Chess Wizards & Apollo After School
10 qualified school leads in 4 weeks
708 schools contacted. 89 replies. 10 qualified leads. 1-3 schools in active conversation. All in 4 weeks, on a weaker starter list picked by the founder.
Live list of qualified leads in active conversation →What I delivered (March 24 to April 20)
Trial run across AZ, OH, NV. Subscriptions covered by the founder.
| Name | Reply | |
|---|---|---|
| Kristie Martin | [email protected] | "Does Thursday @ 11:00 AM work for you?" |
| Yesenia Braaksma | [email protected] | "Yes, we do offer after school programs. I would be open to meeting with you and discussing offering a chess club here." |
| Danielle Blansette | [email protected] | "June would be a much better time. Either June 1st or 2nd will be best." |
| Oatis Amick | [email protected] | "Do you work with any other schools in my area?" |
| Kimberly Hill | [email protected] | "I am open to learning more about your free program." |
| Robert Caplinger | [email protected] | "Are you local to AZ?" |
| Natalie Marsh | [email protected] | "Yes, we do offer enrichment activities. We can set up a call to discuss." |
| Jo Wick | [email protected] | "I have added the person that runs our 21st century grant to the email." |
| Susan Jenni | [email protected] | "Ella oversees our community education and would be your best contact." |
| Kim Corbett | [email protected] | "We might be interested. I forwarded the email to our contact Lianne. What is the fee charged to families?" |
Yesenia Braaksma
"Yes, we do offer after school programs. I would be open to meeting with you and discussing offering a chess club here."
Danielle Blansette
"June would be a much better time. Either June 1st or 2nd will be best."
Natalie Marsh
"Yes, we do offer enrichment activities. We can set up a call to discuss."
Susan Jenni
"Ella oversees our community education and would be your best contact."
Kim Corbett
"We might be interested. I forwarded the email to our contact Lianne. What is the fee charged to families?"
Year 1 new ARR: $420K conservative, $650K ambitious
Two scenarios. Conservative uses industry-standard close rates. Ambitious assumes we sustain the engagement quality of the trial month.
Conservative
$420K
Year 1 new ARR
Chess: 120 quals · 18% close · 22 schools
Apollo: 12 quals · 15% close · 2 schools
Ambitious
$650K
Year 1 new ARR
Chess: 120 quals · 29% close · 35 schools
Apollo: 12 quals · 25% close · 3 schools
Room to grow
708
Trial reach
~6,650
3 trial states
~88,000
US nationwide
Ambitious scenario: quarterly pacing
| Quarter | Chess quals → closes | Apollo quals → closes | Total ARR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 30 → 5 | 3 → 0 | $50K |
| Q2 | 30 → 7 | 3 → 0 | $120K |
| Q3 | 30 → 10 | 3 → 1 | $320K |
| Q4 | 30 → 13 | 3 → 2 | $650K |
| Year 1 | 120 → 35 | 12 → 3 | $650K |
Every school you close keeps paying every year.
| Revenue | Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $420K to $650K | $112K |
| Year 2 | $840K to $1.3M | $112K |
Year 1 schools renew in Year 2, while new closes stack on top.
The offer
The deliverable is qualified school leads. At steady state: 10+ Chess Wizards and 1+ Apollo leads per month, handed off with full context.
What outbound costs in the US market
In-house junior BDR
$10,000/mo
Chicago, fully loaded
3 to 6 month ramp before productive
BDR agency
$12,000+/mo
Retainer only
Partial delivery, generic templates
Me · Best value
$6,500/mo
Both programs
Ready day 1. No ramp.
"Fully loaded" = salary + commission + benefits + payroll tax + tools + manager time. The $2K infrastructure is needed either way, so the real comparison is my retainer ($4,500) vs a BDR salary ($8,000): about half the cost.
My monthly fixed
Total monthly
$6,500/moRetainer
Strategy, copy, campaigns, reply QA, hand-off, reporting
Subscriptions (pass-through)
Infrastructure cost
What the $2,000 infrastructure covers:
- Smartlead platform, dedicated sending domains, dozens of warmed mailboxes with DKIM/SPF/DMARC
- Enrichment credits, AI reply classification, automations, monitoring
Reputation protection
Sending goes from lookalike domains (allchesswizards.com, getchesswizards.com, etc.) that redirect to chesswizards.com. Any deliverability risk stays on these throwaway domains. The main brand domain stays clean.
Performance bonuses
Qualified lead: Chess Wizards
$10K/year school LTV
Qualified lead: Apollo
$100K/year school LTV
No commission on closed deals. You run sales, you keep the closes.
Why me
A new channel on top of what already works.
Chess Wizards has built a strong business through referrals and long-term school relationships over 22 years. Outbound doesn't replace any of that. It opens a new lane to reach schools that referrals don't.
Structured in your favor.
- Monthly contract, 30-day notice. No long-term lock-in.
- Pay only per qualified lead, not per click, open, or effort.
- Zero commission on closes. All sales upside stays with you.
Background
- Founding team at Speechki (acquired 2024, Greycroft VC, Alchemist '21)
- Founded VentureRoof: 50+ clients, 3,000+ meetings, $5M+ raised
- Wrote 7 Secrets for Sales on LinkedIn for Alchemist Accelerator
- Sales Director across multiple IT / SaaS companies. First time on K-12 outbound; applying a cross-industry playbook, and the first 4 weeks show it transfers.