: you paste the prompt below into Claude. Claude returns 5 full LinkedIn URLs. You copy each URL and paste it into your browser address bar. Each URL opens directly to a filtered LinkedIn People page. That is it. No encoding, no clicking through filters, no search bar.
</aside>
Paste this prompt into Claude: