I Built a Lead Qualification System in 7 Days Using n8n + AI

Anish Jhaveri — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:55:10 +0000

I just shipped an automated lead qualification system for a B2B SaaS client. The whole build took 7 days from kickoff to production deployment.

The Problem

The sales team was manually reviewing 50+ demo requests per week. About half were unqualified (students, competitors, tire-kickers). They needed automation that could:

Enrich leads with company data
Score based on ICP fit
Route qualified leads to sales, others to nurture campaigns

The Stack

n8n for workflow orchestration
Clearbit for company enrichment
Custom scoring logic (revenue, employee count, tech stack)
HubSpot for CRM integration

The Results

70% of leads auto-qualified (no human touch needed)
Sales team saves 15 hours/week
2x faster response time to hot leads
$0 in ongoing costs (self-hosted n8n)

Key Architecture Decisions

1. Enrich Before You Score

Don't try to score leads with just email and name. Enrich first with:

Company size
Revenue estimates
Tech stack
Funding status

2. Simple Rules Win

Started with complex ML scoring. Scrapped it. Went with simple if/then rules:

Company size > 50 employees? +10 points
Uses Salesforce? +5 points
Has funding? +5 points

3. Always Have a Human Review Loop

Edge cases will break your automation. Build in a "needs review" queue for:

Scores between 40-60 (gray area)
Missing enrichment data
VIP domains (investors, partners)

Full Technical Breakdown

I wrote a detailed walkthrough with code snippets and n8n workflow screenshots here:
👉 Lead Qualification System Breakdown

Questions?

Happy to answer questions about the build, n8n workflows, or automation architecture in general!

Zapier vs. Custom Code: When to Fire Your 'Glue' Tool

Anish Jhaveri — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 22:31:14 +0000

I run an automation agency. Half my job is ripping out tangled Zapier messes and replacing them with clean code.
The other half? Telling founders "No, you don't need a custom build yet, just use Zapier."

The "When to Switch" Rule

If your monthly Zapier bill > $200 OR your "glue" breaks > 1x/week, it's time to switch.

The Stack (2026)

We use n8n + TypeScript for most enterprise automation.
Why?

Debugging is easier.
Error handling is actual code, not drag-and-drop guesses.
No "Task" limits.

Code Snippet: Phone Normalization

Here is why code wins for data cleaning:

// Example: Why code is better for cleaning phone numbers
function normalizePhone(raw) {
    const cleaned = raw.replace(/\D/g, '');
    if (cleaned.length === 10) return `+1${cleaned}`;
    if (cleaned.length === 11 && cleaned.startsWith('1')) return `+${cleaned}`;
    return null; // Explicit failure
}

Conclusion

Don't over-engineer early. But know when you've outgrown the no-code cradle.

*Read the full technical breakdown and more examples on my engineering log: Zapier vs. Code: When to Fire Your "Glue" Tool

DEV Community: Anish Jhaveri