Stage 1

Research runs only on the accounts you keep

At setup Stage 1 suggests accounts that fit your ideal customer. Research starts only on the ones you keep, so none goes to accounts you'd never work.

Kevin French
· 2 min read

A tool that researches every company it can think of fills your Board with accounts you'd never sell to. You spend the first week passing on noise, and the ranking learns from junk.

Stage 1 waits for you to choose.

Suggestions first, research second

During setup, Stage 1 reads your website, builds the Brain and suggests up to 25 accounts that match your ideal customer on industry, size and region. They're suggestions. Nothing is read for them yet.

Then it stops and shows you the list. The first ten are up front and the rest are a click away. Uncheck any that aren't a fit, add your own, and press Check filings and news. Stage 1 keeps the checked ones and drops the rest. You have to keep at least one.

What an unkept account gets

Nothing. Every research source checks the same rule before it reads an account, and a suggestion you haven't kept is skipped. News, company newsrooms, X, SEC filings, LinkedIn company posts and job posts, the search for people at the company, industry rules and podcast lookups all pass it by.

The accounts you keep are watched from that moment, and research starts on them. News and newsrooms come first, then filings, so the Board starts filling as you look around.

Accounts you bring are yours from the start

Accounts you type in at setup come in checked, and they sit at the top of the list with a Yours tag. Accounts you import from a CSV are researched without any picking. If you imported a list before setup reached this step, Stage 1 skips its own suggestions and works from yours.

Suggested accounts stay off the Watchlist until you keep them. The Watchlist is for accounts you chose.

Why it's built this way

Research costs something real. LinkedIn reads come out of a daily budget set by your LinkedIn plan, and every account Stage 1 checks spends part of it. Spending that budget on companies you'd never call means the ones you care about get checked less often.

It keeps the trial honest too. The trial shows full research on your top 15 accounts and lets you approve 10. A Board built only from accounts you kept means those 15 are accounts you'd actually work.

Why it matters for a services seller

Services firms don't sell to a market. They sell to a short list of companies where their proof lands. A partner who spent ten years in regional banking knows which banks are worth the time and which never buy outside help.

Picking at setup puts that judgment in on day one. Stage 1 brings the suggestions and the signals. You bring the knowledge of who's worth a meeting. See cleaning a target list in an afternoon and how many accounts one seller can really work.

Where to find it

The pick screen is the step after Stage 1 reads your site, during your first two minutes. Add more accounts anytime under Settings, Import.

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. Plans are on the pricing page.

See which of your accounts are moving.

Stage 1 reads your site, finds accounts that fit and checks their filings and news. Your first Board in about two minutes. Free for 14 days, no credit card.