Gauging interest for a searcher-focused outsourcing company

searcher profile

September 11, 2019

by a searcher from Columbia University - Columbia Business School in London, UK

I'm a former searcher who launched the first search fund in the Philippines and one of the first in Southeast Asia. I would like to know from the current crop of searchers whether there would be any interest in outsourcing the repetitive, menial tasks searchers often go through to low-cost countries such as the Philippines or India.

The tasks I imagine being outsourced are the following:
- finding businesses, owner names and contact information within the searchers' pre-defined parameters.
- Initial outreach
- Follow-up calls or emails
- Setting up conference calls with entrepreneurs/investors, site visits with entrepreneurs, organizing itineraries
- Data entry
- Accounting for searchers' expenses
- Generating periodic progress reports for investors

This is basically going to be a searcher-focused virtual assistant/staff augmentation company so that the searcher and their interns can focus on value-added activities. The team will be managed by myself, someone that has lived and breathed search for the best part of 2.5 years and is now working in Venture Capital.

Looking forward to hearing the community's thoughts.

Thanks!

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commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from Harvard University in Boston, MA, USA
Hi Daniel! In our case we also use public information that we gather at scale (such as linkedin scrapping) to complement databases provided by the searchers. We also take care of the first contact and have resources to help during the business due dilligence. Please let me know if you think we couls help
commentor profile
Reply by a searcher
from IESE Business School in Jersey City, NJ, USA
Sounds like it could be extremely helpful. As clients pay for research in specific regions or sectors, does the project build into a broader business model, maintaining and providing access to private company data like many services for sales (DNB, Discoverorg, etc.) for example?
commentor profile
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