Ten is enough to learn whether your network can produce a qualified introduction and cheap enough to abandon if it cannot. It cannot estimate a conversion rate, and nothing here projects licensing proceeds.
What discovery has to settle before anyone writes to a founder
Three questions get tangled in a fund's first discussion of data partnerships, and only two belong to the platform team. The first is whether a market exists. SourceX's investor overview sets out the company's own thesis, that AI labs need new data sources and that scraped data carries growing legal risk; evaluating that view is a separate exercise. The second is whether your network contains companies that pass the published fit tests, and the third is who owns each company relationship and whether they will ask its CEO. The ten conversations answer the second and third at the lowest cost to founders and LPs.
Map each company and the person who holds the relationship
Every candidate needs two entries before a CEO conversation: the company of record, whose CEO decides and signs, and the relationship owner, who can ask that CEO and be heard. The owner is often not the platform lead but a deal partner on the board, an LP who financed the company or a portfolio founder who sells to it. Funding status never establishes eligibility, so companies outside the funded portfolio belong on the map from the start.
The ten-conversation learning agenda
Run the conversations in this order. Phase 1 decides whether to start; phase 2 finds paths to companies that could qualify; phase 3 tests the idea with CEOs and ends in a decision.
| # | With | The one question | Learned enough when | Stop signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The partner who sponsors the platform agenda | Is data referral work in scope, and who would receive any reward? | A named sponsor agrees on scope and on who registers as the partner | The partnership declines |
| 2 | Fund compliance or counsel | How is a referral reward handled and disclosed? | A written answer covers disclosure to founders and to the fund's own clients | No answer yet: pause until there is one |
| 3 | Deal partners with board seats | Which companies may we raise this with, and through whom? | Each partner names companies and who should ask | A partner objects: that company leaves the list |
| 4 | SourceX's partner team, after reading the terms | What do current programs need, and how are duplicates handled? | You can state the fit facts, the attribution rule and what a submission contains | Most candidates already know SourceX: they are not new companies |
| 5 | An LP or co-investor who owns or runs operating businesses | Is there one company whose CEO you would ask? | One named company and an agreed ask | The LP prefers not to mix roles |
| 6 | A portfolio founder, about customers and suppliers | Is there one established company whose CEO you would ask, and what would asking cost you? | A named company and the founder's own view of the cost | The founder sees commercial risk |
| 7 | The lead of a platform network | Which members run companies that reached 50 full-time employees at peak? | A short list of CEOs rather than functional executives | Members are mostly functional executives |
| 8 | An owner-CEO whose company passes the fit facts, asked by the relationship owner | Do you want a conversation with SourceX about licensing your own operating records? | A dated yes or no | A no ends that row |
| 9 | A CEO reached through an internal sponsor | Does the CEO want this, and who would describe the records at metadata level? | The CEO's answer, carried by the sponsor | The CEO has not been told: wait |
| 10 | The platform team and its sponsor | Continue, narrow or stop? | A written decision with the log attached | This conversation is the decision |
Keep a learning log with one line per conversation: the date, the person, the question, the answer, the evidence behind it and what you decided. Conversation 10 reads the log by phase.
- Continue when at least one CEO wants a conversation and that company passes every fit fact you can check without records.
- Narrow when relationship owners are willing but candidates keep failing on the same test. Change the source, for example toward businesses your LPs own, and run phase 2 again.
- Stop when the fund declines, the conflict question has no workable answer or no relationship owner will ask. Each is a legitimate result.
Method note. The agenda was built from SourceX's program terms (Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04) and screening page, the SEC's 2019 interpretation of the adviser standard of conduct and the FTC Endorsement Guides, all checked 2026-10-26. The order is our recommendation, not a SourceX requirement. The agenda measures willingness and fit facts; it does not measure demand for any company's records, record quality or likely payout, which only SourceX's review can assess. For a week-by-week rollout after the agenda, see the first-month plan for venture platform teams.
Why conversation 2 deserves the most care
A reward creates a connection two audiences would not expect, and each has its own rule. Toward the fund's own clients, the SEC's 2019 interpretation says an investment adviser's duty of loyalty requires it to eliminate, or make full and fair disclosure of, all conflicts of interest that might incline it to give advice that is not disinterested. Whether a platform team's referral reward is such a conflict, and whether the firm or an individual receives it, is for the fund's counsel to decide; the agenda only makes sure the question is asked before founders hear anything. Toward founders, the FTC Endorsement Guides treat the possibility of being paid as a material connection to disclose clearly when the audience would not expect it, and the FTC disclosure examples show plain wording.
Compliance will want the mechanics. The default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction is the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; the USD 50,000 floor applies once per referred company, with a parent and its subsidiaries counted as one company, and further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Illustrative: an Actual Supplier Payout of $40,000 is below the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction and earns nothing unless SourceX agrees in writing; a payout of $400,000 gives USD 70,000. The reward is paid separately by SourceX, is never deducted from the company's payout and is never calculated on SourceX's fees. It becomes payable only after the conditions in the terms are met, and compliance can note the deadline as 60 calendar days from whichever happens last: completed handoff, or the day the complete, validated dataset receives the Acquisition Partner's final written acceptance. Whoever registers must sign the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement before submitting.
Conversation 3 has a parallel sensitivity: board materials are confidential, so deal partners name companies and the right person to ask rather than hand over board packs. A licensing review is best offered, not mandated, as opt-in versus mandatory portfolio programs explains.
Three companies through the agenda (Illustrative)
Illustrative. The three companies are generic and the facts invented; the agenda implies no outcome for any of them.
An owner-led company. In conversation 5, an LP who once financed a 190-person commercial printing and fulfillment company says its founder-CEO might be interested. The business is 31 years old and keeps job tickets, quality-control logs and customer service histories in systems it runs. The LP asks; in conversation 8 the CEO says yes. The row is ready for an introduction by the agreed registrant.
A network intermediary. In conversation 6, a portfolio founder names a 420-person regional engineering firm whose COO is a close contact and keen on the idea. The COO can describe project archives at metadata level, but the CEO decides. Conversation 9 runs through the COO, and the row waits until the COO reports the CEO's answer. Nobody contacts the CEO around the COO.
A no-fit counterexample. In conversation 3, a deal partner proposes the fund's best-known portfolio company: 48 full-time employees at its peak, founded in 2022, with most records inside customers' accounts. It fails the size test, and its records largely belong to customers. The log marks it "revisit" with the trigger that would change the answer.
Which contacts are reachable, and which companies fit the mandate
Conversations 5 to 7 will produce names faster than companies. Before any name reaches conversation 8, it should become a company record with the published fit facts checked as far as you can without records: a peak of 50+ full-time employees, contractors left out of the count; an operating history the company can show on paper; rights to license; and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. The CEO authorizes a licensing discussion and signs; a functional executive can sponsor but not decide.
Questions stay descriptive: which records, roughly how many, over how many years, in which system and who administers it; never files, samples or logins. The overview for venture platform teams covers the program side, and the owner permission guide covers how the ask is framed.
After conversation ten, sequence the asks without estimating proceeds
SourceX has published no conversion rates or typical payouts, so do not order the next round by what each company might earn. Order it by what the log shows: a CEO who said yes, then a relationship owner who agreed to ask, then a company whose fit facts are complete, then a dated event such as a documented system migration or archive deletion. A company that failed a fit test sits below all of them, however warm the path.
Risks and limits of a ten-conversation agenda
- The conflict question can end the program. Under the SEC's adviser standard of conduct, a conflict that cannot be fully and fairly disclosed has to be addressed some other way. If counsel concludes the fund should not take part, conversation 2 has done its job.
- Founder goodwill is spent, and unmeasured. Every ask in phases 2 and 3 uses someone's credibility, and no data has been published on how founders or LPs react; the log starts your own record.
- Program needs change. SourceX's screening page says requirements differ by program and that a company that does not fit one may fit another later. A no in conversation 8 is dated, not permanent.
- The timeline is not yours. A reward depends on SourceX's review, the company's agreement and the Acquisition Partner's acceptance and payment, on no published timetable, so judge the agenda on what it teaches.
- Ten is a small number. The agenda can show that your network can or cannot produce one authorized introduction; it cannot estimate rates.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once conversation 10 decides to continue, the person the fund agreed would register should register for a partner link, check each row against who qualifies and read the program terms before any CEO is introduced. More platform-team methods sit in the guides library.
If any conversation turns to SourceX as an investment rather than a referral program, treat it as its own decision: the SourceX investor overview takes requests for investor materials and says the company shares company and commercial metrics with investors directly.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.