Private equity firms operate in a highly competitive environment where access to timely, nuanced information can make the difference between a successful investment and a missed opportunity. In this landscape, even small insight advantages can drive value creation and help mitigate risk.
Today, expert network calls have become an essential research tool for private equity teams, providing direct access to real-world perspectives at every stage of the deal lifecycle. This article explores what expert network calls are, how private equity firms use them throughout the deal funnel, and how to maximize their value.
What are expert network calls?
Expert network calls are structured, one-on-one conversations between investors and industry practitioners who have direct, relevant experience in a target company’s market, customer base, operations, or competitive landscape. These discussions are typically arranged through specialist expert networking providers like Third Bridge, who source appropriate experts, verify their backgrounds, conduct compliance checks, schedule the conversations, and manage compensation.
For private equity teams, expert calls provide rapid and compliant access to highly targeted insight that would otherwise take weeks or months to gather through traditional primary research. By enabling investors to pressure-test hypotheses, understand market realities, and gain independent perspectives early in the process, expert calls help accelerate decision-making and improve the quality of diligence.
The private equity deal funnel: An overview
The private equity deal funnel outlines the stages investors move through from initial interest to ownership. Key stages include:
- Sourcing and early screening: Initial assessment of market attractiveness, competitive positioning, and basic financial viability to determine whether a deal is worth pursuing.
- Preliminary assessment and IC preparation: Early hypotheses are tested, key value drivers are clarified, and materials are prepared to secure approval to advance the opportunity.
- Confirmatory due diligence: Detailed evaluation of management claims, customer and competitor dynamics, risks, and the assumptions that underpin the investment thesis and financial model.
- Post-investment portfolio work: Focus shifts to supporting management, executing growth initiatives, monitoring performance, and adjusting strategy during ownership.
Expert network calls support each stage by providing fast, targeted insight that helps investors validate assumptions and reduce uncertainty.
How expert network calls support each stage of the private equity deal funnel
Deal sourcing and early screening
Expert calls help teams quickly determine whether an opportunity is worth pursuing. Speaking with former executives, customers, or competitors gives investors a fast read on market dynamics, competitive intensity, pricing power, and potential growth constraints.
This helps validate or dismiss an initial thesis before meaningful resources are allocated, reducing time spent on low-probability deals.
Preliminary diligence and IC preparation
At this stage, expert calls help sharpen the thesis and clarify where value is likely to come from. Investors use these conversations to test management’s claims, identify real versus perceived advantages, and understand the operational or commercial levers that matter most.
These insights directly support IC materials by improving the precision of assumptions and highlighting areas that require deeper diligence.
Confirmatory due diligence
Expert calls play their most critical role here. Speaking with customers helps teams validate satisfaction levels, switching behavior, and willingness to pay. Competitor views reveal relative strengths and weaknesses, pricing trends, and potential threats. Former insiders can clarify operational realities, cost structures, and strategic decisions.
Together, these insights confirm or challenge the assumptions in the investment model and help investors calibrate both valuation and risk.
Post-investment and portfolio value creation
Once the deal is closed, expert calls help management and portfolio teams make better decisions during ownership. Investors use them to test go-to-market plans, explore adjacency opportunities, benchmark talent, and understand how market conditions are evolving. Calls also help identify emerging risks early, enabling more proactive portfolio management.
What private equity teams gain from expert calls
Expert calls provide investors with targeted, real-world insight that improves decision quality throughout the deal process. Core benefits include:
Speed
Expert calls allow investors to quickly test whether core assumptions hold up in practice. By getting direct input from operators, customers, and competitors early, teams can immediately identify which questions matter and avoid spending time on areas unlikely to influence the deal outcome.
Qualitative depth
Experts provide the practical detail behind market data: how buying decisions are made, what drives pricing, where operational constraints sit, and why certain players outperform. This level of specificity strengthens model assumptions and sharpens the investment thesis.
Independent perspective
Expert calls give investors viewpoints not shaped by management or internal bias. These independent insights help surface risks, challenge optimistic narratives, and highlight factors that may influence performance over the hold period, improving overall risk calibration.
Types of experts consulted by private equity teams
Private equity teams typically engage:
- Former executives who can explain strategic decisions, performance drivers, and internal dynamics.
- Senior commercial leaders who offer insight into sales cycles, pricing, and customer behaviour.
- Customers or channel partners who provide direct feedback on product value, satisfaction, and switching risks.
- Suppliers who can clarify cost structures, operational constraints, and dependency risks.
- Technical or regulatory specialists who help assess compliance requirements, technological barriers, or upcoming rule changes.
This range of perspectives gives investors a more complete and objective view of the target’s market and risk profile.
How Third Bridge supports private equity with expert calls
Third Bridge helps private equity teams get to conviction faster by providing rapid access to highly relevant experts across markets, geographies, and technical domains. Unlike networks that rely on self-referrals or static panels, Third Bridge custom-sources experts for every request. This ensures investors speak with people who have direct, decision-level experience related to the specific thesis or diligence questions they are exploring.
Compliance is embedded throughout the process, with rigorous vetting and clear guidelines that allow teams to gather insight confidently while meeting regulatory requirements. Third Bridge’s analyst-led interview model also strengthens call quality by ensuring conversations are guided by professionals who understand how private equity evaluates opportunities and risks.
Beyond just calls: Third Bridge’s transcript Library is a key differentiator. The Library offers thousands of searchable interview transcripts enabling deal teams to build foundational context quickly, surface key themes early, and focus live calls on the highest-value questions. This improves research efficiency and shortens the time it takes to form a well-supported view of a market.
Best practices for effective expert calls in private equity
To maximize value, teams should:
- Prepare a focused hypothesis and question set so that calls target the assumptions that matter most to the thesis.
- Complete compliance checks and avoid MNPI to ensure conversations stay within regulatory expectations.
- Take structured notes across calls to capture comparable insights and identify consistent themes.
- Integrate qualitative insight with quantitative data so expert perspectives strengthen, not substitute, commercial analysis.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Common mistakes include:
- Over-reliance on too few experts, which can skew interpretation.
- Letting anecdotes drive conclusions, especially when not supported by broader patterns.
- Asking experts outside their domain, leading to low-quality or misleading input.
- Selecting experts with similar backgrounds, which introduces bias and narrows perspective.
Diversifying expert profiles and triangulating insights across different viewpoints help mitigate these risks.
Frequently asked questions
How do investors choose the right experts for a specific deal?
Investors prioritise experts with firsthand, decision-level experience that aligns directly to the thesis. This typically means former executives from the target or close competitors, major customers or partners who understand buying behaviour, or technical specialists who can clarify cost drivers or regulatory requirements. The key is relevance: the best experts can speak to the exact assumptions underpinning the valuation.
What types of questions should private equity teams ask during expert calls?
Teams focus on questions tied to value creation and risk: customer purchase drivers, pricing power, churn dynamics, competitive strengths, sales effectiveness, unit economics, operational bottlenecks, and expected market shifts. The goal is to test the assumptions in the thesis and model, not to gather broad industry commentary.
How do expert calls reduce private equity deal risk?
Expert calls bring independent perspectives that help investors identify blind spots early. They surface issues that management may not highlight, such as customer dissatisfaction, competitive threats, operational weaknesses, or upcoming regulatory changes. This allows teams to recalibrate assumptions before committing capital.
How much does an expert network for private equity calls typically cost?
Expert networks generally charge an hourly rate per call, with pricing based on the seniority and relevance of the expert. Costs are usually modest relative to the value gained, and most private equity firms view them as a standard diligence expense given the impact on underwriting quality.
Conclusion
Expert network calls have become an essential part of modern private equity diligence, providing fast, targeted insight at every stage of the deal process. When used effectively, they help investors validate assumptions, surface risks early, and build conviction with greater precision, ultimately improving underwriting quality and decision-making.
Third Bridge supports this work by delivering highly relevant experts at speed, maintaining rigorous compliance standards, and giving investors access to a rich library of transcripts that accelerate understanding. For private equity teams operating in competitive, time-sensitive environments, Third Bridge provides the clarity needed to move confidently from thesis to investment.
