Product
One sentence in. A shortlist out.
Refolk is an AI sourcing agent: describe who you’re looking for and I return a ranked shortlist of real people, with the evidence behind each match. Here’s what happens in between.
The pipeline
- 01
You describe who you're after
Plain English, no filters or boolean strings. "Staff backend engineers in NYC who shipped Rust in production" is a complete query. Follow-ups work the same way: "narrower - only people open to relocating".
- 02
I plan the search
I break your sentence into the searches it implies: which sources to read, which signals prove each requirement, and what would disqualify a match. A vague query gets interpreted; an impossible one gets pushed back on.
- 03
I read public sources live
Public LinkedIn and Crunchbase records, the public GitHub graph, and the open web - read at search time, not from a stale export. You watch every step as it runs, including the dead ends.
- 04
I rank people, with the evidence shown
Records that belong to the same person get merged, then each candidate is scored against your whole query. Every result carries the reasoning and sources that earned it a spot, so you can check my work instead of trusting it.
- 05
You act on the shortlist
Draft outreach in each person's language, dig into any profile, share the results at a public link, or export the list to wherever you work.
Why the evidence matters
Sourcing tools usually hand you a list and ask you to take it on faith. Refolk does the opposite: the search runs in front of you, and every person on the shortlist shows the public records and reasoning that put them there. When a match is weak, the evidence says so - which means you spend your judgment on the top of the list, not on re-verifying all of it.
Real searches, published by the people who ran them, are on the shared searches page - each one shows the full result list exactly as it came back.
What it costs
Searches are metered in credits, scaled to what each search actually used. You start with 500 free credits, no card required, and the balance refills monthly while Refolk is in early access. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
What Refolk doesn’t do
- No private data. Only publicly available records - nothing behind a login, no private profiles, no purchased personal data about your contacts.
- No pay-to-rank. Nobody can buy a spot on a shortlist. Ranking comes from the evidence, full stop.
- No black box. If a result can’t be traced to its sources, it doesn’t belong on the list.
New to the category? What is a people search engine? covers how these tools work in general.
Common questions
Do I need to know boolean search?
No. Describe the person the way you'd describe them to a colleague. Translating that into searches is my job, not yours.
Where does the data come from?
Public sources only: public LinkedIn and Crunchbase records, the public GitHub graph, and the open web. The same pages you could open in a browser, read live at search time.
How fresh are the results?
Sources are read when you run the search, not from a snapshot. If someone changed jobs last week and the public record reflects it, the shortlist does too.
Why does every result show its sources?
So you can verify instead of trust. Each person on the shortlist comes with the reasoning and the public records that earned them their rank - if the evidence looks thin, you'll see that immediately.
What does a search cost?
Credits, scaled to what the search actually used. Quick lookups cost a credit or two; deep multi-step research costs more. You start with 500 free credits and the balance refills monthly - details on the pricing page.
Is any of this private data?
No. Refolk reads publicly available records and does not access private profiles, inboxes, or anything behind a login.