posthog-inbound-leads

What this skill does

# PostHog Inbound Lead Disposition

Evaluate inbound leads from Salesforce and either draft a response email or recommend a disposition. This skill is for any PostHog TAE handling inbound sales inquiries.

## Core Workflow

1. **Ingest lead context** — Read whatever the TAE provides (Salesforce fields, email body, notes)
2. **Check Vitally for existing account context** — Search for the lead's email and email domain (see Step 0 below)
3. **Research the company** — Web search to understand who they are, their funding, size, and growth trajectory (see Step 1 below)
4. **Identify the use case** — Map the lead to one or more of PostHog's six use cases, informed by company research (see Step 2 below)
5. **Qualify the lead** — Apply the disposition framework, informed by company research and growth trajectory (see Step 3 below)
6. **Recommend a disposition** — State the recommended action and identified use case(s) clearly
7. **Draft a response** — Write the appropriate email, framed around their use case (see Step 4 below)
8. **Validate all URLs** — Fetch every link in the draft email to confirm it resolves and points to the intended content (see Step 5 below)

## Step 0: Check Vitally for Existing Account Context

Before qualifying or drafting anything, check Vitally to see if this lead (or their company) is already a PostHog user. This changes the disposition and email framing significantly — an existing customer asking for help is different from a cold inbound.

### What to check

Run two Vitally lookups using the lead's email address:

1. **Search by exact email** — `vitally:search_users` with `email` set to the lead's email address. This tells you if this specific person already has a PostHog account.
2. **Search by email domain** — `vitally:search_users` with `emailSubdomain` set to the domain portion of the lead's email (e.g., `acme.com` from `[email protected]`). This tells you if anyone at their company is already using PostHog.

If either search returns results, pull up the associated account with `vitally:get_account_full` using the `accountId` from the user record(s). Use `detailLevel: "summary"` for a quick overview.

### How to use what you find

**Lead's email is an existing user:**
- They're already in PostHog. The email should acknowledge this ("I can see you're already using PostHog") and focus on their specific ask rather than onboarding-style resources.
- Check their account's MRR and health score — this informs whether they're a self-serve user reaching out to grow, or an existing account with an expansion opportunity.

**Different person at the same company is already a user:**
- Their company is already on PostHog. Reference this in the email ("I see your team is already using PostHog") and ask how their request relates to the existing usage.
- Check who else is on the account — the lead may need to connect with the internal champion rather than start a separate evaluation.
- If the account already has a TAE assigned, flag this to avoid stepping on someone's book of business.

**No results in Vitally:**
- Net new lead. Proceed with the standard qualification workflow below.

### What to surface to the TAE

When presenting the Vitally findings, include:
- Whether the person or company was found
- Account name and current MRR (if applicable)
- Health score (if applicable)
- Assigned TAE (if any — important for routing)
- Number of users on the account
- A one-line recommendation on how this changes the response (e.g., "Existing $3K/mo account, no TAE assigned — this is an expansion opportunity, not a new lead")

## Step 1: Research the Company

**This step is mandatory for every lead.** The lead's form submission alone is not enough information to qualify or disqualify. A 10K MAU lead from a $6B startup and a 10K MAU lead from a 5-person agency require completely different dispositions.

### What to research

Run 1-3 web searches to understand the company. Start with the company name and domain:

- `web_search` for `[Company Name] [domain]` — Get the basics: what they do, who they are
- `web_search` for `[Company Name] funding employees` — Get firmographics: funding stage, headcount, growth signals
- If the company appears to be notable or well-funded, search for recent news: `[Company Name] 2026` or `[Company Name] news`

### What to extract

From the research, identify and record:

| Signal | Why It Matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| **What they build** | Determines use case mapping and whether they're ICP | "AI tools for manufacturing" → AI/LLM Obs is relevant |
| **Funding stage and amount** | Proxy for budget and growth trajectory | Series B, $50M → likely has budget for tooling |
| **Employee count** | Proxy for spend potential and team complexity | 200 employees → multiple teams, multi-project potential |
| **Engineering team size or ratio** | PostHog's buyer is engineers; more engineers = better fit | "80% of team is engineering" → strong ICP signal |
| **Growth trajectory** | Determines whether current MAU is the ceiling or the floor | Founded 6 months ago, hiring aggressively → MAU will grow fast |
| **Recent news** | Acquisitions, launches, pivots that change context | Just acquired an AI startup → expanding product surface |
| **Business model** | SaaS, marketplace, dev tools, agency, etc. | B2B SaaS → classic PostHog ICP |

### Classify the growth trajectory

Based on the research, classify the company into one of four growth trajectories:

- **Accelerating**: Recent large funding round (especially if raised in last 12 months), aggressive hiring, early-stage with significant capital, or clear signs of rapid expansion. Current MAU is almost certainly not the ceiling. Examples: well-funded Series A+ startups, companies that just raised mega-rounds, companies with "hundreds of open roles."
- **Steady**: Established company, moderate and predictable growth. Current MAU is a reasonable proxy for near-term spend. Examples: mid-market SaaS with stable revenue, mature PLG companies.
- **Early/unknown**: New company, limited public information, hard to assess trajectory. Treat current MAU as the best available signal but note the uncertainty. Examples: pre-seed startups, stealth-mode companies with no public footprint.
- **Flat/declining**: No growth signals, layoffs, or signs of contraction. Current MAU may overstate future spend. Examples: companies with recent layoffs, shrinking teams.

**The growth trajectory classification directly affects qualification.** See Step 3 for how it modifies the $20K threshold.

### Detect multi-product signals

While researching, watch for signals that the lead's company has (or is building) multiple products. This is a spend multiplier because each product typically becomes a separate PostHog project with its own event volume.

**Signals in the lead's message:**
- "some of our products" / "multiple products" / "across our portfolio"
- "several teams" / "multiple teams" / "different business units"
- "our platform and our apps" / "our web app and mobile app"
- "integrate into our stack" (implies breadth)

**Signals from company research:**
- Company has multiple product lines or brands
- Company recently acquired other companies (each acquisition may have its own product)
- Job postings reference multiple product teams
- Company website shows multiple distinct products

When multi-product signals are present, note the estimated product count (or range) and factor it into the MAU multiplier. A company with 5 products at 10K MAU each is a 50K MAU opportunity, not a 10K one.

### Detect AI/ML company signals

If company research reveals the company is AI-native (building AI/ML products as their core business), flag AI/LLM Observability as a probable secondary use case even if the lead's message doesn't mention AI, LLMs, model costs, or prompts.

**AI-native signals:**
- Company description mentions AI, ML, LLM, or "artificial intelligence" as core to what they build
- Company is in an AI-adjacent in