Prospecting & Origination

What prospecting is

The Prospecting workspace discovers and triages acquisition opportunities against your mandate (asset type, geography, size, pricing, thesis) and converts qualified rows into Screening deal workspaces.

In the app

Open Prospecting at /prospecting. Four tabs:

• Decision Queue — Ranked saved candidates, table/card layout, filters, snooze, dismiss, tags, source evidence, selected review, and convert.
• Mandates — Create, activate, tune, and run sourcing mandates. Mandate detail lives at /prospecting/mandates/[mandateId].
• Scout — Deeper review for a selected queue prospect, plus temporary External Prospect Review for off-platform ideas.
• Agent Ops — Durable run stream, run history, recovery controls, and compact workflow diagnostics. Deeper workflow contracts live in Admin.

If no mandates exist, Prospecting starts with a brief first-run guide instead of dense queue metrics: create a mandate, review saved candidates in the Decision Queue, use Scout for evidence and gaps, then convert only prospects worth moving into Screening.

URL state can carry profile, readiness, source, view, snooze, and tag parameters for shareable views.

Workflow

1. Define Sourcing Mandates (markets, property type, size, thesis, signals, exclusions).
2. Run active mandates; results deduplicate before the Decision Queue.
3. Triage with the queue toolbar; inspect each prospect’s evidence ledger and validation state.
4. Use Scout or Prospecting Analyst chat for structured answers.
5. When server conversion checks pass, Convert to Deal creates a Screening deal seeded from the prospect.

Sourcing and evidence

Runs follow mandate configuration. Evidence types include listings, broker OMs, public records, and filings for consistent filters and copy. Primary prospect sources anchor the ledger; if durable reads fail, the inspector may enter a read-only degraded mode with a synthetic primary — refresh or attach sources when that happens.

Scoring and ranking

A deterministic brief and prospect review feed validation gates (identity, evidence, fit, timing). The Feed ranks using qualityScore, blending brief signals with gate outcomes (warn / fail). Readiness is a lane (e.g. ready for outreach vs needs validation), not a single numeric score.

Acquisition mandate

Mandates control asset types, geographies, size and pricing bands, thesis, required signals, and exclusions. Edits apply to subsequent runs and evaluations.

Prospecting Analyst (POST /api/assistant/prospecting-chat)

Workspace-aware chat (feature attribution origination / surface prospecting-chat). Tools available to the model include:

listMandates, searchProspects, getProspectBrief, listProspectSourcesTool, compareProspects, searchMandateMarkets, getMandateHealth, getProspectOwnerPath, listSnoozedProspects, getDigestPreview, snoozeProspect, addProspectTag

Mutations (snoozeProspect, addProspectTag) use the AI SDK approval flow — confirm in the UI before they execute.

For how chat modes and approvals work across the app, see Chat modes, Tools reference, and Trust and safety.

Scout Review advisor

Optional advisor after deterministic material is available — useful for thesis, risks, and outreach framing. Rule-based fallback may show as Rule-based Review when the agent path is unavailable.

Convert to deal — server enforcement

POST /api/sourcing/results/[resultId]/convert rebuilds brief → review → conversionBlockersFor on the server. The API is the source of truth; client-side canConvertProspect() is UX-only.

• 409 if the prospect is dismissed.
• 409 with { error, blockers } if validation blockers remain (e.g. prospect needs validation before conversion).

Resolve blockers from the response, refresh data, and retry. PATCH /api/sourcing/results/[resultId] rejects unsafe status downgrades (e.g. deal_created → new) with 409.

Digest and crons

• Digest preview: GET /api/origination/digest/preview
• Preferences: GET / PATCH /api/account/digest-preferences (digestEnabled)
• Daily digest cron: GET /api/cron/prospecting-digest — Vercel cron schedule 0 12 * * * (UTC), bearer CRON_SECRET.
• Unsnooze: GET /api/cron/unsnooze-prospects — hourly (0 * * * *).

Turn the email digest on in account / notification settings, not inside Prospecting.

Keyboard shortcuts (desktop)

Wide layouts; suppressed while typing in inputs:

Related workflows

• Document ingestion — first documents after conversion.
• Valuation DCF and IC Memo — later-stage work in the same deal.
• AI assistant overview