# Quickstart: signup to your first ranked lead URL: https://useembers.com/help/getting-started/quickstart/ Category: Getting started Updated: 2026-09-12 Last verified: 2026-09-12 > Register, verify your email, answer three intake questions, and reveal the first ranked queue Embers builds from your public LinkedIn activity. Embers gets from a cold signup to a ranked list of people worth messaging in one sitting. This walkthrough covers every screen between the register form and your first revealed queue. ## Before you start - The public LinkedIn profile URL you want Embers to read activity around. - A company website, a short description of your ideal buyer, or both. One of the two is required. - An email inbox you can open now, because the account is verified by link. ## Set up your account ### Create an account On the register screen, enter an email address and a password of at least eight characters, or use **Continue with Google**. No card is asked for at signup. ### Verify your email Registering sends you to a "You're almost in" screen that names the address the link went to. Open the link and Embers confirms the address and moves you on. If nothing arrives, use the resend button on that screen, and check that the address is the one you meant to use. ### Answer the intake questions Onboarding runs in a fixed order, and the header counts the steps. 1. **Audience.** Who you sell to. 2. **Business.** What you sell. Give a company website, a free text description, or both. At least one is required, and the description field takes up to 4000 characters. 3. **ICP.** Embers drafts an ideal customer profile from the first two answers and shows it in full. Confirm it or edit it. 4. **Add profiles.** Paste at least one public LinkedIn URL and pick a role: **Own** for a profile you post from, or competitor, influencer, investor, teammate, advisor, client founder, or other. Your own profile is optional. There is no password, cookie, or extension step. See [Add profiles to watch](/help/getting-started/connect-your-linkedin-profile/). Choosing **Build my preview** saves the answers and queues the first scan on up to three of the profiles you added, own profiles first. ### Watch the preview build The preview canvas replaces the form. On the right is a processing ledger with four milestones: profiles verified, activity collected, buyers matched, and queue ranked. Each one is driven by a real server timestamp, not an animation, so a stalled milestone means work is genuinely still running. Onboarding is server driven. Refreshing the page, opening a second tab, or switching devices resumes in the same place. If the run takes a while, Embers offers to email you when it is ready and lets you leave for the dashboard. Nothing is lost by leaving. ### Reveal your queue When the run finishes, the panel names how many ranked leads are waiting and the reveal banner becomes the call to action. Choose **Reveal my queue**. Embers loads the top match and takes you to the dashboard, where the revealed preview takes over the page with the top match, why that person surfaced, the rest of the ranking, and a prompt to tell Embers whether the match was right. ## When the preview comes back empty An empty first run is a result, not a failure, and Embers names which kind of empty it hit: no public posts in the lookback window, posts but nobody engaging, people found but none clearing your ICP, or buyers found but dropped for missing profile evidence. The default lookback is 365 days and it is set by the post fetch days field in account settings. After a genuinely empty run, Embers offers one cost capped alternate scan built from a keyword derived from your ICP. Fixing a bad input or retrying after an infrastructure error does not use that budget. When no retry is left, the screen points at the real fix instead: set up a recurring agent. ## The setup checklist The preview is a single run. `/setup` turns it into a recurring workflow, with four items driven by your actual progress: 1. **Start recurring scans.** Configure an agent and take it live. 2. **Add the preferred extra signal source.** A keyword or a watched public profile. 3. **Act on a lead.** Generate a DM draft or mark someone contacted. 4. **Configure delivery or collaboration.** Optional: email, a webhook, or a handoff to someone else. > **Warning: Recurring scans need a paid plan** > > Taking an agent live requires Solo, Growth, Enterprise, or Agency. You pick the plan right after the reveal, and Solo, Growth, and Enterprise start a 7 day trial. Without one the go live call is refused and the configured job stays paused. See [Plans and limits](/help/account-and-billing/plans-and-limits/). ## What to do on day two Come back the next day and the agents will have run once on their 24 hour cadence. Three things are worth twenty minutes: - Open the [priority queue](/help/leads/priority-queue/) and work the top of it. Message two or three people by hand. - Give ICP feedback on anyone who is clearly wrong. Embers refines your ICP once enough feedback accumulates. - Add the signal source you skipped: a watched profile, or the keywords your buyers actually type. ## Next steps - [Define your ICP](/help/getting-started/define-your-icp/): What Embers matches people against. - [Choose your agents](/help/getting-started/choose-your-agents/): The four signal agents and what each one watches. - [No leads yet](/help/troubleshooting/no-leads-yet/): What to check when the queue stays empty.