Stele Outreach Playbook

The operating guide for the .outreach table. Who we contact, what we say, when to do each step, and how a contact moves from Sourced to Live. Grounded in the real product and the real CRM, not a template.

Sources: June 2026 Investor Brief, Onboarding Deck 1, the live .outreach schema, the .positions role pages. Last rewrite 2026-06-26.

How timing works in this doc. Every touch is labelled with the day to send it, counted from the first touch (Day 0). When you send a touch, set that row's Next action due to the next touch's date. If there is no reply by the last touch, set Stage to Ghost. The three cadences at a glance: - Influencer / ambassador: 7 touches over ~30 days (Day 0, 2, 5, 10, 14, 21, 30). Relationship-led, patient. - Recruiting, specialists (Neuro-DSP, RF/EMI) and any high-skill target: multi-channel (LinkedIn + email + X + physical mail), 6 to 7 touches over ~16 days. High-value people get surrounded across surfaces, not pinged once. - Recruiting, students and editors: 4 touches over ~10 to 12 days (Day 0, 2, 5 to 6, 10 to 12).

1. The business in one screen (so every message is true)

• What Stele is: your body's system of record. We read your state, keep it as one continuous record, and help you act in time.
• The line: readiness you can see, before it fails.
• The product today (live): the app. It absorbs the data you already generate (ring, strap, bloodwork PDFs, protocols) and turns it into one readiness picture, with an AI coach trained on your own data, not the internet. Three pillars: Body, Performance, Recovery. We absorb Oura and Whoop, we do not replace them.
• What is next: an in-ear sensing earbud that reads the cognitive layer no wearable captures (EEG, HRV, SpO2, temperature). In-ear EEG is real and FDA-cleared as a category (Jan 2026). Defense is the first buyer (readiness for service members); consumer is the expansion.
• Pricing: app $19/mo or $149/yr. Device band $499 to $699 later.
• Voice: calm, surgical, exact. Evidence over hype. The score is a verdict, not a vibe.
• Hard compliance lines: no medical claims, no diagnosis, no "score the person." Frame everything as readiness, performance, and recovery. Looksmaxxing-style person-level scoring is an App Store and reputational risk, so it is never the lead angle even though it exists as a niche tag.

If a message would embarrass us next to that paragraph, do not send it.

2. The .outreach table is the system. Use it, do not reinvent it.

Every contact is one row. The columns that matter and what they mean:

The Stage pipeline (what each stage means and what to do):

The table has a filtered view per ICP and per role (Influencer Pipeline, Investors, Customers, Partners, Neuro-DSP, RF / EMI, Hardware, Software, Editors), plus Hot list, Due this week, and Engineer Hires. Open Due this week every morning; it is sorted by Next action due, so it is literally your timing queue.

3. Influencer / Ambassador track

Cadence: 7 touches over 30 days. Day 0 Touch 1 · Day 2 Touch 2 · Day 5 Touch 3 · Day 10 Touch 4 · Day 14 Touch 5 · Day 21 Touch 6 · Day 30 Touch 7. Patient and relationship-led: the ambassador ask does not appear until Touch 5.

Who fits, by Niche

Stele's audience is people who already measure themselves and want the truth. The cognitive-readiness angle (the layer no wearable captures) makes the mind-side niches genuinely on-thesis, not a stretch.

Set Audience fit honestly. A 50k biohacker who posts their bloodwork is 🔥. A 2M general-motivation account is 🤔 at best.

The messages (Stele voice, personalize the opener only)

Merge fields: {first_name}, {specific_post}, {quoted_line}.

Touch 1 (Day 0, Contacted). Engagement, no ask. A genuine reply or comment on a recent post.

Touch 2 (Day 2, Contacted). Warm DM, value-first.

hey {first_name}, been following since {specific_post}. the point about {quoted_line} is exactly the gap we work on. i'm building stele, we pull your wearables and bloodwork into one readiness picture so "am i actually recovered" stops being a guess. not pitching anything, thought the approach would land with you.

Touch 2 alt (Day 2). Question-first (higher reply on IG and X).

hey {first_name}, quick one. your post on {specific_post} made me think you'd have a sharp take: if you had to put readiness into one honest number, what goes in it? building exactly that and want it right.

Touch 3 (Day 5, In convo). Email, recognition plus soft mention.

Subject: {first_name}, the one number under your tracking

{first_name}, {one-line honest reaction to recent work}. quick context: i'm shawn, building stele, the system of record for your body. we absorb the data you already generate (ring, strap, labs) into one readiness picture, with a coach trained on your own data. we are hand-picking a small founding-ambassador group before the public push. no ask yet, i would just put the app in your hands and let it speak. shawn

Touch 4 (Day 10, In convo). Second social touch. Quote-post or a real reply, no pitch.

Touch 5 (Day 14, Negotiating). Email, the offer. Map the ask to a Deal type.

Subject: founding ambassadors for stele

{first_name}, we are bringing on a small founding-ambassador group. what it looks like: lifetime access, a real affiliate share, and direct input on the product and the sensing hardware we build next. all we want is your honest read, and if it earns it, one post in your own voice. 15 minutes this week?

Touch 6 (Day 21, Negotiating). Personal video. Loom or Sendspark addressed to them. Biggest single unlock.

Touch 7 (Day 30). Breakup.

{first_name}, last note, keeping the founding group small. if the timing is off, no problem, the door stays open.

If no reply after Touch 7, set Ghost.

Deal types (use the table's own options)

• Gifted: free year of the app, plus early device access later. The default first offer.
• Affiliate: revenue share on referrals. For creators who want upside.
• Equity: founding-ambassador grant for the few who genuinely move the needle.
• Hybrid: gifted plus affiliate, the common landing spot.
• Paid: only for a proven creator with a hard audience match.

Channel and compliance notes

• IG and Threads: lead with comment-to-DM on a post ("comment READY and I will send it") rather than cold-blasting. Keep cold DM volume on the warmed founder accounts.
• Disclosure: every ambassador post uses #stele_partner or "paid partner with stele," at the start, never buried. Never bare "#ambassador."
• No medical claims in their copy or ours. Readiness, performance, recovery. Never "diagnose," "cure," or a person-level aesthetic score.

4. Recruiting touch sequences (Hire lane)

Five roles are Open in .positions (two specialist engineering seats plus three junior/growth roles). Log every candidate in .outreach as Type = Hire, set the Channel, and use the role views. Personalize the opener to their actual work, always. Link the role page in Touch 2 so they can self-qualify.

The Stage map for a hire: Sourced (found) → Qualifying (their work clears the top-of-funnel filter) → Contacted (Touch 1 to 2 sent) → In convo (replied) → Negotiating (screen or paid trial) → Signed (offer accepted) → Live (onboarded).

Recruiting cadence (timing). Hiring outreach is a tight 4-touch sequence, not the influencer 7-touch month. The whole point is to reach a screen or trial by Touch 3, then close or break up. Day offsets, counted from the first touch:

Specialists get a few extra days between touches because they are senior and slower to reply. Set Next action due to the next touch's date every time you send one. No reply after Touch 4, set Ghost.

LinkedIn flow (important). You cannot message a non-connection on LinkedIn, so for any LinkedIn-channel candidate Touch 1 is a connection request with a short note (the note is your teaser, keep it under ~200 characters), and the real opener becomes Touch 2 once they accept. Track it with the Connect req touchpoint when you send the request and Connected when they accept. If they have not accepted by the Touch 3 date, fall back to email or an Open Profile / InMail message. For email, X DM, IG, or TikTok candidates there is no connection step, so Touch 1 is the opener directly.

Priority engineering hires (specialists)

These two are the real, identity-defining engineering seats: senior early-contributor roles (remote, part-time, 6-month term, equity on conversion, or for RF/EMI a paid contract). Both report to Aryan (CTO). They need a more senior pool than the student pipeline below, so source them deliberately. The opener is founder-to-specialist and leads with the hard problem, not a job post.

These are high-skill targets, so go multi-channel, not single-channel. Senior people ignore a lone LinkedIn note, so surround them across surfaces over ~2 weeks. Run these in parallel, not strictly one after another, and check each surface off in Touchpoints:

The same omnichannel approach fits any high-value target (a marquee creator, a lead investor). Students, junior hires, and lower-tier contacts stay on the lighter single-channel 4-touch in the next section. The per-role templates below give the connect note, the opener, the X nudge, and the screen ask; the mail piece is a printed role one-pager with one handwritten line.

🧠 Neuro-DSP / Sleep-ML Engineer

Role page: https://app.notion.com/38ac15359bb281afb633e8b24d10ec31 Owns the EEG signal chain (electrode to insight) and the V3/V4 validation gates the raise depends on. Source from: GitHub authors of EEG/sleep DSP and ML (MNE-Python contributors, YASA sleep-staging, Sleep-EDF / PhysioNet projects, OpenBCI ML, ear-EEG repos); ear-EEG and single-channel sleep-staging paper authors (cEEGrid, NextSense-adjacent) via Papers with Code and Google Scholar; NeuroTechX ML / algorithms sub-teams; DREEM and other sleep-staging competition entrants. Filter: hands-on EEG specifically (knows alpha, spindles, K-complexes, sleep architecture), Python signal/ML (MNE, NumPy/SciPy, PyTorch), and a record of pulling signal out of messy biopotential data. Graduate-level or strong self-taught.

• Day 0, LinkedIn. Connection request with a note (for an email-channel academic, skip to the Day 2 email; plus like or comment a recent paper).

  {first_name}, your work on {their EEG/sleep project or paper} is the exact problem we're staking the company on: continuous in-ear EEG, and whether a single temporal ear montage can actually stage sleep. would love to connect.

• Day 2 Email, and Day 4 LinkedIn message once connected. The opener and the role.

  {first_name}, i'm shawn (GTM) at Stele. our CTO Aryan is building continuous in-ear EEG and this is the seat that owns the signal. own the EEG signal chain and run the V3 montage validation with our advisor Dr. Jerry Shih (UCSD epilepsy center). early-contributor, equity on conversion. full spec: https://app.notion.com/38ac15359bb281afb633e8b24d10ec31 . worth a chat?

• Day 7, X / Twitter. Light nudge.

  {first_name}, still keen to talk. the montage-validation question, whether one ear channel can stage sleep, is exactly your wheelhouse and the most valuable result we can land this year.

• Day 9, best channel. The screen. > a call with Aryan and a look at your EEG work. first project: stand up the pipeline on our bench data, then design and run V3.
• Day 12, Mail. Pattern interrupt. The printed Neuro-DSP one-pager with a handwritten line: "if you can make in-ear EEG actually work, this is the highest-leverage seat in the company. 20 minutes? shawn."
• Day 16. Breakup (email or LinkedIn).

📡 RF / EMI Engineer (Mixed-Signal)

Role page: https://app.notion.com/38ac15359bb2818ca34dfe97ca50bcee Owns the EEG-vs-audio EMI coexistence, the master-spec "scariest unfilled seat." Source from: mostly LinkedIn, not GitHub. Hearables / TWS RF-EMI engineers (Apple AirPods, Bose, Sony, Sonova, GN/Jabra, Samsung), medical-wearable EMI, and 2.4 GHz antenna engineers (HFSS); IEEE EMC Society members and EMC/SI consultants; biopotential-AFE-plus-audio backgrounds. Filter: real mixed-signal EMI (made microvolt analog survive next to switching regulators, Class-D, and a 2.4 GHz radio), grounding/shielding and low-noise PCB layout, EMC/SI bench, 2.4 GHz antenna design (HFSS). Senior; a paid short-term contract is on the table.

• Day 0, LinkedIn. Connection request with a note (plus like or comment a recent post).

  {first_name}, building an in-ear EEG earbud where microvolt EEG, a Class-D amp, and a 2.4 GHz radio share one shell. your {EMI / microvolt-analog} work is exactly the problem we're solving. would love to connect.

• Day 2 Email, and Day 4 LinkedIn message once connected. The opener and the role.

  {first_name}, you've done the thing most people call impossible: make microvolt analog survive next to switching power and a radio. we run premium audio and microvolt EEG millimeters apart in one earbud. the role: own the EEG-vs-audio EMI coexistence (master spec V2), the isolation architecture, and the 2.4 GHz antenna. early-contributor equity, or a paid short-term contract just for the V2 measurement. full spec: https://app.notion.com/38ac15359bb2818ca34dfe97ca50bcee . worth 20 minutes?

• Day 7, X / Twitter. Light nudge.

  {first_name}, still hoping to grab 20 minutes on the EMI coexistence problem. it is the most interesting noise problem i've run into, and it is the whole company.

• Day 9, best channel. The screen. > a call with Aryan (CTO) and George (electrical). first project: own V2 on the bench rig, measure the per-band contamination, and call the green/yellow/red tier. if it comes back green or yellow, the headline feature survives.
• Day 12, Mail. Pattern interrupt. The printed RF/EMI one-pager with a handwritten line: "you are the one person we want on the scariest problem in the device. 20 minutes? shawn."
• Day 16. Breakup (email or LinkedIn). > {first_name}, last note, we're moving on the EMI hire soon. if the timing is off, the door stays open.

Junior hardware + software pipeline (students)

The two roles below are the junior, support-level pipeline (sensor bring-up, firmware, app features), separate from the two specialist seats above. The candidates already seeded in .outreach under Type = Hire were sourced for this junior pipeline; use them for bring-up and execution support, not for the specialist seats. Cadence: Day 0 / Day 2 / Day 6 / Day 12. On LinkedIn, Touch 1 is a connection request with a short note (see the LinkedIn flow above) and the openers below become Touch 2 once connected; for GitHub, X, or email candidates the opener is Touch 1. Students stay single-channel on their one best surface, not the omnichannel specialist sequence above.

🔧 Hardware Engineer (Student / Early-Career)

Role page: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb281ea80c7c60547bed6e2 Source from: NeuroTechX student clubs (WATOLINK, McGill NeuroTech, Berkeley, Stanford, JHU, Penn, UT Austin, UCSD), the OpenBCI forum, university EE/neural-engineering labs and capstone showcases, hardware hackathons, r/embedded and r/PrintedCircuitBoard, and reverse-recruiting from GitHub / Hackaday / Hackster (search ADS1299, EEG, nRF52 BLE sensor repos). Top-of-funnel filter (set Audience fit here): has built physical biosignal hardware end to end (a board they sent to fab, soldered, and brought up), not simulation only. A real EEG/PPG/ECG build is 🔥. Channel: the platform their build lives on (GitHub issue or email, Discord, LinkedIn).

• Touch 1 (Day 0). Reference the exact build, no hard ask.

  {first_name}, found your {their project, e.g. ADS1299 EEG breakout / OpenBCI build}. the {specific detail, e.g. notch + bandpass on the captured signal} is the exact problem we live in. i'm shawn, building Stele, an in-ear EEG and PPG earbud, the hardware under a readiness score. you've basically built a piece of what we need. open to a quick chat?

• Touch 2 (Day 2). The role and the link.

  {first_name}, quick follow-up. we have a student / early-career hardware role open: sensor bring-up, firmware in C/C++ on nRF52 or STM32, streaming biosignal over BLE. bounded scope, mentored, real hardware. full criteria here: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb281ea80c7c60547bed6e2 . if "bring up a board and stream a clean signal" sounds like your thing, want to talk this week?

• Touch 3 (Day 6). The screen.

  happy to keep it concrete: a 20 to 30 minute deep-dive on one of your builds, then a small paid work sample (bring up a board plus sensor, stream over BLE, plot it). want me to send a time?

• Touch 4 (Day 12). Breakup.

  {first_name}, last note, we're moving on this hire soon. if the timing is off, no worries, i'd love to stay in touch as the earbud ships.

💻 Software Engineer (Student / Early-Career)

Role page: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb281aa91f0f8dfdc97ee90 Source from: MLH hackathons and Career Fest, curated intern lists (SimplifyJobs Summer 2026, speedyapply), university CS and ACM/AI clubs (UCSD first, warm intros beat resumes), build-in-public scenes on X plus active GitHub profiles (Flutter, AWS, LLM/agent projects), and r/SideProject, r/flutterdev, AI-builder Discords. Top-of-funnel filter (set Audience fit here): has personally shipped something real you can click (a live URL, an app in the store, a repo with a demo). No live link, no repo, never shipped = ❌, pass. Channel: X DM (build-in-public), GitHub, email, LinkedIn, or a university intro.

• Touch 1 (Day 0). Reference what they shipped.

  {first_name}, saw {their shipped project / live URL}. shipping a real {thing} as a student is the whole filter for us. i'm shawn, building Stele, a Flutter app plus AWS backend plus a score pipeline plus AI coaching. we're hiring student engineers who take an idea to a live feature in days. worth a quick chat?

• Touch 2 (Day 2). The role and the link.

  {first_name}, the role in one line: ship Flutter features and AWS backend, build the pipeline that turns wearable and bloodwork data into the score, and the LLM coaching layer. AI tools encouraged, no leetcode. full criteria: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb281aa91f0f8dfdc97ee90 . 15 minutes this week?

• Touch 3 (Day 6). The take-home.

  next step is a scoped take-home (3 to 5 hours, AI tools expected): a Flutter screen calling a mock score API, or a Lambda that ingests wearable JSON and returns a metric. deliver a repo, a live URL, and a 5-minute walkthrough. want the brief?

• Touch 4 (Day 12). Breakup.

  {first_name}, closing the loop, keeping the search tight. if now isn't the moment, the door's open, keep shipping.

🎬 Short-Form Video Editor / Motion Designer (Growth)

Role page: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb28185b6fed4c4551bf4bd Cadence: Day 0 / Day 2 / Day 5 / Day 10. Source from: editor Discords (the "video editors" server, "Hire A Video Editor," "Editor's Heaven," Rivetto's short-form community), faceless/automation Discords (NexLev, VidIQ), the X and IG editor scenes ("DM for editing"), creator-economy boards (YT Jobs, Roster), and the highest-quality channel: poach the editors behind creators in our niches (look at caption or bio credits) and DM them a concrete paid offer. Top-of-funnel filter (set Audience fit here): real view counts and retention on work they EDITED (not shot), plus before/after raw-vs-finished samples. Agency-polished with zero views = ❌. Channel: DM on the platform where their work lives (Discord, X, IG). DM beats cold email here, so personalize hard.

• Touch 1 (Day 0). Value-first, reference a specific edit.

  {first_name}, your edit of {specific video}, the {specific move, e.g. hook plus the cut rhythm in the first 2 seconds}, is exactly the level we want. i'm shawn at Stele, health-tech, growing fast on short-form. this is an editor role, not a filmer one: reels and TikToks at volume, After Effects motion graphics, retention-first. paid. want me to send the brief?

• Touch 2 (Day 2). The role, the link, the paid trial.

  {first_name}, details here: https://app.notion.com/p/388c15359bb28185b6fed4c4551bf4bd . real motion graphics, hook engineering, high cadence. we run a paid trial edit (flat fee, same brief for everyone), so it's worth your time either way. want in?

• Touch 3 (Day 5). The trial brief.

  here's the trial: 10 to 15 minutes of raw talking-head plus b-roll, our template, and a reference edit. deliver one 30 to 60 second vertical cut plus 2 to 3 hook variations, 48 to 72 hour turnaround, flat fee of {one to two videos' worth}. then one round of revision notes to see how you iterate. down?

• Touch 4 (Day 10). Breakup.

  {first_name}, last ping, filling this soon. if you're slammed, no stress, i'd still love to keep your work on file.

LinkedIn search strings (engineer roles)

LinkedIn is the primary channel for the two specialist seats (Neuro-DSP and RF/EMI), strong for the student engineer roles, and plan B for the editor (whose pool lives on Discords, X, and IG). Run these as LinkedIn People searches, and as a Google X-ray when LinkedIn's filters are too blunt. For the student roles, filter to current students and target schools (Waterloo, UCSD, Berkeley, McGill, Polytechnique Montreal, UT Austin, Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Stanford); for the specialists, filter on seniority and the keywords below.

Neuro-DSP / Sleep-ML Engineer. - LinkedIn keyword: (EEG OR "sleep staging" OR polysomnography OR neurophysiology OR "brain-computer interface") AND ("signal processing" OR "machine learning" OR MNE OR "deep learning") AND (PhD OR graduate OR researcher OR "computational neuroscience") - Google X-ray: site:linkedin.com/in (EEG OR "sleep staging" OR "ear-EEG") (MNE OR "signal processing" OR PyTorch OR "machine learning")

RF / EMI Engineer (Mixed-Signal). - LinkedIn keyword: (EMI OR EMC OR "signal integrity" OR "mixed-signal") AND (antenna OR "2.4 GHz" OR RF OR "low noise") AND (hearable OR TWS OR wearable OR audio OR biopotential) - Google X-ray: site:linkedin.com/in (EMI OR EMC OR "signal integrity") (antenna OR RF) (hearable OR TWS OR "medical device" OR wearable)

Hardware Engineer. - LinkedIn keyword: (EEG OR EMG OR ECG OR biosignal OR ADS1299 OR OpenBCI OR nRF52 OR STM32 OR firmware OR PCB) AND (student OR intern OR undergraduate) - Club angle: (NeuroTechX OR neurotech OR "brain computer interface" OR BCI) AND (student OR member OR club) - Google X-ray: site:linkedin.com/in (EEG OR "ADS1299" OR OpenBCI OR "in-ear EEG") (firmware OR PCB OR embedded) (student OR intern)

Software Engineer. - LinkedIn keyword: (Flutter OR "React Native" OR Swift OR Kotlin) AND (AWS OR Lambda OR Firebase) AND (LLM OR OpenAI OR Gemini OR RAG) AND (student OR intern OR "new grad") - Hackathon angle: (hackathon OR MLH OR Devpost OR TreeHacks OR HackMIT) AND (Flutter OR mobile OR "full stack") AND (health OR wearable OR fitness) - Google X-ray: site:linkedin.com/in (Flutter OR "Flutter developer") (AWS OR Firebase) (LLM OR OpenAI) (student OR intern)

Editor (plan B only). - ("video editor" OR "motion designer" OR "short-form editor") AND ("After Effects" OR CapCut OR Premiere) AND (reels OR TikTok OR shorts). The real editor pool is on editor Discords, X, and IG, so lead there and treat LinkedIn as backup.

On LinkedIn: comment on the person's post before connecting (3 to 5x acceptance lift), keep invites under 20 to 25 per day, and use Open Profile and Group messages, which do not count against the weekly invite cap.

The .outreach table is already seeded with sourced engineer candidates (Type = Hire, Stage = Sourced), each with contacts (LinkedIn, email, GitHub) in dedicated columns and the role-page link in the row body. Engineers default to the LinkedIn channel. Work them from the role views.

5. The other lanes (same table, different message and timing)

For Investor and Partner especially, route warm: an Intro outperforms any cold channel, so log who can make it in Owner(s) and Next action.

6. Daily rhythm

1. Open Due this week (sorted by Next action due). Clear everything due today: send the touch, check it off in Touchpoints, move the Stage, and set Next action due to the next touch's day.
2. Work the Hot list (🔥 Perfect, still Sourced or Qualifying): qualify, draft the opener, send Touch 1 (Day 0), move to Contacted.
3. Anything in In convo gets a same-day reply.
4. For hires, work the role views (Neuro-DSP, RF / EMI, Hardware, Software, Editors): each candidate already has the role page linked and contacts populated.
5. Keep the source queue full: add new rows as Sourced with Type, Niche or role, Platform, Followers, handle.

That is the whole system. The table runs the pipeline; the day labels keep every touch on time; this doc keeps the messaging true to the product.