Two of your nineteen work the top of the funnel: one goes looking for companies nobody sent you, and one makes sure the deals that did arrive are not quietly dying in an inbox.
A solo GP sees the deals their network sends them, and that network is the ceiling on the fund. The Scout works outside it. It goes looking for companies that match what the firm actually invests in, and puts them in front of you as candidates rather than as noise.
It does not contact anybody. It finds, and you decide whether the company is worth a conversation. Sourcing that sends messages on your behalf would be a different product, and a riskier one.
Inbound does not usually get rejected. It gets forgotten, and the founder learns that from silence. The Gatekeeper flags every deal left waiting, so a pass is something the firm chose rather than something that happened while everyone was busy.
That matters commercially as well as decently. Founders talk to each other, and the reputation a fund has for answering is part of the deal flow it gets offered next year.
The staff no longer waits for the nightly round when a deck arrives. The seats that screen a new deal wake on arrival, so the first read, the outside check and the case against are waiting minutes later rather than the following morning.
By the time you open the deal, the work is done and the questions worth asking are already on it.
A fund that wants better sourcing usually concludes it needs an associate, and then discovers the job is spiky: a week of nothing followed by four decks in a day, which is exactly the shape a salary handles badly.
These two seats are already hired. They work the top of the funnel every day at the same standard, they do not get bored of inbound in month three, and the firm carries no headcount for them. That is the whole proposition: a solo GP with a firm of twenty behind them rather than a solo GP looking for their first associate.
You still make every call. The Scout proposes, the Gatekeeper reminds, and what the firm does about either is a decision a person takes.
Deal sourcing and inbound screening: the Scout and the Gatekeeper. A firm of 20: you and nineteen AI employees. See the whole firm and join the waitlist.