Deal Sourcing

Why this exists

Generic "sourcing" prompts produce a list of company names and end there. This skill closes the loop: discovery → durable mandate/candidates → contact graph → reviewable outreach copy → deal conversion. Persistence happens before contact capture, so a missing connector never loses the analyst's market map.

Pipeline

Research-only workflow

When the user asks for a market map, private-company database, ecosystem landscape, or research-only shortlist, run discovery and tenant-ledger persistence only. List existing watchlists before creating a materially identical mandate. Skip contact capture and outreach copy entirely, even if a discovery result contains contact details. An ecosystem company can be useful for research without being available for acquisition.

For ecommerce, classify by the capability supplied: seller operations, live/social commerce, payments/trust/authentication, shipping/returns, inventory sourcing, discovery/personalization, or category-specific tools. These are research categories, not a pre-approved buyer mandate. Use the user's actual priorities and exclusions, and do not require EBITDA from seed-stage businesses. Missing revenue, stage, ownership, and sale interest remain unknown. Preserve source links and observation dates, and label strategic fit as a hypothesis independently of evidence completeness.

Do not encode unsupported stage/financial constraints as if the background watchlist matcher enforces them. Record the research criteria and report the matching limitations returned by the tools. Save only actual discovery result objects unchanged; external research belongs in a labeled research artifact unless a supported ingestion tool returns persisted source identities.

For source-access inspection or an on-demand watchlist brief, follow the connections or brief workflow in ../../commands/source.md instead of this discovery/write pipeline. In brief mode use existing records read-only, preserve pass reasons, and distinguish initial snapshots from dated changes. Never treat a prepared brief as an activated recurring delivery.

Thesis routing

Classify thesis intent before starting this one-off pipeline. Requests to create, list, update, deactivate, or review matches for a standing sourcing mandate must go directly to the corresponding thesis MCP operation; do not run discovery, create a watchlist, persist candidates, import contacts, or draft outreach first. A thesis is a long-lived sourcing mandate, not a SWOT or strategy framework. For combined mapping and thesis-management intent, follow the command's branch-selection rule and resolve the order before any write.

1. Discovery

• Use mcp__ololand__search_company_discovery with mode: "discover",

company_scope: "private", and explicit filters (sector, geography, size, ownership type if PE-relevant).

• Cap initial set to 25 per run. Quality > quantity. If user wants more, run again with refined criteria.

2. Durable mandate and candidates

• Create or reuse a materially identical watchlist with

mcp__ololand__create_watchlist.

• Pass the selected company-discovery result objects unchanged to

mcp__ololand__save_sourcing_candidates, with watchlist_id set to the created/reused watchlist ID and candidates set to the selected result objects.

• This is the required persistence step. The tool is idempotent and preserves

discovery snapshots, source systems, evidence references, score/rationale, workflow stage, and later deal-conversion lineage.

3. Contact capture

• Inspect the company-discovery result for returned executives and actual

identity evidence: email, phone number, or LinkedIn URL.

• Pick at most one contact. Priority: founder > CEO > CFO > head of corp dev.
• When supported evidence exists, import it through

mcp__ololand__openclaw_import_contacts using source_system: "company_discovery". This is the tenant-scoped relationship graph and central suppression/dedupe boundary.

• Link the returned contact to the candidate with

mcp__ololand__update_sourcing_candidate, passing the same watchlist_id, the saved candidate match_id, and advancing it to enriched.

• When no supported identity evidence exists, leave the candidate shortlisted

and report that contact enrichment remains outstanding.

4. Hook (signal sourcing)

• Prefer the discovery result's search_snippets, signal_summary, and

ma_signal_summary. If necessary, run a current public-web search.

• Look for: funding round, hiring spike, leadership change, product launch, news mention, expansion announcement.
• If no signal found, fall back to a thesis-based hook ("we focus on X, you operate in X") — but flag this row as "weak hook" so the user can decide whether to send.
• Do not call deep_market_research or research_market before a Deal exists;

both are deal-scoped.

5. Outreach copy

Format constraints:

• 60-90 words. Hard cap at 100.
• Opens with the SPECIFIC signal ("Saw your Series B in March...").
• One sentence connecting it to the fund's thesis.
• One sentence proposing a 20-min call. No calendar links in the first email.
• Sign-off: from the user.

Return the proposed copy for human review. The plugin declares only OloLand's MCP server, so this step does not save a Gmail draft or create an OloLand OutreachDraft. Do not advance the candidate to outreach_drafted unless a future, supported connector actually persists the draft.

6. Persistence

Persistence is completed in step 2 and contact linkage in step 3. Do not use log_sourced_lead; that tool writes the global marketing-lead table and is not the tenant-owned sourcing system of record.

Never claim Apollo or Gmail execution. Preserve the saved candidates and report missing contact evidence. Never invent contact, signal, or draft identifiers.

Output format

Always produce a markdown table:

| Company | Contact evidence | Hook | Candidate stage | Outreach copy |
|---------|------------------|------|-----------------|---------------|
| ...     | ...              | ...  | enriched        | ...           |

Plus a summary line: Discovered N • Saved M • Updated/deduped D • Contacts captured C • Weak-hook L.

Anti-patterns

• Do not auto-send. Drafts only. Always.
• Do not enrich more than 1 contact per company. Multi-touch on first email is spammy.
• Do not use generic templates. If you can't find a hook, flag the row instead of inventing one.
• Do not skip tenant-ledger persistence. A connector failure must not erase the market map.
• Do not use the marketing Lead table. Sourcing candidates and contacts are company-owned.