One People-to-People relationship instead of a separate Referral object
Private Axis needed a clearer way to represent referral chains. We designed a People-based model, documented two capture paths from Gmail, and delivered a five-step roadmap. This is an advisory blueprint, not a deployed build.
1
Core relationship
2
Automation paths
5
Implementation steps
0
Extra objects
The constraint
A separate Referral object makes a recursive people network harder to use. Referrer, referred-by, and referee fields look complete on a whiteboard and rot in production. Private Axis already had People, Companies, CRE deals, and Financing deals. The missing piece was the chain between people.
The recommendation
On People, one many-to-many relationship:
- On the new contact: Referrers
- On the partner: Referred contacts
A second intro appends. It never overwrites. First-come, first-served for payout is a human call when a deal closes, not First / Second / Third fields.
Leave CRE deals and Financing deals alone. A closed deal already links to the person.
Capture design
Two paths, same write contract. Neither was deployed by us:
- Native Attio workflow with a custom agent on a logged email.
- n8n plus a classifier on the inboxes, writing through the Attio API.
Both classify intro versus noise, upsert people on email, and append the referrer. Site-form JSON should not post straight into Attio.
What was delivered
A five-step implementation roadmap and two paste-ready prompts. No partner portal. No notetaker. No claim that the workflow is live in their workspace.
"His recommendations were thoughtful, practical, and easy to understand, and the one-pager he provided gave us a clear roadmap for implementing the system in Attio."
Stack: Attio · Gmail · n8n