How Malibou Tripled Meetings in a Competitive Market with Cold Calling

The Problem

Fresh out of Y Combinator (Winter 2024), Malibou needed to prove product-market fit — fast. They were targeting the French market with a payroll management tool built for local HR needs.

Their core personas — SMB founders and HR managers — were highly responsive over the phone. But finding the right data, especially phone numbers, was a persistent blocker.

“We had a solid message and strong urgency, but we couldn’t act on it fast enough. We needed accurate data — and we needed it inside HubSpot,” said Maxence, CEO at Malibou.

The team was lean. Scaling outbound manually wasn’t an option. They needed a way to reach the right contacts, with the right message, without building a full SDR team.

“Speed was everything. We wanted to go to market quickly — without getting bogged down in ops,” added Louise, Head of Growth.

The Solution

AI SDR Fully Integrated with HubSpot

• Malibou integrated Topo’s AI SDR directly into their existing CRM.

• The agent was trained on Malibou’s exact ICP — SMBs and small HR teams in France.

• Each day, new enriched leads were pushed into HubSpot, complete with phone numbers and verified contact info.

“The leads just showed up in HubSpot, ready to call. We didn’t need to touch any other tool — and that made it fast.”

Running Cold Call Campaigns on High-Quality Signals

• The team launched cold calling campaigns on the enriched leads surfaced by the agent.

• A key shift came when they moved from broad TPE/SME outreach to signal-based targeting — specifically, companies using outdated or legacy payroll tools.

• This created stronger hooks and higher conversion during early outreach.

“Once we started targeting based on real usage signals, everything clicked. We were reaching the right people, with the right context.”

The Results

• 3x increase in booked meetings per month after launching Topo-powered cold calling.

• Zero CRM friction — reps now work entirely out of HubSpot.

• Outbound became repeatable without hiring a larger team.

• Topo helped Malibou validate their GTM and build early momentum in a competitive space.

“Topo gave us a faster GTM without needing more people. It’s a critical part of our stack now.”