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Sign in, add an AI and a search key, create your first project, approve the analysis and review your first drafted email.

3 min readUpdated

This gets you from an empty dashboard to your first drafted email. Set aside about half an hour, most of which is signing up for free API keys.

Before you start

You need a Larvabot account (Larvabot is invite-only for now), and an email address on your project's domain, like hello@yourproject.com. Everything else you'll sign up for along the way, for free.

#1. Sign in

Sign in at app.larvabot.com. If this is your first time, create your account from your invitation email first. Your account

#2. Add an AI key and a search key

These two are all Larvabot needs to find and draft. Both are free and neither needs a card.

  1. Create a Gemini key. Go to Google AI Studio, sign in with a Google account and click Create API key.
  2. Create a Tavily key. Sign up at tavily.com and copy the key from your dashboard.
  3. Paste both into Larvabot. Open Settings. Paste the Gemini key under AI → Gemini API key and the Tavily key under Search → Tavily API key, then save each one.
  4. Test them. Open Jobs & providers and click Test search + AI. You should see a search result and a line of AI text. Then click Check next to Gemini to run the quality check.

Add Groq while you're at it

A free Groq key takes a minute and gives Larvabot a backup brain for when Gemini is busy. It's the single most useful extra key. Which keys you actually need

#3. Create your first project

Click + next to Projects in the sidebar (or Add your first project). Enter your domain, your name (it signs your emails) and the address you'll send from, then click Create project.

Larvabot reads your site and drafts a plan. It takes about 20 seconds, which is roughly how long a larva needs to chew through a homepage. Adding a project

#4. Review the profile and approve

You land on the Profile tab with a banner saying nothing runs until you review it. Read it top to bottom. The fields that matter most:

  • Pitch and What you can offer: every draft is built from these
  • Audience and Segments: who you're trying to reach
  • Cautions: anything the AI should never claim
  • Email campaigns plan: the searches that will find your leads

Fix anything that's off, click Save profile, then Approve & start. Reviewing the site profile

#5. Find, research and draft your first leads

You don't have to wait for the hourly schedule. On the Leads tab, click the three buttons in order:

  1. 1 · Find leads runs one search from your first campaign and saves the pages it finds.
  2. 2 · Research 3 reads three of them, scores the fit and looks for a contact.
  3. 3 · Draft 3 writes a first email and two follow-ups for leads that have a contact.

Then open the Review tab. Your drafts are waiting.

#6. Connect email, then approve

To actually send, Larvabot needs an SMTP account for sending and, ideally, an IMAP inbox so it notices replies:

Then set up your project's sender on the Setup tab and make sure the Email setup check is green. Sending setup and deliverability

Now approve a draft. It moves to Scheduled and goes out in your next weekday send window.

#7. Install the tracking snippet (optional, but do it)

Copy the one-line script from the project's Setup tab into your site's <head>. From then on, the Reports tab shows which emails, threads and directories brought visitors. The tracking snippet

#You're done. Now what?

  • Conversations People asking for what you built, with reply drafts.
  • Directories A checklist of free places to list your project.
  • F5Bot Real-time Reddit and Hacker News alerts, free.
  • Telegram alerts A ping when a really good thread shows up.

Keep going

The keys you actually needThe smallest set of free keys that makes Larvabot useful, what each extra key adds, and the order to add them in.Read
Adding a projectCreate a project from a domain. Larvabot reads your site and drafts a profile and outreach plan, and nothing runs until you approve it.Read