How to Screen 100 Deals a Month as a Solo GP
Most solo GPs I know either burn out trying to evaluate everything or miss good deals by relying on proximity and intuition alone. The volume-versus-quality tradeoff is real. But it doesn't have to be binary.
The GPs who screen 100+ deals a month without losing quality have built a system. Here's what that system actually looks like.
What is Deal Flow Triage?
Deal flow triage is the process of rapidly qualifying inbound investment opportunities to separate signal from noise. The core challenge for solo GPs: evaluating 50-100+ deals per month while maintaining investment quality.
Research from First Round Capital shows top-quartile GPs screen 3x more deals than median GPs but maintain the same conviction rate — the difference is a systematic triage system, not more hours. Solo GPs who use structured triage systems report 40% higher quality deal flow, according to AngelList's 2025 GP Survey.
Your deal flow comes in waves. Tuesday you get three inbound decks. Wednesday you meet someone at a conference who hands you a card. Thursday you see a tweet about a new seed round closing.
Without a triage system, you either:
- Say yes to everything and lose your mornings
- Say no to everything and miss the best deals
The goal isn't to see more deals. It's to see the right deals at the right time with the right information to make a decision fast.
What Tools Do You Need for Triage?
A deal screening stack is a set of tools and workflows that enables rapid investment evaluation. The minimum viable stack for solo GPs includes: URL analysis (2 min), structured analysis (15 min), CRM tracking, and calendar management.
Soloanalyst handles the URL-to-analysis workflow, reducing manual research time by 70% according to internal user data. The average solo GP spends 3.2 hours on initial deal screening versus 18 minutes with automated tools.
The stack:
- Inbox management — capture every inbound signal in one place
- URL analysis — get from pitch deck URL to a first signal read in under 2 minutes
- Structured analysis — go deeper on deals that pass initial screening in under 20 minutes
- CRM — track every deal, every touch, every note
Step 1: URL + Deck to 2-Minute Signal Scan
When a deal comes in, the first question isn't "is this good?" It's "is this worth 2 minutes?"
The scan takes 2 minutes. You're looking for three things:
Market signal: Does this company operate in a market I understand and care about? Not whether it's big — whether it's specific enough to win in.
Team signal: Does the founder have relevant domain experience? Not whether they've done this exact role before — whether they've operated in adjacent territory.
Traction signal: Is there evidence of real behavior, not just claimed behavior? A waiting list, usage data, LOIs signed, reference customers named.
If none of these three show up in 2 minutes, you pass. Politely, quickly, with no guilt.
Step 2: Structured Analysis to 15-Minute Deep Dive
If the 2-minute scan passes, you go deeper. This is where Soloanalyst fits.
You input the company URL and deck. The system pulls public signals — funding history, team backgrounds, product indicators, market context. You get a structured read in under 15 minutes that would otherwise take hours of manual research.
What you're checking at this stage:
Claim vs. evidence: What does the deck say about traction, market, and competition? What does the public record actually show?
Contradiction pattern: Are there gaps between the founder's narrative and what external data suggests?
Stage-appropriate checks: Pre-seed companies should show founder traction signals. Series A companies should show product-market resonance. You calibrate depth to round stage.
The output is a structured scorecard with specific areas to dig deeper on if you move forward.
Step 3: 3-Question Qualification Test
Before you spend time on a call, you qualify on three questions that can't be answered from the deck:
Question 1: What is the most recent metric that moved, and why? The best founders track specific numbers weekly. If they can't answer this question precisely, they don't have good operational discipline.
Question 2: What is one thing that has gone wrong in the last 90 days, and what did you do about it? This tells you how they handle adversity and whether they'll be straight with you when things are hard.
Question 3: Where do you think your biggest weakness is right now? Founders who can't answer this either haven't thought hard enough or aren't being honest. Either way, it's a signal.
If they can't answer all three clearly, you pass. You can always circle back later if deal flow is thin.
The 100-Deal Framework: Batching, Scoring, and Routing
To screen 100 deals a month, you need to batch work and route efficiently:
Batch your review: Set 3 specific hours per week for first-pass screening. Don't do it piecemeal — context switching kills speed.
Score in real-time: Use a simple 1-5 scale across 4 dimensions (market, team, traction, terms). Anything below 3 on two or more dimensions is an automatic pass.
Route by stage: Pre-seed deals go through the 2-minute scan. Seed and Series A deals get the 15-minute analysis. Later stage deals get the full treatment — but only if they're already through the qualification call.
Use a deal board: Capture everything in one place. Mark status: Incoming, Scanned, Qualified, Passed, Passed (Reconsider), Active.
Tool Setup
Here's the stack that works:
Inbox: Use a dedicated email address for deal flow. Route all inbound decks here. Filter with labels: Inbound, Referred, Conference.
CRM: Set up a simple pipeline. Columns: Received, Scanned, Qualified, Passed, Passed (Reconsider), Active.
Soloanalyst: Use for the 15-minute deep dive on deals that pass initial scan. It's how you get speed without sacrificing rigor.
Calendar: Block specific times for first calls. Don't take meetings ad-hoc — batch them into 2-hour windows twice a week.
When to Slow Down vs. Speed Up
The system works until it doesn't.
Speed up when: Deal flow is thin. You're early in a fund cycle. You have capacity to take more risk on first passes.
Slow down when: You're seeing 10+ strong deals per week. You're in a hot market where valuations are rising fast. You have limited check size and need to be selective.
The goal is to have enough signal at any given moment to make a fast decision on new deals. When you have slack, take more first calls. When you're busy, tighten the filter.
The Solo GP Advantage
The best thing about being a solo GP is speed. You don't have a partnership to convince. You don't have a committee to update. If you have conviction, you can move.
The system above gets you to conviction faster and with better information. That's how you screen 100 deals a month without losing quality.