John Kim

Hey John — similar PE background, been deep in enterprise software origination thinking lately. Would be good to connect.

Hey John, similar background, weirdly — I'm from Zimbabwe, did growth equity in London, not building a growth capital firm like HighBar. most enterprise software funds I talk to are running on PitchBook or Grata, maybe Affinity, and then basically Excel and email for everything else on the origination side. but proprietary deal flow still feels thin. thesis, network, and intelligence never sync into one system — so origination resets every cycle instead of compounding. does origination look different at HighBar? — Russ

Hey John, similar background, weirdly — I'm from Zimbabwe, did growth equity in London, not building a growth capital firm like HighBar. most enterprise software funds I talk to are running on PitchBook or Grata, maybe Affinity, and then basically Excel and email for everything else on the origination side. but proprietary deal flow still feels thin. thesis, network, and intelligence never sync into one system — so origination resets every cycle instead of compounding. does origination look different at HighBar? — Russ

hey John — one more thought on origination. after hitting this wall myself doing growth equity, I ended up building origination infrastructure for funds full-time — Axiom Equity, Noble Rock, Wingman, a few others. at my old fund we had every subscription going and I still spent half my time manually stitching origination together. the pattern I keep seeing is that the funds who systematise it early compound deal flow in a way that's really hard to replicate later. curious if HighBar has cracked that or if it's the same pattern. — Russ

hey John — appreciate the connect either way. we documented the origination infrastructure we've built across funds — tech stack, workflows, prompts. free to share if it'd be useful at HighBar. either way, I'm around if origination ever becomes a conversation worth having. — Russ

Hi John, looks like we share a similar PE path — though I'm from Zimbabwe and ended up doing growth equity in London, not building a growth capital firm around enterprise software. the typical origination setup I see is a data subscription, a CRM that's half-populated, and a lot of Excel and Outlook doing the heavy lifting. yet the off-market pipeline stays weirdly thin. the intelligence is all there but it's scattered across tools and inboxes — so nothing compounds into a real origination edge. does origination look different at HighBar? Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi John — been thinking more about origination. after hitting this wall myself doing growth equity, I ended up building origination infrastructure for funds full-time — Axiom Equity, Noble Rock, Wingman, a few others. the pattern I keep seeing is that the funds who systematise it early end up compounding deal flow in a way that's really hard to replicate later. happy to compare notes on what's actually moving the needle if you're interested. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi John — something about this keeps rattling around. at my old fund we had a solid stack and smart people, and origination still felt like it restarted from scratch every cycle. took me a while to realise it wasn't a people problem — the tools just didn't talk to each other. imagine HighBar has a way more dialled setup — but figured I'd ask. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi John — completely separate from all that. we put together a playbook on PE origination — the tech stack, the workflows, some of the prompts and automations that actually move the needle. happy to send it over if it'd be useful at HighBar. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi John — I'll leave it here. the origination playbook is yours whenever — no expiry on that. I'm deep in this space all day, so if it ever becomes a conversation worth having, I'm around. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23