posthog-onboarding-lead-research

What this skill does

# PostHog Onboarding Lead Research & Qualification

Deep-research a company referred from the onboarding team. Produces a complete brief: company overview, $2K+/month likelihood score, Vitally usage/billing analysis, onboarding team context, business growth trajectory assessment, and - when the recommendation is to engage - a draft outreach email with Slack channel guidance.

## Context

The PostHog onboarding team works with self-serve accounts that have a forecasted bill > $100 for an 8-week engagement. When accounts reach ~$1-1.5K/month and show growth potential, they hand them to the TAE via the "Sales Handoff" pipeline status in Vitally.

This skill does the research, scores the lead, and - when the recommendation is to engage - drafts the outreach. The TAE needs to understand the company, its trajectory, and the full context of the onboarding engagement before reaching out.

## Inputs

Ask the TAE for:
- **Company name** (required)
- **Any context from the referral** - e.g. a Slack message or email from the onboarding team (optional but helpful)
- **Contact name** if known (optional)

If the TAE only gives a company name, that's enough to start - pull the rest from Vitally and web research.

## Workflow

Run these five workstreams. Steps 1-2 use web search. Steps 3-4 use Vitally MCP. Step 5 combines web research with Vitally/SFDC/Harmonic data from traits. Interleave them efficiently — don't wait for one to finish before starting the next.

---

### Step 1: Company Research & Growth Trajectory

**Goal:** Understand who this company is and whether they're on a growth path that makes $2K+/month likely.

**Web searches to run:**
```
[company name] what does it do
[company name] crunchbase funding employees
[company name] series funding 2024 2025
[company name] engineering team hiring
[company name] product launch growth
```

**Gather:**
- One-sentence description of what the company does
- Industry / vertical
- Company size (employees, engineering headcount if available)
- Funding stage and recency (series, amount, date)
- Revenue estimate if available
- HQ location
- Product type — is this a software product company? SaaS? Marketplace? E-commerce?
- Recent news — launches, expansions, partnerships, hiring sprees
- Growth signals — new product lines, international expansion, increasing headcount

**Growth trajectory assessment:**
Based on the research, classify the company's growth trajectory:

| Trajectory | Description |
|-----------|-------------|
| **Accelerating** | Recent fundraise, hiring, product launches, or expansion. Usage will likely grow fast. |
| **Steady growth** | Established company, consistent hiring, stable product. Predictable growth. |
| **Flat/uncertain** | No recent funding, unclear growth signals, may be in maintenance mode. |
| **Early stage** | Seed/A, small team, product still finding market fit. High variance. |

---

### Step 2: $2K+ Monthly Spend Likelihood Score

**Goal:** Score the probability this account will cross $2K/month within 3-6 months.

Read `references/scoring-model.md` for the full scoring criteria.

**Quick summary of the scoring:**
- Positive signals: growth trajectory, multi-product usage, engineering team size, funding recency, industry fit, active user count, event volume trends
- Negative signals: flat/declining usage, no engineering growth, non-ICP industry, single product user, low user count

**Output a score from 0-100 with a tier:**
- **80-100: High confidence** — Strong growth signals, multi-product, expanding team. Will likely hit $2K+ organically.
- **60-79: Moderate confidence** — Good signals but some uncertainty. May need a nudge (e.g. new product adoption, config optimization).
- **40-59: Low confidence** — Mixed signals. Could go either way. Worth engaging but temper expectations.
- **0-39: Unlikely** — Flat usage, small team, no growth signals. May stay at current spend.

---

### Step 3: Vitally Usage & Billing Analysis

**Goal:** Pull hard data on what this account is actually doing in PostHog and where the spend is going.

#### 3a: Find the Account

Search Vitally for the account. Try these in order:
1. `search_accounts_advanced` with the company name
2. If that fails, ask the TAE for a contact email and use it to look up via user details

#### 3b: Pull Full Account Data

Once you have the account ID, pull:

1. **`get_account_full`** (with `detailLevel: "full"`) — Gets everything: MRR, health scores, traits, product usage, billing data, team assignments
2. **`get_account_health`** — Detailed health score breakdown

**Always extract these three fields for the Quick Links section:**
- `organization_id` (in traits) → Vitally URL: `https://posthog.vitally-eu.io/customers/{organization_id}`
- `sfdc.Id` (in traits) → Salesforce URL: `https://posthog.my.salesforce.com/{sfdc.Id}`
- `usage_dashboard_link` (in traits) → direct Metabase usage dashboard link

**Extract and analyze:**

**Current billing:**
- Current MRR / monthly spend
- Which products are driving the spend (Analytics, Session Replay, Feature Flags, etc.)
- Billing plan (pay-as-you-go vs. annual)

**Usage trends (from traits):**
- Event volume (current and trend)
- Session replay volume
- Feature flag evaluations
- Active users count and trend
- Products enabled vs. products actively used

**Growth indicators:**
- Is event volume increasing month over month?
- Are new products being adopted?
- Are new users being added to the org?
- Is there a gap between products enabled and products used? (expansion opportunity)

**Trajectory projection:**
Based on the trends, project where this account lands in 3 months:
- Current monthly spend: $X
- Projected monthly spend (3 months): $X
- Key driver of growth: [product/volume/new users]
- Risk factors: [anything that could stall growth]

#### 3c: Check for Other Accounts on the Same Domain

Large companies sometimes have multiple PostHog orgs. Search for other accounts with similar names to flag consolidation opportunities.

---

### Step 4: Onboarding Team Context

**Goal:** Get the full history of what the onboarding team discussed, tried, and learned about this customer.

#### 4a: Vitally Notes

Use `get_account_notes` (with a high limit, e.g. 20) to pull all notes on the account. The onboarding team typically logs:
- Initial outreach attempts and responses
- Call notes from onboarding sessions
- Configuration changes made
- Product recommendations given
- Customer pain points and goals
- Reasons for the handoff to sales

**Summarize the onboarding narrative:**
- Did the customer engage with the onboarding team? (calls, email replies, or silence)
- What did the onboarding team help with?
- What products/features were discussed?
- What pain points or goals did the customer mention?
- Why is the onboarding team handing off now?
- Any open issues or unfinished business?

#### 4b: Vitally Conversations

Use `get_account_conversations` to pull email threads and other conversations. These often contain:
- Email exchanges between the onboarding rep and the customer
- Details the customer shared about their use case
- Commitments or follow-ups that were promised

**Extract key details:**
- Who was the primary contact on the customer side?
- What was the tone of engagement? (enthusiastic, transactional, unresponsive)
- Any specific asks or blockers the customer raised?
- Were there any promises or follow-ups left open?

#### 4c: Granola Meeting Notes (if applicable)

If the TAE or the onboarding team had calls logged in Granola, query for them:
```
Query: "[company name] onboarding" or "[company name] [contact name]"
```

This surfaces any call transcripts with additional detail beyond what's in Vitally.

---

### Step 5: Business Growth Trajectory & PostHog Spend Mapping

**Goal:** Assess how fast the company's *business* is growing, because that directly predicts how fast their PostHog usage (and spend) will grow. This is the step that catches cases where Vitally billing data lags the real