I screen 80-100 deals a year as a solo GP. Without a systematic tech stack, I'd spend all my time on admin and none on thinking.
Here's what I actually use:
Deal Flow Management
1. Airtable (or Notion)
I track every deal in a custom Airtable base. Fields include: company name, source, stage, thesis alignment, meeting status, decision status, and follow-up date.
Not revolutionary, but the critical infrastructure that keeps everything organized.
2. Gmail + Labels
I have a label for every active deal. Emails from founders get tagged immediately. Everything related to a deal lives in that label.
Sourcing
3. Crunchbase (Pro)
For tracking new funding rounds, following investors, and competitive intelligence on portfolio companies. The paid version is worth it for the advanced search and email alerts.
4. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
For finding warm introductions and tracking portfolio company updates. Also useful for verifying founder employment claims.
5. Twitter/X
Following VCs, founders, and tech journalists. Most deal flow comes from seeing who VCs are backing, then tracing back to the founder.
Due Diligence
6. Soloanalyst
My first-pass verification on any deal. Drop in the company URL, get a structured memo with competitor analysis, team history signals, and cross-referenced data on founder claims.
Saves me 2-3 hours per deal on the first pass.
7. SimilarWeb
For validating traffic claims and understanding competitive traffic patterns. I check this for any consumer or SaaS company with a web product.
8. GitHub (for technical companies)
For engineering teams, I look at commit patterns, repo activity, and contributor diversity. A healthy engineering team has consistent commit velocity, not big bursts followed by dormancy.
9. Hunter.io
For verifying whether founders actually work at the companies they claim. Email patterns (firstname@companydomain.com) validate domain ownership.
Portfolio Tracking
10. Carta (for portfolio companies)
For monitoring portfolio cap tables, follow-on decisions, and term sheet negotiations. Also useful for seeing how previous companies have performed.
11. Google Sheets
For tracking portfolio company metrics, board meeting notes, and follow-on decisions. I keep a simple dashboard per company.
Research
12. Perplexity + ChatGPT
For rapid research on markets, competitors, and technical topics I don't know well. I use Perplexity for research and ChatGPT for synthesis.
What I Don't Use
- Deal management platforms (too complex for solo work)
- Paid CRM (Airtable is sufficient)
- Third-party data providers beyond what I've listed (too expensive for the marginal value)
The Soloanalyst Integration
Soloanalyst sits at the center of my diligence workflow. After the initial Airtable entry, I run the company through Soloanalyst before any first call. That 5-minute output tells me whether the deal is worth digging into further.