Foundation
ColdIQ had a bold idea: create the world’s first GTM-only tool directory—something way more focused, faster to navigate, and easier to trust than generic review sites. Not another G2 clone. Not another bloated database. But a lean, structured, automated engine that helps GTM teams instantly find:
- the right tools
- their alternatives
- their pricing
- their integrations
- and even discounts
ColdIQ wanted something that didn’t just list tools—something that generated real insights and scaled without an army of researchers.
So we built exactly that: a “G2-killer” designed for Go-To-Market teams.
The Challenge
The idea was clear. The execution? A different story.
To make a niche directory actually useful, we needed:
- Thousands of tools, each with structured data
- Clean categories and nested directories
- Dynamic product pages
- Alternative pages like
- {tool} alternatives
- {tool} integrations
- {tool} discounts
- A way to auto-discover tools, check their pricing, scrape their pages, and create full product profiles
- And a system that could run hundreds of tasks at once without collapsing
On top of all that, we needed to do it fast—ColdIQ wanted the directory to grow aggressively in just a couple of months.
Creating all this manually would have taken a team of 10 people a year.
So we built a machine instead.
The Process
1. Designing the GTM-only directory structure
We started by defining the core architecture of the directory:
- Directories → 5 main groups
- Categories → for grouping tools with similar use cases
- Product pages → the home for data, pricing, integrations, and descriptions
- Narrow pages:
- {tool} alternatives
- {tool} integrations
- {tool} discounts
Everything had to be scalable and automated from day one.
2. Choosing the tech stack
To make this system truly “busyless,” we built it on top of:
- Airtable → the operational database
- MongoDB → the primary database powering the directory
- Paywall → the CMS
- AIrops → the content generation engine
Using these together gave us the flexibility of a startup stack with the backbone of a bigger platform.
3. Building 60+ automation workflows
This was the heart of the project. In total, we created more than 60 custom workflows to continuously discover, enrich, and publish tool data.
Here are two of the most important ones.
Workflow #1: Automatically finding pricing info
We built a workflow that:
- Searches the web for a tool’s pricing page using Tavily
- Checks if it actually exists
- If it doesn’t, looks for pricing info inside the homepage
- When pricing is found, extracts:
- the smallest pricing tier
- what the pricing is per user / per month / per seat
- whether a trial is available
- a short pricing description
- Creates a pricing table with all plans
This turned something that normally takes 15–20 minutes per tool into a fully automated process.
Workflow #2: Identifying alternatives
Using the tool’s:
- homepage
- pricing page
- features page
…we matched it against the market using two APIs:
- DiscoLike
- Ocean.io
Both provided lists of similar GTM tools.
From there, the workflow:
- Checked whether each alternative already existed in our database
- If it didn’t, it added the tool to the database automatically
- Then it generated tasks to create both:
- the product entry
- the full product page
This kept the whole ecosystem growing without anyone manually searching for new tools.
4. Scaling the Directory
Once the system was running, it didn’t just add tools = it exploded.
In only two months, the directory:
- created 1,000+ pages
- added 2,500 tools to the databases
- generated both short and long descriptions
- assigned each tool to the correct categories
- placed them in the right directories
- built {tool} alternative pages
- built {tool} integrations pages
- built {tool} discount pages
- and even created affiliate links—completely automatically
Every time a new tool appeared, the system knew how to:
→ collect data
→ classify it
→ generate content
→ and publish pages
All without needing human intervention.
Outcome
After two months, ColdIQ had something no one else in the GTM world had:
a fully automated, always-growing directory built specifically for go-to-market teams.
It now acts as:
- a discovery engine
- an integration explorer
- a competitor analysis tool
- a pricing hub
- an affiliate revenue channel
The directory doesn’t just store information—it expands on its own.
If a tool isn’t inside the database yet, the system adds it.
If it needs pricing, alternatives, descriptions, or integrations, the workflows generate them.
The scale is the real win:
- 1K+ pages published automatically
- 2.5K tools added to Airtable + MongoDB
- Everything enriched with descriptions, categories, pricing tables, and affiliate links
- All generated using 60+ custom workflows
ColdIQ now has a living, breathing product that would have taken a traditional team months just to outline. Instead, the directory continues to grow day by day, pulling more traffic, capturing more GTM searches, and strengthening the brand.
This wasn’t just building a directory—it was building a search engine for GTM tools, powered by data, automation, and a lot of clever workflows behind the scenes.