ABOUT GARY

Meet Gary

Founder of He Knows Cold Email

I’m Gary. I built He Knows Cold Email to bring sharper thinking to an industry obsessed with automation.

I’m not your traditional founder of a multi-6 figure business. First off, I wear Cross slippers for work. Second, I talk about my dog WAY too much. And third, I’m only 36 (Ok, maybe a little too late for being a founder.)

THE ORIGIN

How Come I created He Knows Cold Email

I created this agency because I wanted to put everything I had learned about lead generation and cold outreach into one place.

There are already more cold email agencies than the world probably needs.

Most talk about the same things: more automation, more inboxes, more AI personalization, and more emails sent with fewer people involved.

That’s the visible part of cold email.

The harder questions are usually ignored:

Why this company?

Why this problem?

Why would it matter? A

And why should a stranger take time out of their day to respond?

If those questions don’t have convincing answers, adding another automation tool won’t save the campaign.

That’s the visible part of cold email. The harder questions are usually ignored.

I spent more than 6 years working at Snov.io. That gave me a front-row seat to how

companies build prospect lists, run email campaigns and develop new business.

But my most valuable lessons weren’t about software. They were about sales strategy.

I learned that the perfect prospect on paper may have no reason to buy.

That a “buying signal” is often only a clue worth investigating.

That clever copy cannot rescue an irrelevant offer.

He Knows Cold Email is where I put those lessons to work.

Education

The Email That Helped Pay for My Education

I’ve had great achievements in education, so I’m gonna show them off, yeah?

In 2015, I was accepted into a postgraduate Marketing program at the University of Bradford.

I also received offers from other big name schools.

Bradford wasn’t the highest-ranked university on the list. But they offered me a £20,250 scholarship.

At that point in my life, the scholarship mattered far more than the ranking.

Without it, I couldn’t have afforded to leave China and study in the UK. My father was against the idea of studying abroad because it would cost too much.

I didn’t tell him about the applications. On the day I was leaving, he asked where I was going.

“I’m going to the UK to study,” I said.

He was shocked. He hadn’t even known I had been accepted.

Then I left.

So how did I receive a scholarship worth £20,250?

It wasn’t because I had the best academic record.

Before applying, I had spent two or three years teaching IELTS English. I researched the university and saw that I might be able to help its international students improve their English.

So I developed a proposal for a student IELTS program. Instead of only telling Bradford why I was qualifed, I showed them what I could bring.

I connected something they might value with the skills and experience I already had.

That proposal helped me stand out.

To earn attention beyond the ordinary, your proposal must disrupt the prospect’s default thinking.

If you pitch conventionally, they’ll evaluate you conventionally: your credentials against other applicants, your features against other vendors and your price against the incumbent.

Once you enter that familiar comparison, you become interchangeable. My proposal to Bradford broke that frame. I was no longer another applicant asking them to fund my education.

I became someone who could help them create more value for their international students.

Cold email follows the same rule.

If you want a prospect to stop, reconsider and respond, don’t give them another familiar pitch they already know how to dismiss.

Give them a unique and credible reason to see the problem, the status quo, or your role in solving it, differently.

The email that opened the door: a proposal built around the value Gary could bring.

The result: a £20,250 scholarship and a path from China to Bradford.

Then I Failed More Than 20 Interviews

My undergraduate background was in language and education.

Before arriving in Bradford, I had never formally studied business.

After graduating, I travelled to London to interview with large companies like KPMG and PwC.

I was competing against British and European graduates. I was interviewing in my second language.

And I failed. I interviewed with more than ten companies in the UK. Every one rejected me.

I returned to China feeling defeated.

Then I interviewed with more than ten companies there.

More rejection.

Eventually, Infobip hired me as a sales manager.

That opportunity changed the direction of my career. I found success in sales, but I also started asking myself what it would take to build something of my own.

I Applied to Harvard Anyway

I began researching graduate programs that could help people from nontechnical backgrounds move into technology.

Eventually, I had a slightly ridiculous idea. If I was going back to university, why not apply to Harvard?

I knew the odds. So I treated the application like a serious research project. I studied the program, thought carefully about how my experience connected with it and worked out how to present the value I could bring.

Then I applied. And I was admitted. But I didn’t go. I didn’t receive a scholarship, and one year of tuition would have cost approximately $70,000.

Turning down the offer remains one of my biggest regrets. But getting admitted reminded me of something important: Sometimes you are qualified for an opportunity before you feel qualified to pursue it.

You still have to do the research. You still have to make your value clear. And you still have to ask.

Harvard admission email — the application portal has now expired.

THE PERSON BEHIND THE WORK

More About Me

Wow, you’re still interested?

Cool.

I’m Gary, and I live in Shenzhen, China.

These days, I spend most of my time working. Life feels short, and I feel a real sense of urgency to make the most of the ability and talent I have.

AI has made it dramatically faster to build products and deliver services.

I still believe AI is overrated in lead generation though, especially when people mistake automation for sales strategy. But that doesn’t mean I underestimate its value.

I’m currently vibe-coding a few AI sales tools that I believe will be genuinely useful.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to put one in your hands soon.

I also run a local SEO agency. Cold email is how I find clients for that business too.

So far, I’ve worked with more than 10 SEO clients and every one of them came through my own cold outreach.

I’m also obsessive about details.

The copy on the landing page you just read?

I rewrote it 7 times.

I rarely follow the conventional playbook simply because it’s conventional. I question assumptions, look for a different angle and occasionally do things that seem unreasonable to everyone else.

That approach has created some of the best opportunities of my life.

I rarely follow the conventional playbook simply because it’s conventional.