Ask HN: What's your fastest conversion from cold outreach to prepaid client?

We’re working on an AI-powered platform that helps executive search firms generate candidate market maps - fast.

A couple of weeks ago, we ran an outbound experiment on LinkedIn: - Cold DM to a hiring manager - 1 demo call (30 minutes) - Closed €2,000 pilot project - Delivered in 5 days - 7 days later: same client came back and prepaid €15,000 for 10 more projects

Total: €17k closed in 14 days, from first message to payment. That’s our fastest B2B conversion to date.

Key elements we think made it work: - Specific pain point (slow hiring / manual market mapping) - Simple offer (fixed scope, low friction) - Speed: we delivered before their internal team even started

Results = best sales pitch

Now we’re thinking: how can we make this repeatable?

If you’ve closed early sales fast - what made it work? And if you’ve productized AI-powered services, how did you keep margins & speed?