Show each buyer their own territory before asking for anything.
The buyers are few and easy to name, so the plan is to write to them one firm at a time, with real projects from the states that firm covers. 86 first emails are written. None has been sent.
The buyer
Equipment for parks and for water plants is sold through independent rep firms. A rep is paid to hear about a project before the engineer or landscape architect has named a product. The makers publish who their reps are, state by state.
| Buyer | Who they are | Found so far |
|---|---|---|
| Parks rep firms | Independent firms that sell playground and park equipment for a maker, each in its own territory. | 22 firms covering 34 states, from one maker's public rep pages. |
| Water rep firms | Independent firms that sell treatment plant and pumping equipment for several makers. | 64 firms covering 49 states, from four makers' public rep pages. |
| Equipment makers | The manufacturers behind those firms. One national plan can serve a whole rep network. | Not approached. Later. |
For parks the whole market is perhaps 200 to 300 firms. That is an estimate from one maker's list and roughly ten makers, not a count. The water field has not been estimated.
Larger companies already pay for this kind of early notice from services that sell by sales call to big vendors. A rep firm of five people is too small for those services, and that is the gap.
The ladder
| Step | What the buyer gets | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Sample | This week's issue, open to read, with real projects from their own states quoted in the first email. | Free |
| Trial | The next 4 Monday issues cut to their territory. No card. | Free |
| Brief | The weekly issue for one state, a region of up to six states, or the country. | $149, $299 or $499 a month |
| Records | The replacement calendar and price file for their territory. | About $399 a month, a guess to test |
The first emailNever sent
The sample is the pitch. Of the 86 emails written, 53 quote at least one real project in the firm's own states, and 24 also carry a line from Prebid Records about a city in that territory. A firm with nothing in its territory this week is told so plainly.
This one was written for a parks equipment rep firm. The firm is not named here. Everything else is as written.
More examples, and the email for a firm with nothing in its territory
Channels, in order
| Order | Channel | What happens | Who does it | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Direct email to rep firms | One email per firm with real projects from its own states. One follow-up at most. | The AI writes. The owner approves each batch. | Written, not sent |
| 2 | Free reports | The 2026 parks bond report, a replacement outlook for each state, and a quarterly note on what cities paid. Each is useful alone and links back. | The AI. | First one built |
| 3 | State associations | A member edition for a state parks or water association, free, in return for being sent to members. | The AI writes the offer. An introduction may need a person. | Not started |
| 4 | Equipment makers | One national subscription for a maker whose reps already read it. | The AI, by email. | Later |
| 5 | Readers | A subscriber who reports a missing city or how a project ended gets a month free. | The AI. | Later |
Not used: paid advertising, cold calls, bought lists, invented reviews, or posts written as if by a person. The audience is a few hundred firms, so none of those fit, and several would be dishonest.
Rules for sending
- Only to business addresses a firm publishes itself.
- No more than 40 emails a day, and no firm hears from us more than twice.
- The email says an AI did the research and a person owns the publication.
- Every email carries a mailing address and one line that stops all further mail.
- The owner approves each list and its wording before anything goes out.
How many firms it takes
Twelve subscribers at an average of $250 a month is the target for the first year. How many firms must be written to depends on two rates nobody knows yet.
| If this share asks for the free issues | and this share of them pays | firms to contact for 12 subscribers |
|---|---|---|
| 5%, the minimum to keep going | 20%, the minimum to keep going | 1,200 |
| 12% | 25% | 400 |
| 20% | 30% | 200 |
The 86 firms on hand are not enough at any of these rates, so reading the other makers' rep pages is the first job after launch. At the minimum rates, these two fields may not hold 1,200 firms at all. That is why the first checkpoint is strict: under 5% the business does not work at these prices.
The first 120 days
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Before day 1 | The owner's one-time setup. The AI confirms each firm's public address and checks every project in every email against its source again. |
| Days 1 to 5 | Wave one: the 86 firms already written to, at no more than 40 a day. |
| Days 6 to 20 | Replies answered the same day. Free issues go out each Monday. The AI reads the rep pages of other makers in the best-covered states and writes wave two. |
| Day 21 | First checkpoint: did at least 5% ask for the free issues? |
| Days 22 to 60 | Wave two, approved batch by batch. The first trials end and those readers are asked to subscribe. First state replacement outlook published. |
| Day 60 | Second checkpoint: $600 a month. |
| Days 61 to 120 | Offers to state associations. Effort moves to whichever edition converts. Day 120 checkpoint: $1,700 a month. |
What gets counted
Replies, requests for the free issues, trials that become paid, monthly revenue, requests to stop, and corrections. The checkpoints and what happens at each are on the numbers page.
What is uncertain
- Whether a small rep firm will pay at all. No desk research can settle it.
- Whether email from a new address reaches an inbox. Replies to unsolicited email are scarce.
- Makers may already pass leads to their reps for free, so the brief has to beat what a rep does by hand.
- Coverage is uneven. Texas has many entries a week and New England has few. A firm is not written to until its territory has something real in it.