# Key concepts

The vocabulary you'll meet across FounderMCP, and how the pieces connect.

Before diving into specific features, here's the vocabulary FounderMCP uses. These terms appear throughout the product and this documentation.

## Signals

A **signal** is one configured row on the Signals page: a source plus a buying moment. "People who engage with competitor X", "CFOs new in their role in Belgium", "companies that just raised". You add one via the row at the bottom of the table and edit it from the row itself.

Every signal has a **signal type** — what it watches and who becomes the lead. The types are grouped by where the signal comes from: **Company signals**, **LinkedIn signals** and **HubSpot required**. See the [signal overview](/docs/signals/overview) for the full catalogue.

## Person signals and company signals

The distinction that shapes everything FounderMCP writes: did the **lead do something themselves**, or did their **employer**?

- Reacting, commenting, posting, changing jobs — those are the lead's own actions. Messaging may reference them directly.
- Open vacancies, a technology choice, a funding round, a website visit — those belong to the company. The person who becomes the lead is *your way in* at that company, and FounderMCP's wording never pretends they did it themselves.

## Syncs

A **sync** is one harvest of one signal. Signals sync on their own schedule — daily, weekly, or off, set per row — and every recurring signal can also be synced by hand with **Sync now**. Two exceptions: [Companies using a technology](/docs/signals/tech-adoption) syncs once, or not at all when it is listening for new adopters, and [Leads that raised funding](/docs/signals/funding-raised) refreshes monthly.

## Leads

A **lead** is a person on the Leads page. A lead exists from the moment a sync creates them; enrichment then fills in the columns — profile, company, contact details, and an ICP score when the ICP filter is on — one person at a time, so leads drip in live while a sync runs. Each lead carries the story of why they surfaced: which signal, what they (or their company) did, and a drafted opener.

## Templates

A **template** is the message sequence for one signal type: a **channel strategy** (which steps on which channel, for example *LinkedIn request → message → InMail*, or email) plus the text per step. A signal type can carry multiple templates, shown as branches under the type.

## Inbox

The **Inbox** collects every conversation your outreach starts — LinkedIn and email in one list. With a team of two or more it becomes the **Unified inbox**, showing the whole team's conversations.

## ICP

Your **ideal customer profile** lives in Settings → ICP. When you sign up, FounderMCP looks your company up on the web and writes it: what you sell, who you sell to, who buys it. The agents read it to know you; leads are only checked against it when you turn on the optional **ICP filter**, which applies to every signal at once. See [ICP filter](/docs/leads/icp-scoring).