I Found 500 Leads in 30 Minutes — Here Is the Exact Process

The Challenge

Last week I set myself a challenge: build a list of 500 real business leads — with verified email addresses — in under 30 minutes. No coding. No LinkedIn Sales Navigator. No $200/month subscription tools. Just a laptop and a strategy.

Here is exactly what happened, step by step.

Step 1: Pick 10 Hyper-Specific Searches (2 Minutes)

The biggest mistake people make with lead generation is searching too broadly. "Businesses in New York" gives you garbage. You need laser-targeted searches that match your ideal customer profile.

I started with 10 search queries, each targeting a specific business type in a specific city:

1. Dentists in Denver, CO
2. Plumbers in Austin, TX
3. Real estate agents in Miami, FL
4. Restaurants in Nashville, TN
5. Yoga studios in Portland, OR
6. Auto repair shops in Phoenix, AZ
7. Wedding venues in Charleston, SC
8. Veterinary clinics in Seattle, WA
9. Hair salons in Atlanta, GA
10. HVAC companies in Dallas, TX

Each of these targets a specific industry in a specific metro area. That specificity is what makes the data useful for personalized outreach.

Step 2: Run Each Search (20 Minutes)

I used Easy Email Finder for each search. Here is what happens when you enter a query like "dentists in Denver":

• The tool searches Google Places and finds matching businesses
• It visits each business website and extracts email addresses
• You get a table with: business name, address, website, email, phone number, and Google rating

For each of my 10 searches, I set the target to 50 leads. The tool ran through the results — searching Google Places, visiting websites, and extracting emails. Each search took about 2 minutes to complete.

Some searches returned more results than others. Dentists in Denver gave me 50 leads easily. Yoga studios in Portland gave me about 35. The more businesses that exist in a category and city, the more leads you find.

Step 3: Export Everything (1 Minute)

After each search, I hit "Export CSV." Each export included every column: business name, full address, website URL, email address, phone number, Google rating, and number of reviews.

Ten exports. Ten CSV files. I merged them into one spreadsheet in about 30 seconds.

The Results

After 10 searches across 10 cities and industries:

• 487 total businesses found (some categories had fewer results in smaller markets)
• 312 verified email addresses (64% email hit rate — not every business has an email on their website)
• 487 phone numbers (100% — Google Places always has these)
• 487 website URLs
• 487 Google ratings with review counts

Total time: 23 minutes from first search to final merged spreadsheet.

What Makes This Data Actually Useful

A list of 500 random emails is worthless. What makes this list valuable is the context around each lead:

• Google rating: A business with a 3.2-star rating might need reputation management help. A business with 4.9 stars might be ready to scale.
• Review count: New businesses with few reviews are in growth mode and more receptive to services that help them get customers.
• Website quality: You can quickly scan the website URLs to spot businesses with outdated sites — perfect targets if you sell web design or marketing.
• Location data: Full addresses let you geotarget your outreach or identify businesses in specific neighborhoods.

How I Would Use This List

If I were running a marketing agency, here is what I would do with this data today:

1. Sort by Google rating. Businesses between 3.0-4.0 stars are feeling pain about their online reputation. Reach out offering a free reputation audit.
2. Filter for businesses without emails. These businesses likely have outdated websites. That is a web design pitch waiting to happen.
3. Group by industry. Write one killer email template per industry (see our cold email templates guide) and personalize the opening line for each business.
4. Start with 10 emails per day. Do not blast 500 emails on day one. Send 10 highly personalized emails per day. Track which industries and which templates get the best reply rates. Double down on what works.

Cost Breakdown

Here is what this list cost me:

• Easy Email Finder: $0.25 per email found = roughly $78 for 312 emails
• Time: 23 minutes
• Total cost per lead: $0.16

Compare that to other lead sources:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: $99/month for similar data without emails
• ZoomInfo: $15,000+/year
• Google Ads cost per lead: $50-200 depending on industry
• Buying lead lists: $0.50-2.00 per lead with questionable quality

At $0.16 per lead with verified contact data, this is the most cost-effective prospecting method I have found.

Try It Yourself

Easy Email Finder gives you 5 free lookups when you sign up — no credit card required. Run one search in your target market and see the quality of data you get back. If it works for your use case, scale up. If not, you have lost nothing.

The days of manually building prospect lists are over. Twenty-three minutes and a clear strategy is all it takes to fill your pipeline for weeks.