A per-person research brief for the one outreach that actually matters.
Before you write the first sentence of an InMail to a senior operator, you want to know: is this a real window, or am I about to burn the one warm touch I have? Communication Intelligence answers that question, with reasoning, citations, and an honest read on what nobody can know.
Briefs are hand-scoped on a 20-minute call. One sample brief per firm, on someone you're actually trying to reach, so you can judge it in context. Pricing is quoted on the call →
VP Sales, , mid-hold PE portco, exit prep
At a Glance
Mid-hold PE VP Sales at a company entering exit prep, with a new operating partner who replaces GTM leaders. Near his personal tenure pattern. A real window, but frame as “your next act,” not “escape.”
Why Now · one of three angles
The sponsor added an operating partner known for GTM leadership changes nine weeks ago. Her prior track record across two comparable funds: 3 of 5 portfolio engagements resulted in a CRO-level change within nine months of her assignment. This portco is the largest GTM asset in her mandate.
Sources: sponsor press page; OP LinkedIn; internal operating-partner movement dataset.
The brief we write before you write the message.
For senior outreach where the first sentence decides everything. Reachability, timing, the three angles that would actually earn a response, and, plainly, the things nobody outside the room can know. One person, one brief, one call.
Request a sample brief
20-minute call · one sample brief per firm, on someone you're actually pursuing · pricing quoted on the call
At a Glance§1
Reachability · Elevated
Best window: Next 30 days. Confidence medium-high (4 independent corroborating signals). One-line read: a real window, but frame as “your next act,” not “escape.”
Why Now · 1 of 3§2
The sponsor's new operating partner has a pattern.
Announced nine weeks ago. Prior track record across two comparable funds: 3 of 5 portfolio engagements resulted in a CRO-level change within nine months. This portco is the largest GTM asset in her mandate.
Sources: sponsor press page; LinkedIn; operating-partner movement dataset (12 mo.).
Watch-Out · 1 of 4§3
Don't pathologize the current role.
He's named in the sponsor's 2024 portfolio case study as a value-creation contributor. Professional pride is tied to that. Frame any alternative as “your next act,” not “escape.” This is the #1 fail mode on outreach to this profile.
One person. One decision. A research brief that reads like a thoughtful colleague.
A Communication Intelligence brief is roughly 800-1,400 words, produced in 5-7 business days, built for the moment before you send a message that matters.
Is there actually a window.
A single 1-10 read, with the 3-6 independent signals that drive it: tenure pattern, sponsor movement, cohort migration, public posture, equity vesting inference. Each signal is cited.
Three ways in that don't sound like recruiters.
Specific, situation-first openers grounded in what the person has said publicly or what their sponsor just did. No “exciting opportunity” language. No generic comp copy. Things you can actually say out loud.
The ways you'd lose this conversation.
Pathologies we see in outreach to this archetype: pathologizing their current role, leading with money, stepping on a founder relationship. Written as “don't, because.” Not generic caution.
The brief is written by a human reading a structured evidence pack assembled by a pipeline, not generated from a template and a target name, and not narrated by an LLM. It's judgment-forward: a reachability score is offered, but the paragraphs around it matter more than the number. Sentences have opinions. Citations sit inline so you can check the work.
It's also deliberately bounded. A brief that runs 1,400 words and ends with “here's what we don't know” is more useful than one that runs 4,000 and pretends. We write to the length the answer deserves.
What it is · what it isn't
A firehose of enriched data fields. A dashboard of charts. An LLM narrative generated from a target's job title and a prompt.
A human-written brief with a read, three angles, three watch-outs, and an explicit section on what's unknowable. Cited and dated.
We read public signals. We don't read minds, and we don't pretend to.
A product that reads LinkedIn silence, peer cohort moves, and tenure patterns is useful because it's bounded. Here's where the boundaries are. If a brief ever drifts past them, it's failing at its job.
Only observable, lawful, public signals.
Press, filings, company pages, podcasts, LinkedIn activity, conference programs, job boards. No purchased personal data. No private communications. No internal company information. If a signal isn't something you could arrive at yourself with a full afternoon, we don't use it.
We don't write about anyone's personal life.
No spouse, no family, no health, no home, no finances outside visible equity/comp inference. If it's not in their public professional record, it's not in the brief, even when it would sharpen the read. That's a permanent line.
Every brief ends with “What I Can't Tell You.”
Three to five things the brief cannot answer, whether they're already in another process, their personal constraints, the specifics of their equity grant, whether an operating partner's mandate actually includes them. The limits are part of the product, not a caveat buried at the bottom.
No briefs on people below a senior operating threshold.
We write on VP and above at growth-stage companies, operating partners, and sponsor-named executives. Not individual contributors, not junior hires, not people whose professional footprint isn't already public. If you're pursuing at that level, the open web is enough.
We don't build a searchable database of the people we write about.
Each brief is produced for the requesting firm, delivered, and the research pack retires. We keep the methodology and the primary-source index. We don't keep a warehouse of target profiles to re-sell.
We turn down briefs that look like intimidation.
Hostile-takeover surveillance, litigation targeting, journalism-adjacent investigative work, anything that reads as adversarial rather than a genuine outreach or hiring decision. If the use doesn't fit the product, we decline and refund the scoping call.
Today it's human-led. The pipeline we're building is described below, and we'll say which step is which on every brief.
We're at the beginning. The first briefs will be gathered and written by hand, deliberately, so we learn what actually drives reachability before we automate any of it. Paid data feeds, programmatic assembly, and model-assisted QA are the direction, not a claim about today.
Scoping call (20 min).
We learn the search, the role you're pursuing, and what a useful brief looks like for this decision specifically, search firms ask different questions than operating partners. We confirm the subject fits our sourcing boundaries and quote the brief on the call.
Signal pull.
Primary public sources are gathered today by hand: press, SEC filings, fund disclosures, conference programs, job boards. Licensed feeds, LinkedIn post & activity data, podcast transcripts and appearances, company & fund data, are on the roadmap as volume justifies the subscriptions. Every record is dated and carries its provider of origin.
Programmatic assembly.
The future state: an automated layer structures the source pack into tenure patterns, peer-cohort movement, sponsor vintage, operating-partner mandates, posting cadence, silence patterns, and flags what's actually unusual for this archetype. Today a writer assembles this by hand, which is partly the point: we're learning which derived signals are worth automating.
Human synthesis.
A writer reads the evidence and drafts the brief. The reachability score is a judgment call with reasoning. Angles are written to be specific enough to use in the first sentence of an InMail. Watch-outs come from pattern recognition across prior briefs, not a template. This step stays human permanently.
LLM-assisted QA.
The future state: a model reviews the draft against the evidence pack, checks cited claims resolve to sources, flags over-confident language, surfaces signals the writer may have under-weighted, catches anything crossing a “What we won't tell you” line. Today a second human does that. The LLM will never write copy that ships.
Human review & limits pass.
A second reviewer challenges the read: did we miss signals, are we over-confident, is the “What I Can't Tell You” section actually the full list. Anything that can't be stood behind comes out. Then PDF delivery, optional 15-minute readout, and a one-line “helpful / needs work / wrong” after your outreach.
Why we're starting manual. There are a lot of assumptions baked into the plan above, which signals actually predict reachability, which kinds of subjects this works for, which parts of a brief readers act on. Those get answered by producing real briefs for real searches and asking “helpful / needs work / wrong” after every one. Automation is earned, not assumed.
Priced on the call, because we don't know yet what it will take.
Every early brief teaches us how long the work actually takes and which subjects are hard. Until that's lived-in, we quote each brief individually after the scoping call, in writing, before we start. No list price to defend; no surprise later.
Communication Intelligence
on the call
We don't know yet what a brief costs to produce at steady state, and we don't want to anchor on a number we'd have to walk back. After a 20-minute scoping call we agree the price in writing. If it's not worth it, you say no and nothing happens.
- 20-minute scoping call before we start
- 800-1,400-word written brief, 5-7 business days
- Reachability read, three angles, watch-outs, “What I Can't Tell You”
- Optional 15-minute readout after delivery
- One free rewrite within 14 days if the read misses
- One-line “helpful / needs work / wrong” feedback after your outreach; it shapes what comes next
As we learn: we expect per-brief cost to come down as licensed feeds and automated assembly take on the volume. Founding-brief pricing will hold for firms who help us prove the product.
Founding partners
We're looking for 3-5 search firms or sponsor TA teams willing to run briefs with us while the product is still forming, real searches, real outreach, a real debrief after each one. In return, founding pricing locks in, you get direct input on what the brief covers, and your feedback shapes the watch-out library.
- What we needReal briefs, real post-mortems
- What you getFounding rate held indefinitely
- CommitmentNone · brief-by-brief
- Cohort size3-5 firms