SoloSearcher

Your first hour

From sign-up to your first saved verdict.

Six stages, start to finish: create your account and answer the five questions that define your search, land in a workspace with companies already loaded, meet a company record, round out the profile that shapes your analyses, connect an assistant, and get a verdict saved back to the company. None of it takes long, and you can stop after any stage and pick up later.

1. Create your account and define your search #

Everything starts at sign-up. SoloSearcher asks you five short questions before it loads a single company — that's what turns a blank account into a workspace built around you.

  1. Create a free account. SoloSearcher takes you straight into a short onboarding flow.
  2. Answer five quick questions: your name, where you're searching, your target SDE range, team size, and the industries you want. Where you're searching is the one answer that decides which companies load, and each industry you pick adds companies rather than removing them.
  3. A match count updates live as you answer. If it looks thin, SoloSearcher offers one-click ways to widen — each one tells you how many more companies it finds.
  4. When you've answered all five, press Build my workspace.

(The search on the homepage lets you size a market with no account at all — and if you sign up from there, that same search carries into your new account and starts loading the moment the account is created.)

You'll know it worked when… you've pressed Build my workspace and SoloSearcher starts loading your companies.

2. Land in a loaded workspace #

SoloSearcher loads your starting companies before you ever see the workspace — a progress screen counts them in, and there is no half-filled list to wonder about.

  1. The loading screen runs until your cohort is in — up to 5,000 companies matching your territory, SDE range, and industries. A genuinely thin market loads what matches; a broad one fills to the cap.
  2. This first load is one-time and draws from its own allowance, not your ongoing monthly budget. See Limits for how the monthly budget works once you're past it.
  3. When the load completes, you land on your companies list, ready to filter, rate, or open.

You'll know it worked when… your workspace opens with companies already in it — the list those five answers produced, not an empty screen.

3. Meet a company record #

Open any company in your new list. This is the workspace for that one business: a header with the basics, estimated financials, notes, contacts, and everything else you'll add as you work it.

  1. Read the estimated revenue and SDE. Each one carries its own provenance and confidence — open the company to see where a specific number comes from and how much to trust it. See Understanding the data for how the estimates are built.
  2. Set a rating and a status for the company — even a rough first pass. This is private to you and shapes what your default views show later.
  3. Add a note on anything you notice, good or bad.

You'll know it worked when… you've rated one company and left a note on it — something only you can see, sitting next to a public record you didn't have to build yourself.

4. Round out your Buyer Profile #

Onboarding already saved your display name and target SDE range, which is the whole minimum an AI skill needs to run. This step is about making the analyses you get later actually sound like they're about you, not just satisfying a gate.

  1. Open Settings → Buyer Profile. Your display name and target SDE range are already filled in from onboarding.
  2. Add your background and your thesis — why you're searching and what you're actually looking for. A couple of minutes, and every skill that runs afterward reasons with this in mind.
  3. See Buyer Profile for what each field changes about the analyses you get later.

You'll know it worked when… your profile page shows a background and a thesis alongside the name and range onboarding already saved.

5. Connect your AI #

The CRM works without an AI connection, but this is where an assistant starts doing real work against your workspace — reading companies, running skills, and (if you allow it) saving results back.

  1. Open Connect your AI and pick your tool. Claude is the one SoloSearcher tests end to end — see Connect Claude if you're not sure which to use.
  2. Choose read-only or read-and-write access when you approve the connection. Read-and-write is what lets a report land back on the company record instead of staying in the chat.

You'll know it worked when… your assistant lists SoloSearcher's tools when you ask it to.

6. Your first verdict #

With a Buyer Profile saved and your AI connected, ask it something you actually want to know. This is the prompt SoloSearcher tests against Claude:

  1. Ask your assistant: “Of the companies I'm tracking, which three best fit my buyer profile? Then run a pre-inspection decision brief on the strongest one.”
  2. Your assistant reads your workspace, reasons over the strongest candidate, and writes the finished report.
  3. With read-and-write access, the report saves onto that company's record. Run the same skill again later and you get a new version next to the old one, not a replacement.
  4. Open the company and go to its AI tab — that's where the report landed.

You'll know it worked when… a report shows up on the company's AI tab — not just in your chat — with your reasoning behind it saved for next time.

Where to go next #

Skills reference lists every built-in skill you can run beyond the first one. Troubleshooting covers what a specific error or locked message means. Limits explains the budgets that bound cost once your first free sample load is behind you.