Stage 1 finds the accounts getting ready to buy, gets you in through people you already know, and writes a first message worth answering. Then it works every reply until the meeting is booked, all from your own LinkedIn and email.
Free for 14 days. No credit card. Your first Board in about two minutes.
Buyer
ChampionMarcus - saw your post about "finally getting off Teradata this year." Given your role running data engineering, I suspect the license renewal is setting the clock. Is that accurate, or is the bigger issue something else?
Stage 1 is sales software for services firms. It watches the accounts you want for signs they're getting ready to buy, finds someone you already know who can introduce you, and writes the first message from real research. Then it works every reply until the meeting is booked.
Most quarters aren't lost at the negotiating table. They're lost months earlier, when Stage 1 came up short and nobody noticed until it was too late to fix. Your competitors see the same new CIO, the same RFP and the same job post you do. The firm that gets in first wins.
Right now, an account on your list is getting ready to buy.
A new CIO is rewriting the roadmap. A team just posted the job for the exact problem you solve. If you don't see it this week, the firm that does gets the first meeting.
The first firm in the room writes the shortlist.
Whoever shows up first with the right idea frames the problem and sets the criteria. Everyone after that is competing on price.
Someone you know already knows the buyer. Stage 1 finds them and asks for the intro before anything goes out cold.
Every first message is built on what just happened at that account, so it reads like you did the homework. You did.
Every reply lands sorted, with your answer drafted. The ones going cold get flagged before they do.
Five stages, the same ones in your CRM. Stage 1 does the watching, the research and the drafting. You make the calls.
A new CIO, a job post naming the platform you replace, an RFP, a comment on a competitor's post. Checked four times a day.
Signals stack into one signal strength score, checked against your ideal customer by rules you can read and change.
Approve it and Stage 1 threads the buyer, the champion and the technical lead over seven days.
Every reply lands on the Desk with an answer drafted from your own playbook.
Mark it booked. The deal goes to HubSpot, your team gets a Slack ping, and the sequence stops.
Stage 1 reads three sources on every account it surfaces: what the company has put out, what its people are doing, and what's happening around them. It turns the strongest signal into a first message built in four parts.
A cold message is the slowest way into a buying committee. Your competitor's best partner is getting introduced as you wait for an acceptance. Stage 1 checks every buyer, champion and technical lead against your LinkedIn network, shows you who you have in common, and asks the right person for the intro.
Warm paths need LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator on the account you connect.
+2Nina Patel and 4 others can introduce youIntro via NinaNina - quick favor. I'd like to meet Marcus Lee at Brightwater Logistics. Looks like you two worked together at Ironbridge. Would you be open to an intro? If so, here's a short note you can forward as is.
Marcus, I'm Kevin French at Halyard Systems. I saw your post about getting off Teradata this year. Given your role, I suspect the license renewal is setting the clock. Is that accurate, or is the bigger issue something else?
Example people. Every name is invented.
Stage 1 reads the news, company newsrooms and X accounts, new 8-K filings and your own LinkedIn four times a day, and the full text of 10-Ks and 10-Qs every week, across the accounts you watch. Posts, job listings, new seats, champions on the move, events, reactions, 8-Ks, 10-Ks, earnings releases, headlines and public tenders. Turn on the ones that fit your offer. See every signal and where it comes from.
A request for proposal in your space, from a public tender, the news or someone at the account. The clearest sign there is.
A new CIO, CTO or VP in the first 90 days, a leader stepping down, or your champion just left. Budgets and allies get rewritten.
Their own filings, the news or their whole industry. Margin pressure, layoffs, a data breach, a missed launch, an AI mandate, a new federal rule, a new risk factor in the 10-K. The reason they'll pay for help, in their own words.
Someone you know takes a buyer seat or lands at an account you watch, a past champion moves, or someone reacts to your team's posts.
A role that only exists when a program is starting.
People engaging with a rival firm's page or posts about your kind of work.
A round, an acquisition, a merger, an IPO, a new facility or a launch. New money with a plan attached.
A job post or a 10-K naming the platform you move people off.
A leader posting about the problem in their own words, or heading to an event you watch.
Reactions to the voices your buyers follow.
Three signals in a week outrank one from last quarter. Accounts that go quiet slide down the Board on their own, so the top of the list is always this week's work. The scoring rules are in plain English in the app, and you can change them.
Every signal starts from the same rubric. Is money committed, is there a deadline, does the work go outside, is there a way in. Then your results take over.
Stage 1 tracks which signals turn into replies for your firm. Once a signal has enough sends behind it, its weight moves. A new CIO might be your best opener. An AI mandate might go nowhere for you. The Board learns which is which.
Month three ranks better than month one. That learning lives in your workspace and builds every week you run it.
Example numbers for a made-up firm.
One ranked list of companies that are moving, with what happened, who to reach and the first line to send. Approve or pass in one key.
Replies from LinkedIn and email in one place, sorted by intent, with a draft that fits what they said.
Stage 1 reads up to 20 pages of your site, then your decks and case studies. Your offer, proof and objections end up in every draft.
Every score comes from rules in plain English. Pass on an account and say why, and the rules move. Replies move the signal weights.
LinkedIn and Google or Outlook, connected once. Daily caps, sending hours and weekends off keep your accounts safe.
Stage 1 finds verified work emails for the people it threads. No Apollo seat, no credits to top up.
Every tool here finds buying signals. What wins the meeting is what happens next. The way in, the words and who you reach.
| Stage 1 | Pancake | Valley | Origami | Unify | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it ranks | Accounts, every signal rolled up | People | People | Accounts | Accounts |
| Where signals come from | LinkedIn, public filings, news, public tenders, events and champion moves | LinkedIn activity, hiring, tech stack | LinkedIn activity, site visitors, hiring | 50+ sources, site visitors | Site visitors, product usage, hiring, news |
| Warm intro paths | Asks someone you know first | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Through a Swarm add-on |
| Buying committee | Buyer, champion, technical lead | Not stated | Not stated | Finds decision-makers | Finds several contacts |
| The first message | A hypothesis from 3x3 research | AI, opens on activity | AI, in your voice | AI draft | AI from research |
| Named sales method | Inversion Selling | None | None | None | None |
| Built for | Services firms | Agencies, consultants, founders | SaaS teams, agencies | Early-stage teams | SDR and AE teams |
As of October 2026, from each company's own website. See the full comparison, with The Swarm →
Kevin French spent 25 years selling IT services. He held senior revenue roles at Globant, EPAM and BairesDev, and was CRO at Stuzo through a $200M acquisition.
He wrote Inversion Selling, the method behind every Stage 1 message. Stage 1 is the tool he wanted on every one of those teams.
You get the founder on a call, a direct line when something's off, and a real say in what gets built next. Firms who start now shape the product the rest of the market gets.
Free for 14 days. No credit card.
No credit card. See what Stage 1 finds on your own accounts before you pay anything. Work emails are included in every plan.
One seller working a focused list of accounts.
Partners and sellers threading the same accounts together.
Stage 1 with Inversion CRO building and running the playbook with you.
Prices in US dollars. You connect your own LinkedIn, on Premium or Sales Navigator, and Google or Outlook accounts. Stage 1 never sends from a shared pool. Compare every plan →
Fourteen days with everything in Team. Full research, openers and warm paths on your top 15 accounts, 10 accounts you can approve and work, and 25 work emails. That's enough to see real replies on your own accounts.
Nothing is charged. You never gave us a card. Your Board keeps filling, sending pauses, and everything you set up stays until you choose a plan. The trial is free so you can see real signals on your own accounts before you pay for anything.
Yes. Stage 1 tracks the reply rate behind every signal for your firm. Once a signal has ten sends, it gains weight when it beats your average and loses weight when it trails. Every pass and the reason you give moves the scoring rules too. Month three ranks your accounts better than month one, and what it learns stays in your workspace.
About two minutes, and nothing to set up. Sign up with your work email. Stage 1 reads your website, learns how you sell and suggests accounts that fit. Keep the ones you want and it checks their filings and news right away. LinkedIn and email come in when you approve your first account.
Stage 1 sends from your own account at a human pace. By default that's up to 20 connection requests and 40 messages a day, only during your working hours, with weekends off. You can lower any of these.
Yes. Connect a LinkedIn account on Premium or Sales Navigator. Finding warm paths and buying committees runs on LinkedIn search, and LinkedIn cuts free accounts off from search within days. Sales Navigator gives Stage 1 the most room to work.
No. Company data and the buying committee come through your connected LinkedIn, and Stage 1 finds verified work emails as part of your plan. If you already have a list, import it as a CSV.
Stage 1 reads your website, decks and case studies, and you tell it how you write. Every draft comes from that. You can edit anything before it goes, and nothing sends until you approve the account.
HubSpot today. When you mark a meeting booked, Stage 1 creates or updates the company, the contact and a deal at the stage you choose. Salesforce is on the roadmap.
They go on your opt-out list and nothing else is sent to them, on any channel. Every email carries a one-line footer that lets people reply stop. You can block a whole company domain too.
A sequencer sends what you load into it. Stage 1 decides who's worth reaching this week and why, reaches the people who decide together, and handles the replies. The sequencing is the smallest part.
Sign up with your work email and see your first Board in about two minutes. Free for 14 days, no credit card.