Signal library
The signals behind every lead
DemandScout reads 28 kinds of public signs. Each one is a hypothesis: when it shows up at a company in your market, the odds that they need something change. Here's what each one reads and what it suggests.
Indirect signs
These tend to appear before a company starts shopping. They're where the head start comes from.
- Just raised, now hiring Capital already converting into headcount is a plan being executed, not announced.
- Recent funding round New capital creates a spending window before the team to spend it exists.
- New leadership A new leader reviews inherited commitments and has a mandate to change them.
- M&A activity Two stacks have to become one, which is integration work nobody has staffed.
- Launching a new product A launch adds load, support and compliance surface the old setup was not sized for.
- Major contract / partnership A won contract is delivery capacity they must find before the start date.
- Security or safety incident A loss at the premises is the moment on-site security stops being a line item to defer.
- Layoffs / restructuring Fewer people doing the same work needs either cheaper tooling or outside hands — or neither. Two-sided
- New CTO / VP Eng / Head of Platform A new technology leader re-evaluates the platform and its vendors within 90 days.
- New CISO / security lead A new security leader must show a plan, and a plan needs tooling, audits and people.
- New COO / operations lead A new operations leader is hired to fix throughput, and buys what fixes it.
- New site / warehouse / planning permission A new site has to be fitted, secured and staffed before it can earn.
- New store opening A store opening is a hard deadline for POS, cameras, alarms and staff.
- Public outage / downtime A public outage buys reliability work the roadmap would not have funded last month.
- Cyber breach reported A breach forces remediation, audit and reporting work on a deadline set by someone else.
- Compliance deadline (SOC 2, ISO, DORA, NIS2) A certification date is a deadline they cannot move, met with tooling and specialist help.
- Cloud / vendor migration A migration needs platform engineers they do not have for a job that ends.
- Regulator action (fine, recall, mandate) Regulator action creates a remediation programme with a reporting deadline attached.
- Insurance event The insurer, not the incident, is what converts a security wish-list into a purchase order.
- Just bought security (displacement / renewal play) The buyer exists but is contracted; the need is a better renewal, not a first purchase. Two-sided
- Leaving VMware / changing virtualisation platform A company leaving its hypervisor must stand up a replacement virtualisation / private-cloud platform before its current licence term ends (cloud_platform).
- Moving workloads off public cloud Workloads leaving a hyperscaler need somewhere to land — hardware they own or rent and a control plane to run it (cloud_platform).
- Cloud / licence bill pressure A cloud or licence bill under scrutiny is budget looking for a cheaper platform or for help cutting the current one (cloud_platform, cost_optimization).
- Cost-cutting mode (contraction play) A company cutting costs buys only what makes it cheaper, and freezes everything else (cost_optimization). Two-sided
Hiring signs
These come from job postings. Competitors watch them too, so they work best alongside an indirect sign.
- Growing fast (hiring spike) Sustained hiring above their own baseline means the team is behind the plan and buys capacity.
- First hire for a role A function being staffed for the first time has no incumbent tooling or vendor.
- Expanding geographically A first hire in a new country needs local setup — entity, payroll, compliance, on-site services.
- Hiring slowdown A hiring freeze redirects work to contractors and tooling — or signals a budget that is gone. Two-sided
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