Find UK companies the day they register, and sell them what they need first
Around two thousand new companies join the Companies House register every day, and some are cafes, salons and builders with no website yet. A short Python script turns the free register into tomorrow morning's list. Add the UK contact rules, a fixed-price launch offer and letters that don't look like scams, and you have a lead source most web designers never touch.
- A kit: letter and follow-up templates, a free leave-behind checklist, pricing calculator, scoreboard, lead tracker and do-not-contact list
- uv, to run the script. Step 1 of Make a command-line tool installs it. You don't need to know Python
- A free Companies House developer account for the API key (step 2 shows where). Or skip it and use the website's search or the monthly bulk file
- The delivery skills, from earlier lessons: Build a fast website for a local business, Get a local business found on Google and Turn a blurry logo into a sharp vector
- A printer, envelopes and stamps, and about 6 to 8 hours a week
Why the day they register is the day to write
Understand the gap, what new owners need first, and what this really takes before you spend a penny on stamps.
A brand-new company is a customer with an empty to-do listYesterday it didn't exist. Today it needs a web address, a Google profile, a logo file the sign maker can use, and a way for people to book. Nobody has sold it any of that yet. You can find it within a day, for free, because the UK register of companies is public.
The numbers are big. Companies House recorded 192,287 incorporations from April to June 2026: 67,059 in April, 62,091 in May and 63,137 in June (Incorporated companies in the UK, April to June 2026 ↗). That's roughly 15,000 a week.
Most of those aren't your customersSearch the register for active companies incorporated in September 2026 and you get 68,277. Here's what some of them registered as (their SIC code, the "nature of business" they pick when they register):
- Not your market: 5,012 letting their own property (68209), 4,149 management consultancy (70229), 2,210 holding companies (64209), 1,647 "other business support" (82990).
- For you: 1,046 unlicensed cafes and restaurants (56102), 786 licensed restaurants (56101), 1,867 takeaways and food stands (56103), 1,218 hairdressing and beauty (96020), 682 plumbing and heating (43220), 661 electricians (43210).
- Locally it's small: registered offices in Bristol that month came to 613 companies, of which 8 were cafes (56102) and 5 were plumbers (43220).
Counts overlap a little (a company can list up to four SIC codes), and a registered office isn't always where the business trades. But the shape is clear: in one city, one trade gives you a handful a month. You'll want several trades, or a wider area.
The hook most people missGoogle lets a verified business set an opening date up to a year ahead, and the profile appears on Google 90 days before that date (Google Business Profile help ↗). A cafe that registers in October and opens in January could be on Maps, with photos and a menu, from October. Almost no new owner knows this. It's the opening line of your letter and the first thing you sell.
What it takes:
- Letters work on volume. Plan on 1 to 3 replies per 100 letters, and let your own scoreboard replace that figure after a month. For comparison, Hunter's State of Cold Email ↗ puts the average cold email reply rate at 4.5%.
- Your letter has to stand apart from the junk. New companies get a lot of post, some of it scams dressed up as official bills, so yours must look nothing like that (step 6).
- Not every company will trade. Some are set up and left dormant, and some owners already have a website sorted. Step 3 sifts those out.
- Each letter costs about £1 and 5 to 10 minutes, which is why you check the list before you post.
- Timeline: a week or two to get the script running and build one demo. Then several weeks of steady posting before the first paying client; one to three months is common.
TipWho this suits: you can already deliver a website and a Google profile (do those lessons first), you're happy doing careful list-checking every week, and you can give it 6 to 8 hours a week. Keep your day job while you land the first clients.Everything in this mission is in one kit: download the kit (zip), or open the pieces: kit.md (offer, packages, scope, terms, proposal, onboarding questions, routine, 30-day plan, prompts), outreach-templates.md, legitimate-interests-assessment.md, delivery-checklist.md, pricing-calculator.csv and scoreboard.csv.