Balancing Focus vs. Exploration Early On?

November 19, 2025

by a searcher from University of California, Berkeley in Campbell, CA, USA

So I’ve been tinkering with my sourcing workflow and not sure if I’m overthinking this, but I keep bouncing between building really tight industry lists and just doing broad outreach to see what sticks. Part of me feels like narrowing too early might make me miss something interesting, but when I don’t narrow, my CRM gets messy fast and it’s hard to tell whether I’m learning anything. For folks who are also early in the search, how did you figure out the right balance between focus and exploration? Did you set a hard cap on industries or just follow where conversations with owners and brokers led you? Just trying to get my top-of-funnel to feel more intentional without freezing up.

Reply by a searcher
from University of South Carolina in Atlanta, GA, USA

Thanks for the tag Luke. I highly recommend narrowing your focus. When I started searching I looked at everything under the sun and jumped on a deal I did not have enough industry knowledge for that ended up being too good to be true. A year later and a lot of hard lessons learned the deal fell apart. Not only did this cost me time and money, my performance at my corporate job suffered and set me behind there as well. I was lucky in that the I established a good relationship with the broker and he pointed me in directions I hadn't thought of before though.

Reply by a searcher
from Missouri State University in North Canton, OH, USA

I tried going broad, but my CRM started looking like a garage sale: half-finished lists, random notes, and one mystery contact labeled “Greg???” (no idea who Greg is, but apparently he’s “very motivated.”). Took me some time but eventually I learned what not to do. Since you said you are early in the search, I’d say keep going until your CRM starts looking less like a crime scene ;) All part of the process..

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