Private Equity Deal Origination Sequence

This sequence is built for Partners, Principals, and Heads of Deal Origination at private equity firms. Use it for sourcing proprietary, off-market deals by engaging directly with founders and C-suite executives who are not actively looking for an exit.

This is a low-volume, high-touch framework designed to build familiarity and credibility before making a direct ask. It prioritizes research and personalization over raw sending volume.

1. Steps: 6
2. Duration: 21-28 days
3. Channels: Email + LinkedIn

Each step is designed to build on the last, moving from passive awareness to direct, personalized communication.

Step 1: LinkedIn Profile View (Day 1)

1. Channel: LinkedIn
2. Objective: Passive Awareness. Your name and firm appear in their notifications without an ask. No connection request, no message.

Step 2: LinkedIn Connection Request (Day 3)

1. Channel: LinkedIn
2. Objective: Establish a direct link.
3. Example Note: "Hi {{firstName}}, read your recent interview on [Topic] and was impressed by your approach to [Specific Point]. Connecting to follow your work at {{companyName}}."

Step 3: Email 1 - The Opener (Day 5)

1. Channel: Email
2. Objective: Open a conversation with a highly relevant, research-based hook.
3. Subject: Question about {{companyName}}'s growth
4. Body: "Noticed your recent expansion into [New Market/Product]. My firm focuses on helping companies like yours scale that specific initiative..."

Step 4: Email 2 - Value Drop (Day 11)

1. Channel: Email
2. Objective: Provide value without an ask.
3. Subject: Re: Question about {{companyName}}'s growth
4. Body: "Following up on my last note, thought you might find this market map our team put together on the [Industry] landscape interesting..."

Step 5: Email 3 - Soft Bump (Day 18)

1. Channel: Email
2. Objective: A final, direct attempt to connect.
3. Subject: Re: Question about {{companyName}}'s growth
4. Body: "Is exploring a strategic partnership for {{companyName}}'s next phase of growth a priority in the next 6 months?"

Step 6: Email 4 - The Breakup (Day 25)

1. Channel: Email
2. Objective: Professionally close the loop and leave the door open.
3. Subject: Re: Question about {{companyName}}'s growth
4. Body: "Assuming now isn't the right time. I'll stop reaching out, but will continue to follow your progress at {{companyName}}. Best of luck."

This sequence fails without deep personalization. The goal is to make each touchpoint feel like it was crafted by a partner, not an automated system. Volume is the enemy; relevance is the goal.

What to Personalize:

1. The opening line of every email must be unique and based on specific research (e.g., a recent interview, product launch, new hire, or conference talk).
2. The 'Value Drop' step should be tailored to the target company's specific industry or challenges.
3. The LinkedIn connection request must reference a specific, non-generic data point about the person or their company.

What to Template:

1. The core value proposition of your firm.
2. The sequence timing and structure.
3. The breakup email can be largely standardized.

Even though this is a 'low-volume' sequence per target, a deal origination team of 5-10 people can quickly scale to 10,000+ emails per month. Doing this from your primary Outlook or Google Workspace account is an operational mistake.

Private equity firms target C-suite executives at private companies. These are high-value, low-volume targets whose inboxes are heavily filtered. One spam complaint can damage your firm's reputation. Using your primary domain (yourfirm.com) is a catastrophic risk. Once a major provider like Google or Microsoft flags it, all communication—not just outreach—is compromised. This is why dedicated domains and inbox rotation are standard infrastructure for serious deal origination teams.

Here's the infrastructure checklist:

1. Dedicated Domains: Use variations like yourfirm-capital.com or yourfirm-partners.com exclusively for outbound. Never your primary corporate domain.
2. Inbox Rotation: Spread sends across multiple inboxes (e.g., kurtis@yourfirm-capital.com, k.tryber@yourfirm-capital.com). This limits the daily volume per inbox to a safe 25-40 emails, protecting the reputation of each.
3. Automated Warmup: Each new inbox must be warmed up for weeks before being used for outreach to build a positive sending history.

Tools like SuperSend exist to handle this infra and orchestration so deal teams can focus on research and conversations, not managing SPF records.