Proprietary deal flow comes from relationships and reputation built before you need them. Writing publicly, helping operators and being easy to reach compound over years in a way that outreach campaigns do not.
11 min read · Level 2
The most valuable sourcing work looks nothing like sourcing. It is answering a question for someone with no deal, writing an analysis nobody asked for, and being reachable. I think this is why sourcing advantage is so durable: it cannot be bought quickly, it cannot be copied by someone with more capital, and most people are unwilling to do it for the two or three years before it pays.
Sourcing improves in two ways: going out to find opportunities, and being the person people bring them to. The second compounds; the first does not.
Approach Effort pattern Result pattern Outbound hunting high, continuous stops when you stop Being findable front-loaded, compounding grows while you do other things
What makes an investor findable in a specific area:
Signal How it is built Public writing notes, analysis or letters about a specific market Operator relationships helping people in the industry before any deal exists Visible specialism a clearly stated focus others can remember and refer to Reputation for speed answering quickly and declining clearly Community presence genuine participation where the sector gathers
Writing publicly about a narrow area is unusually effective because it does two jobs at once: it attracts people working on exactly that problem, and it proves you understand it. Founders in that area send opportunities because you are visibly the person who cares about it.
None of this works quickly. Relationships formed this year produce opportunities in two or three years, which is why sourcing built during a deployment window rarely works.
Because the best opportunities are not searching for capital in public. They are shown to a few people, chosen for reasons that formed long before the round existed.
Being known for a specific area also improves the quality of what arrives. A general reputation as an investor produces general inbound; a specific reputation produces opportunities that already fit your thesis.
Educational, not personalised financial advice. Nothing in the Investor Academy is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything — what is right for you depends on your own circumstances and the rules where you live.
An investor's sources, five years apart.
Source Year 1 Year 5 Cold inbound 70% 25% Events and platforms 20% 10% Operators and former colleagues 10% 40% Referrals from founders backed 0% 25%
The change came from three habits: writing a short public note each month about one narrow market, answering every founder within a day, and helping operators in that market without a transaction attached. By year five most opportunities came from people who knew specifically what the investor worked on.
Treating sourcing as a campaign to run when capital needs deploying, rather than as relationships and reputation built continuously beforehand.
Make it narrow enough that someone can think of you when they meet a company in that area.
Short, regular and specific beats long and occasional; the goal is to be findable, not prolific.
Answer questions, make introductions and share what you are seeing.
A reputation for fast, honest answers produces more referrals than any amount of outreach.
Review annually and invest more time in the channels that actually produced them.
Continuously, and especially between deployment periods when there is no immediate need.
Do not build public visibility in an area you do not understand. It will produce opportunities you cannot evaluate, which is worse than fewer opportunities.
A number of investors have built recognisable deal flow by publishing consistent public analysis of specific markets over many years, and founders in those areas frequently cite that writing as the reason they approached them. The pattern is widely observed across venture and public-market investing.
Consistent public work in a narrow area is one of the few sourcing advantages an individual can build without capital or a brand.
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