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Scout Best Practices & Prompts

Example prompts and best practices for getting the most out of Scout.

Written by Erin McCarthy

New to Scout? Learn the basics here


Scout for recurring research

You can set scouts to run routinely on schedules, learn more here.

Stealth & founder monitoring
"Every weekday at 7:00 AM, check for operators leaving MANGOES to start stealth companies. For each, check if they're in my network and assess fit based on my fund's investment history and founder archetypes. Flag repeat founders, notable co-founder pairings, and early fundraising signals like new company registrations or angel investor activity. Include a personalized outreach talking point and recommend who I should reach out to first and why."

Co-investor monitoring
"Every Friday at 9:00 AM, monitor new deals from my fund's frequent co-investors — pull them from my Harmonic investor profile. Flag deals where 2 or more of my co-investors invested together. Note if any overlap with my focus areas and whether I have a network path to the founder."

Competitive intelligence
"Every Monday at 8:30 AM, check what's happening around my portfolio companies — not what my companies are doing, but what their competitors are doing. Flag competitors that raised a round, launched publicly, or emerged from stealth in the past week. Benchmark each against my portfolio company in the same category — compare headcount growth, funding, and web traffic side by side. If a competitor is outpacing my portfolio company on any metric, call that out. If they hired someone who left my portfolio company, flag it separately."

Portfolio health & raise-readiness
"Every Monday at 7:30 AM, run a health check on my portfolio companies. For each, pull headcount trend, web traffic trend, and any senior team changes in the past week. Flag departures — especially to competitors or to start something new. Flag any company that lost 2+ senior people in 30 days. Then check for raise-readiness signals — last round 15+ months ago, headcount growing 20%+, web traffic spiking, or multiple senior hires in sales, marketing, or finance in the same month. For any company showing 2 or more raise signals, build a co-investor shortlist based on stage and sector fit, check my network for warm paths to each co-investor, and draft a talking point about the company's momentum I can use to open a conversation with the founder."

Market landscape reports
"On the 1st of each month, at 9:00 AM, build a competitive landscape for AI developer tools grouped by sub-category. For each company, show funding stage, total raised, headcount growth over 90 days, and key investors. Map where my portfolio companies sit in the landscape. Show what changed since last quarter — new entrants, companies that raised, breakout traction. Flag any that could become competitive threats or acquisition targets for my portfolio."

LP & board reporting
"On the 1st of each quarter at 9:00 AM, build a draft for my LP letter. For each portfolio company: headcount change since last quarter, funding raised, web traffic trend, key hires and departures, and 2-3 milestones. Add a one-line momentum assessment — accelerating, steady, or needs attention. Include a portfolio-level summary at the top with aggregate stats."


Scout for one-time searches

Build visualizations and market maps

"Find me AI infrastructure companies founded in the last 3 years that raised between $5M—$75M, build a market map by subvertical, and flag any with strong momentum signals like recent headcount spikes."


Portfolio analysis

"Look at my existing list and score every company based on traction signals in Harmonic and on the public web — tell me which I should be spending time with and why."


Do your diligence

"Create a DD report on @TargetCo. Include an executive summary, market potential, market size and growth, business model and defensibility, founder profiles, in- and out-of-network candidates for reference calls, and main risks."


What did we miss?

"I work at @[Fund]. Which deals did we miss out on in 2025 that #Top 50 VCs participated in, but are not in our #affinity list pipeline?"


Market map → stealth founder pipeline

Step 1: "Run a deep-dive on [sector]. Build a market map, segment by subvertical, show Series A/B rounds in the last 12 months, and identify top co-investors."

Step 2: "Now find all stealth founders or startups that have raised less than $5M where someone on the team worked at one of the companies from that market map."


Network sourcing

"I'm heading to NYC for a sourcing trip — find me startups in my team network in fashion, luxury goods, and collectibles I should meet with."


Analyze founder profiles

"Analyze founders of companies founded in the last five years who raised $50M+. Compare them to founders who raised less than $5M as a control group. Identify the strongest differentiators across prior company stage, functional background, prior founder experience, and hiring velocity."


Build on your decisions

"I'm an investor @YourFund focused on early stage. Based on my investments in the past 24 months, what AI themes should be on my radar? Include any relevant network connections for warm intros to the most exciting companies."


Find the right capital partners

"I'm raising a Series A for @YourCompany. Find 10 strong Series A investors that would be a fit for our stage and sector, and show who on my team is connected to them."


Talent discovery

"Find people who worked at companies acquired by Google, Apple, or Meta in the last 3 years, had 3+ years tenure, and are now based in SF or NYC — prioritize engineering and product leaders."


Custom scoring
Upload a pitch deck or scoring rubric with your specific criteria and ask Scout to evaluate companies against it


Team sharing
Open any Scout thread, click the share icon, and toggle visibility between private and public. Copy the link to share with your team.

Need more prompt ideas? Use the chat support in the bottom right corner or email support@harmonic.ai


Adding Scout insights to custom fields

Any structured insight Scout generates - summaries, tags, categories, scores, founder backgrounds - can be written directly into custom fields on a list, so you can sort, filter, and share them in Console.


From a new Scout thread
Ask Scout to find companies, then save the results with the insights as fields:

  • "Find sub-$20M companies with Forbes AI 50 alumni as founders"

  • "Save these to a new list and add custom fields for company summary and founder background"

Add to an existing list
Reference a list with # and have Scout score, tag, or analyze every company in it:

  • "For companies in my #Pipeline Q2 list, score each one 1-5 on product-market fit signals and write a one-line rationale"

  • "Add these as custom fields to the list"

View in Console
In the top-right of the list, click Display → Fields → Custom, select the fields you want, then click Apply.


Getting the Best Results

1. Brief Scout like a smart analyst Write your query the way you'd brief a sharp analyst — explain who you are, what you're trying to do, and what "good" looks like. No boolean logic or filters needed.

  • Instead of: "Tell me about fintech"

  • Try: "Create a table of the top 10 Series A fintech companies with name, total raised, headcount, key investors, and recent growth signals."

2. Reference specific companies or people directly using @ Using @ ensures Scout pulls the exact company or person you mean, avoiding confusion with similar names.

  • "Find companies similar to @Stripe in the payments space"

  • "Who from my network is connected to @company?"

3. Go deeper with follow-up questions Scout is most powerful across multiple turns. Start broad, then drill in — each follow-up builds on the previous context.

  • "Map the competitive landscape for AI-native legal tools."

  • "Now filter to US companies at Series A or earlier, founded after 2021."

  • "For the top 3, show warm paths through my network."

4. Ask for the output you need Specify the format upfront and Scout will structure results accordingly.

  • "Present this as a side-by-side comparison table."

  • "Break this down by region with key statistics."

  • "Create a one-pager I can share directly with my team."

5. Reference a saved search or list Pull in your existing work by referencing a saved search or list directly. Scout will use it as context for your query.

  • "Based on my fintech watchlist, which companies are most likely to raise in the next 6 months?"

  • "From my Series B pipeline search, who has the strongest founding team backgrounds?"

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