SaaSquatch Leads

A B2B lead generation platform. Search a database of companies and decision makers, save the good ones into lists, and launch AI-personalized outreach over email and LinkedIn. Email and phone validation is built in, so bad data never reaches a campaign.

Live demo: saasquatch-signal.vercel.app Demo sign-in: [email protected] / demo1234 (or the one-click demo button on the login page)

The first request after a quiet spell can take up to a minute while the free-tier API wakes up. Everything after that is instant.

What it does

1. Find. Search 1,200+ contacts and 400 companies by title, seniority, department, industry, location, company size, and tech stack. Or just type who you want in plain English ("VPs of engineering at fintech companies in Texas") and the AI fills in the same filters for you. Filters live in the URL, so any search is shareable and the back button works.
2. Save. Select results in bulk and save them to lists. Lists feed campaigns in two clicks and export to CSV.
3. Reach out. Describe your offer in four fields and the AI designs the whole sequence. First emails are personalized per lead, citing a real signal from their record, like a funding round or a hiring spree. Sending runs on real queues with delayed jobs for the follow-up waits, and delivery events feed a funnel. LinkedIn steps become manual tasks with a drafted message and a deep link, because automating LinkedIn breaks their terms.
4. Validate. Check any email (syntax, live MX lookup, disposable domains, role accounts) or phone number (format, allocated range, line type), one at a time or in bulk.

Tools and technologies

Layer	Tool	Where and why
Frontend	Next.js 15	The web app in apps/web; server components fetch from the API so nothing loads client side unauthenticated
Frontend	React 19 + TypeScript	UI and type safety across the whole monorepo
Frontend	Tailwind CSS v4	All styling, through design tokens for colors, spacing, and dark mode
Frontend	shadcn/ui + Radix	Accessible component kit: dialogs, dropdowns, tables, tabs, selects
Frontend	Auth.js v5	Login sessions; the API's JWT rides inside the session cookie and never reaches the browser
Frontend	Zod	Validates login and signup forms before they hit the server
Backend	NestJS 11	The API in apps/api: modular controllers and services with guards and dependency injection
Backend	PostgreSQL	System of record for companies, contacts, lists, campaigns, and messages
Backend	Prisma 6	ORM, schema migrations, and the seed script (400 companies, 1,206 contacts)
Backend	Redis	Caches search results and facets, and backs the job queues
Backend	BullMQ	Queues for AI draft generation, sending, and day-delayed follow-up steps
Backend	Passport JWT + bcryptjs	Token auth and password hashing
Backend	class-validator + Throttler	Request validation and per-route rate limits
Backend	Swagger	Self-documenting API at /docs
Backend	libphonenumber-js	Offline phone validation: E.164, country, line type
AI and data	Google Gemini (Groq fallback)	Plain-English search parsing, sequence design, and per-lead personalized emails
AI and data	Apollo.io	Live company enrichment by domain ("Import from web")
AI and data	Hunter.io, Brevo, ZeroBounce	Wired slots for people by domain, real email sending, and deep email verification; the app runs in demo mode without keys
Infra	Docker + Compose	One-command production-shaped stack: postgres, redis, api, worker, web

Run it locally

With Docker

docker compose up --build
docker compose --profile seed run seed   # one time: migrate and load demo data

Web on http://localhost:3000, API and Swagger docs on http://localhost:4000/docs.

Without Docker

# 1. infra: boots an embedded PostgreSQL (:5432) and Redis (:6379)
cd apps/api && npm i && node scripts/dev-infra.mjs &

# 2. api
cp .env.example .env            # set JWT_SECRET, add provider keys if you have them
npx prisma migrate dev && npm run seed
npm run start:dev               # :4000, queues run in-process

# 3. web
cd ../web && npm i && npm run dev   # :3000

Tip: set DAY_MS=60000 in the API env to watch a multi-day sequence play out in minutes.

Deployment

The repo carries a render.yaml blueprint that stands up the API (Docker, health-checked, queues in-process) and a Redis instance on Render's free tier. Postgres lives on Neon, and the web app deploys to Vercel with API_URL pointing at the Render service. All keys are entered in each dashboard and never committed.

Note for free tiers: the API spins down after about 15 idle minutes, so the first request after a quiet spell takes half a minute to wake.

Design decisions worth knowing

• AI search is grounded, not guessed. The prompt-to-filters parser receives the actual industry and tech vocabulary from the index, so "fintech" maps to the real "Financial Services" facet instead of silently matching nothing.
• Email status is a first-class thing. Verified, guessed, and missing addresses are labeled everywhere, and launching a campaign skips contacts without an address rather than bouncing and hurting sender reputation.
• Signals drive the copy. The AI writer opens with the lead's stored signal and is told to skip personalization rather than invent it. No "loved your recent post" filler.
• Compliance is a feature. LinkedIn steps are deliberately manual. Email validation does no SMTP handshake, since cloud hosts block port 25 and catch-alls defeat it, and the UI says so instead of pretending certainty.
• CSV export is injection-safe. Exported lead data ends up in spreadsheets, so cells are guarded against formula injection.

Repo tour

Path	What's there
apps/api/src/search	Filtered search and facets (Redis-cached), Apollo and Hunter enrichment
apps/api/src/ai	LLM client with Gemini-to-Groq fallback, the writer, the NL parser, the sequence designer
apps/api/src/campaigns	Brief to campaign, step editing, contact management, launch
apps/api/src/queues	The generate and send processors, plus the standalone worker entrypoint
apps/api/src/validation	Email and phone validators, bulk mode, history
apps/web/app/(app)	Dashboard, find, lists, campaigns, validate, settings
apps/web/lib/api.ts	The one HTTP client every server component and action goes through