A Weekly Deal Sourcing Workflow Using Engineering Signals
A 30-minute weekly workflow for investors who want to use GitHub engineering signals for deal sourcing. Step-by-step process: check rankings, screen startups, verify signals, and build a pipeline.
Key Takeaway
This workflow takes 30 minutes per week and surfaces 2-5 actionable startup leads from engineering signal data. Step 1: Check the trending page for top movers (5 min). Step 2: Filter by your focus sectors (5 min). Step 3: Screen the top 3 unfamiliar names - open their GitHub, check if activity is product-related (10 min). Step 4: Cross-reference with community and hiring signals (5 min). Step 5: Add qualified leads to your pipeline with the engineering data as context (5 min).
Most investors know they should use data for deal sourcing. Few have a repeatable process for doing it. Here is a 30-minute weekly workflow using engineering signals.
Why a Weekly Cadence?#
VC Deal Flow Signal refreshes data every Monday. Engineering acceleration is a weekly signal - commit velocity change is calculated over 14-day windows. Checking more frequently than weekly adds no new information. Checking less frequently means you miss the timing advantage.
Monday morning is ideal: the data is fresh, and you can add qualified leads to your pipeline before the week's meetings.
The 30-Minute Workflow#
This process is deliberately simple. The goal is not exhaustive analysis - it is fast identification of startups worth a deeper look.
Step 1: Check the Trending Page (5 minutes)#
Open the trending page and scan the top 10 startups by commit velocity change. These are the companies showing the strongest engineering acceleration across all sectors this week.
Look for unfamiliar names. If a company you have never heard of appears in the top 5, that is the signal working as intended - you are seeing it before mainstream channels surface it.
Step 2: Filter by Your Focus Sectors (5 minutes)#
Navigate to the 2-3 sector pages that match your investment thesis. Within each sector, look for startups in the top 3 that are new to you.
Step 3: Screen the Top Candidates (10 minutes)#
For each unfamiliar startup, spend 3-4 minutes on their GitHub. The 5-check screening framework covers what to look for.
Step 4: Cross-Reference (5 minutes)#
Search for the company on Hacker News, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Check their careers page. The goal is to confirm the engineering signal with qualitative context.
Step 5: Add to Pipeline (5 minutes)#
For startups that pass all checks, add them to your deal tracking system. Include the engineering data: velocity change, signal type, contributor count, and the date you first noticed them. This creates a record of your timing advantage.
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