When I started building outbound for a developer infrastructure company last year, I ran the standard playbook — Apollo filters, ZoomInfo exports, LinkedIn sequences. The response rate was 1.1%. Then I tried something that felt almost too obvious: I pulled the stargazers from three competing open-source repos, enriched the handles through People Data Labs , and sent 160 personalized emails. Reply rate: 13.4%. Booked meetings: 11.

The difference isn't outreach quality. It's that a GitHub star is a declared, timestamped signal of developer intent. LinkedIn "Open to Opportunities" tags are aspirational.…