ColdBrief AI

Turns a plain list of company websites into sales-ready outbound research briefs: a 2-3 sentence company summary, 3 likely pain points, a personalized cold-email icebreaker, tech/signal notes, and a 1-5 ICP fit score \u2014 all generated by AI, per lead, in seconds.

Built for solo founders, freelance SDRs, and small agencies who need Clay/Apollo-style AI research without the $150-800/month price tag.

Why this over a plain scraper

Google Maps / LinkedIn scrapers give you rows of data. ColdBrief gives you a reason to email \u2014 the part a rep actually has to write by hand today. It's the enrichment/synthesis layer, not another raw-data dump.

Input

{
  "leads": [
    { "companyName": "Notion", "website": "https://www.notion.com" }
  ],
  "icpDescription": "We sell an AI QA testing tool for B2B SaaS teams of 10-200 people.",
  "geminiApiKey": "YOUR_FREE_GEMINI_KEY",
  "groqApiKey": "",
  "maxLeads": 100,
  "requestDelayMs": 2500
}

• leads \u2014 array of { companyName, website, linkedinUrl }. Only website is required.
• icpDescription \u2014 what you sell and who your ideal customer is. This is what makes the icebreaker and fit score personalized instead of generic.
• geminiApiKey — required. Free, no card. Get your Gemini key here →
• groqApiKey — optional fallback used automatically if Gemini is rate-limited. Free, no card. Get your Groq key here →

Output (per lead, in the dataset)

{
  "companyName": "Notion",
  "website": "https://www.notion.com",
  "company_summary": "...",
  "likely_pain_points": ["...", "...", "..."],
  "icebreaker_line": "...",
  "tech_signals": ["..."],
  "icp_fit_score": 4,
  "icp_fit_reason": "...",
  "enrichedAt": "2026-09-17T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Cost model (pay-per-event)

The Actor charges the lead-enriched event only when a brief is successfully generated \u2014 failed or skipped rows are never billed. Suggested price: $0.03 per lead (set in Apify Console \u2192 Monetization). That undercuts AI-enrichment tools like Clay by roughly 50-100x per lead while still leaving healthy margin over the ~$0.001-0.003 in Apify platform compute the run actually consumes.

Local development

npm install
apify run          # uses storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json

Paste a real free Gemini key into that INPUT.json before running locally. Get one in 30 seconds (no card required): aistudio.google.com/apikey

Publishing checklist (do this in order)

1. npm install -g apify-cli
2. apify login \u2014 paste your API token from Apify Console \u2192 Settings \u2192 API & Integrations (free account, no card).
3. From this folder: apify push \u2014 uploads and builds the Actor on Apify.
4. In Apify Console, open the Actor \u2192 Publication tab \u2192 complete identity verification (KYC) \u2014 required before you can monetize any Actor.
5. Open the Monetization tab \u2192 choose Pay per event \u2192 add a custom event named exactly lead-enriched \u2192 set its price (suggested: $0.03) \u2192 save.
6. Fill out the Store listing: title, short description, categories (LEAD_GENERATION, AI), and 2-3 example screenshots of the JSON output.
7. Submit for public listing. Keep it unlisted/private until you've run it yourself end-to-end with a real Gemini key and checked the output quality on 5-10 real leads.
8. Once public, it is automatically usable from Zapier \u2014 Apify's existing generic Zapier integration lets any user pick your Actor as an action with zero extra setup from you. Build one example Zap ("New row in Google Sheet \u2192 Run ColdBrief AI \u2192 Write results back to the Sheet") and share it as a template in your launch posts.