Sourcing Rooms

    Deal sourcing review agenda

    The agenda is the coverage specification. Every line names the dimension it evidences, so a question the meeting never reached becomes a gap against that dimension rather than a silence nobody notices.

    The weekly review of new opportunities entering the funnel. Every line is about the company and the route in — thesis fit, evidence of traction, how the introduction arrived — and none of it is a rating of the people involved, which is the line most sourcing templates cross by default.

    A row is
    Prospect
    Grouped by
    Pipeline Stage
    Cadence
    every 14 days
    Lines
    7

    Also called: Screening call · Pipeline review · First founder meeting · Partner review · Sourcing sync

    The running order

    7 lines in the full specification, 2 of them scoped to a stage — so any one prospect is measured against 5–7 of them. Run every 14 days. The order is the running order, and it closes where it opened — on Thesis Fit, a 14-day round trip.

    1. 1
      Fit against the current thesis
      Evidences Thesis Fit
    2. 2
      Market size and why now
      Evidences Market Opportunity
    3. 3
      What the company has actually shipped or sold
      Evidences Traction Evidence
    4. 4
      How this reached us, and who vouched
      Evidences Source Quality
    5. 5
      What makes this hard to copy
      Evidences Differentiation
    6. 6
      Screening decision and next step
      Evidences Thesis Fit · only at Screened, First Meeting, Partner Review
    7. 7
      Partner sponsor and diligence scope
      Evidences Thesis Fit · only at Partner Review
    The bar moves with pipeline stage

    Not every line applies at every stage

    2 of these 7 lines are stage-scoped. A flat agenda asks every row the same questions regardless of where it has got to, which manufactures gaps that are not gaps — and false gaps drown the real ones, which is the whole reason an uncovered question is allowed to mean something here.

    Sourced
    5 of 7 lines
      Screened
      6 of 7 lines
      • +Screening decision and next step
      First Meeting
      6 of 7 lines
      • +Screening decision and next step
      Partner Review
      7 of 7 lines
      • +Screening decision and next step
      • +Partner sponsor and diligence scope

      Lines shown are the stage-scoped ones. The rest are in force at every pipeline stage.

      What the room listens for

      The six dimensions this room scores

      Each carries a weight in the roll-up. A dimension with no evidence behind it is not scored at a middle value — it renders as unknown, and below the coverage floor the row reads never covered rather than green.

      Thesis Fit
      25% of the roll-up

      How squarely this sits inside what the fund has said it invests in.

      thesis namedstage and cheque size fitsector in mandate
      Market Opportunity
      20% of the roll-up

      Size, growth and why this is the moment rather than three years ago.

      market size sourcedgrowth rate statedtiming argument made
      Traction Evidence
      20% of the roll-up

      What the company has shipped, sold or retained — stated in figures.

      revenue or usage figurecustomer namedretention stated
      Source Quality
      15% of the roll-up

      How the introduction arrived and how much that route has been worth historically.

      referrer namedroute recordedprior outcomes from this channel
      Differentiation
      10% of the roll-up

      What would stop a well-funded competitor doing this next quarter.

      competitor nameddefensibility arguedswitching cost identified
      Engagement
      10% of the roll-up

      Whether the company is actually running a process with us, or parking us.

      materials sent when promisedfollow-up speedaccess granted
      Engagement carries no agenda line

      Deliberately. These are read from how the room behaved, not from what it worked through — you cannot schedule participation, so it can never be "never covered". Any dimension without a line can be thin, but it can never be a missed question.

      When a line is missed

      A question nobody asked is a fact about the room

      Because each line names a dimension, the gap scanner can say which one went uncovered and for how long. These are the four states it raises, and each one is a different problem with a different fix.

      Never covered

      The line has never been reached in this room. The dimension has no evidence at all.

      Unanswered

      It was raised and the room moved on without landing an answer.

      Gone stale

      It was covered, but not within the 14-day cadence this room type expects.

      Unowned

      There is an answer and an action, and nobody's name is against it.

      See it score a board

      Sourcing Rooms is one of eleven configurations of the same engine. The demo runs on fictitious prospects and sample data — every number traces back to something somebody said in the room.