“The intake question that disqualifies a tire-kicker in under a minute.”
After 60+ buyer-side intakes we've started seeing repeating patterns. Each one needs to be handled differently — and recognizing which one you're talking to in the first 30 seconds saves everyone weeks.
Founder-bottleneck. The CEO/founder is doing the AI work themselves. They want an implementer to take it off their plate. High urgency, decisive, often A-priority. Watch for: 'I've been hacking on this myself with Claude…'
Compliance shadow. Heavily-regulated vertical (healthcare, legal, finance, gov). The real decision-maker is compliance, even when the title isn't. Watch for: 'we need to be careful about how this is deployed…'
Hidden committee. Mid-market operator that says 'I just need 2 of these by Q3' but actually requires CFO + CTO + functional VP alignment. Often B-priority because the cycle is real. Watch for: vague timelines + no named DM.
Whale signal. A name-brand operator (Fortune 100 or PE portco of a top-3 sponsor) that drops you a casual ping. Always A-priority. Watch for: domain mismatch (CEO emailing from a personal address).
Tire-kicker. Budget < $25K, no urgency, vague initiative. C-priority — route to self-serve. Watch for: 'we're just exploring…'
We score every intake on Budget × Urgency × Fit × Authority and the scorecard maps to lead tiers (A/B/C). 4.0+ in any single category is enough to flag for human review. Here's the full scorecard system, the question wording that drives each signal, and the routing decisions we make.
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