The Challenge
When we first engaged with Budai Media in February 2022, Daniel Budai had built a solid reputation as a retention email marketing agency serving ecommerce brands. Revenue stood at $600K annually — respectable, but capped by a narrow service offering and a lead generation operation that wasn't firing on all cylinders.
The situation we walked into had three core problems. First, the HubSpot CRM was a mess — 10,000 contacts with no segmentation, no active sequences, and no visibility into pipeline health. Second, the Upwork outreach was underperforming, generating below-potential results despite the platform's opportunity. Third, there were no list building tools in place and no cold email infrastructure — meaning a huge, scalable lead channel was sitting completely untapped.
Daniel had the delivery capability and the ambition to grow significantly. What was missing was a reliable, structured system for generating qualified sales conversations at volume.
The Strategy: Build, Then Scale
Rather than launching everything at once, we took a phased approach — fixing the foundations before scaling volume.
Upwork Overhaul
We started by diagnosing and fixing the Upwork operation. Refined the agency's profile positioning, rewrote proposal frameworks, and established a consistent outreach cadence. This was the quickest path to generating qualified conversations while the longer-term channels were being built.
CRM Rescue & Lead Nurturing
Tackled the HubSpot mess — cleaned and segmented 10,000 contacts, built value-based nurture sequences, set up pipeline dashboards, and created a system so that no lead ever fell through the cracks again. The CRM went from a liability to an active revenue asset.
Cold Email Infrastructure Built
Set up the full cold email stack from scratch — domains, warmup, toolstack, and sequences. Built niche-specific prospect lists targeting Shopify and WooCommerce brands in verticals including fashion, pet brands, jewelry, luxury watches, fitness, furniture, and more. Primary focus: US and European ecommerce brands doing $50K+ revenue.
Scale: 88 Campaigns, 45K Emails/Month
Cold email results validated the approach, so we scaled aggressively. At peak we were running 88 active campaigns simultaneously, sending 45,000 emails per month across multiple geographies and niches — US, UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary, and more. This generated a record of 20 booked calls per month from cold email alone, rising to 42 total sales calls in the peak month across all channels.
New Service Lines + Lead Strategy
Recommended expanding from email-only into Google Ads, Meta Ads, and CRO services to increase deal value and serve clients more completely. Daniel handled hiring for the new capabilities — we handled generating leads for these new offerings, ensuring the expanded service lines had a pipeline from day one.
The Targeting Approach
Our list building strategy focused on Shopify and WooCommerce stores across the US and Europe, targeting brands generating $50K+ in monthly revenue — the ideal fit for Budai Media's retention marketing services.
We also built dedicated crowdfunding lists — targeting Kickstarter and Indiegogo brands that had successfully funded and were moving into scaling their ecommerce operations, a segment with strong need for retention marketing and relatively low outreach competition.
The Results
Revenue grew at 35–40% per year over the course of the engagement, scaling from $600K to $1.5M as new channels came online and new service lines expanded average deal value. The growth was steady and compounding — each year's systems building the foundation for the next year's scale.
What Daniel & the Team Said
"Shivraj has been a great team member to work with, he helps our team generate more qualified leads, so our salesperson can close them. He's not only great in communication and a team player but he's highly reliable and able to figure things out by himself. This helps our team grow faster. I hope we can work together for a long-time in the future and improve each other's game further."
"we are really happy with @Shivraj because today we set the record of monthly sales calls. I had my 25th sales call today and I had 25 last October. Tomorrow, I actually have 2 more so that's a really strong start for 2025."
"I would say 'nice man you got lucky!' but after seeing the sales efforts you, Ben and Shivraj are doing I'll go with 'well deserved'."
"Shivraj was incredible to work with! His proactiveness and presence of mind were evident from day one as he quickly optimized our lead generation processes and introduced innovative channels that drove measurable results. He brought tangible ideas for breakthroughs, showing a highly strategic approach to sales and business development. He kept our CRM organized, provided actionable updates, and suggested improvements that set us up for sustainable growth."
"Shivraj was a game-changer for our lead generation efforts! He proactively identified high-quality prospects across Upwork, LinkedIn, and cold email, delivering measurable improvements in conversions and client engagement. His expertise in optimizing Upwork proposals and testing innovative outreach strategies significantly boosted our project success rate."
Want results like these for your agency?
Whether you need cold email infrastructure, CRM management, or a full multi-channel lead generation system — let's build it together.