Company Research

Purpose

Create a comprehensive company profile that extracts executive insights, product strategy, transformation initiatives, and organizational dynamics from publicly available sources. Use this to understand competitive landscape, evaluate partnership opportunities, benchmark best practices, prepare for interviews, or inform market entry decisions by understanding how successful companies think about product management and strategy.

This is not surface-level research—it's strategic intelligence gathering focused on product management perspectives and executive vision.

Input

Works best with: The company to profile. Also useful: Why you're researching it (interview prep, competitive analysis, partnership, market entry) — this changes what the brief emphasizes.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. The skill asks for the company and the purpose before drafting the brief.

Example invocation: Build a company research brief on Datadog — I interview with their platform PM team Friday.

Key Concepts

The Executive Insights Framework

This framework synthesizes company intelligence across multiple dimensions:

Core Components:

1. Company Overview: Basic info, history, industry context
2. Executive Quotes: Strategic vision from CEO, COO, VP Product, Group PM
3. Product Insights: Strategy, recent launches, innovation focus
4. Transformation Strategies: Digital, AI, Agile transformations
5. Organizational Impact: How PM influences strategy, cross-functional collaboration
6. Future Roadmap: Upcoming initiatives and anticipated challenges
7. Product-Led Growth (PLG): PLG strategies, data-driven decisions

Why This Works

• Executive perspective: Captures leadership thinking, not just marketing copy
• Product-centric: Focuses on PM-relevant insights (strategy, process, culture)
• Multi-source: Synthesizes interviews, earnings calls, blog posts, case studies
• Strategic intelligence: Informs competitive positioning, partnership evaluation, or interview prep

Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT)

• Not financial analysis: Focus is product strategy, not valuation or stock performance
• Not SWOT analysis: This documents their perspective, not strengths/weaknesses assessment
• Not surface scraping: Go deeper than "About Us" pages—find executive interviews, product blogs, earnings transcripts

When to Use This

• Competitive analysis (understanding how competitors approach PM)
• Partnership evaluation (assessing cultural fit and strategic direction)
• Interview preparation (understanding company culture, product philosophy)
• Benchmarking best practices (learning from successful companies)
• Market entry decisions (understanding how incumbents operate)

When NOT to Use This

• For internal analysis (this is external research)
• When primary sources are unavailable (executives haven't spoken publicly)
• As a substitute for customer research (this is company perspective, not customer perspective)

Application

Use template.md for the full fill-in structure.

Step 1: Define Research Scope

Clarify what you're researching and why:

## Research Objective
- **Company Name:** [e.g., "Stripe"]
- **Research Purpose:** [e.g., "Understand payment platform product strategy for competitive positioning"]
- **Key Questions:**
  - [Question 1: e.g., "How does Stripe think about platform extensibility?"]
  - [Question 2: e.g., "What's their approach to developer experience?"]
  - [Question 3: e.g., "How do they prioritize roadmap vs. custom enterprise requests?"]

Step 2: Gather Company Overview

Document basic company information:

### Company Overview

**Basic Information:**
- **Name:** [Official company name]
- **Headquarters:** [Location]
- **Industry:** [Primary industries, e.g., "Fintech, Payment Processing, Developer Tools"]
- **Founded:** [Year]
- **Size:** [Employees, revenue if public, funding if private]

**Brief History:**
- [Key milestones that shaped current market position]
- [Example: "2010: Founded by Patrick and John Collison. 2011: Launched 7-line integration. 2018: Launched Stripe Atlas. 2021: $95B valuation."]

Sources to check:

• Company website (About, Press, Blog)
• LinkedIn company page
• Crunchbase / PitchBook (for funding/valuation)
• Wikipedia (for history)

Step 3: Extract Executive Quotes on Strategic Vision

Find recent quotes from key executives:

### Executive Quotes on Strategic Vision

**Quote from the CEO:**
- "[Recent quote discussing long-term vision and market approach]"
- **Source:** [Link to interview, earnings call, blog post, conference talk]
- **Date:** [When the quote was made]
- **Context:** [Brief explanation of what prompted this quote]

**Quote from the COO:**
- "[Recent quote focusing on operational strategies and challenges]"
- **Source:** [Link]
- **Date:** [When]

**Quote from the VP of Product Management:**
- "[Recent quote detailing product strategy and innovation focus]"
- **Source:** [Link]
- **Date:** [When]

**Quote from the Group Product Manager:**
- "[Recent quote discussing specific product initiatives and customer engagement]"
- **Source:** [Link]
- **Date:** [When]

Sources to check:

• Earnings call transcripts (if public)
• Podcast interviews (e.g., Lenny's Podcast, Masters of Scale, How I Built This)
• Conference talks (YouTube, company blog)
• Blog posts by executives
• LinkedIn posts
• Industry publications (TechCrunch, The Verge, etc.)

Quality checks:

• Recent: Prioritize quotes from the last 12-24 months
• Substantive: Look for strategy/philosophy, not generic PR statements
• Attributed: Always cite source and date

Step 4: Document Product Insights

Synthesize product strategy and recent launches:

### Detailed Product Insights

**Product Strategy Overview:**
- [Describe overall product strategy, emphasizing integration of market needs with technological capabilities]
- [Example: "Stripe's product strategy centers on developer experience: reduce integration complexity, provide powerful primitives, enable rapid experimentation"]

**Recent Product Launches and Innovations:**
1. **[Product/Feature 1]** - [Description and market impact]
   - [Example: "Stripe Tax (2021): Automated sales tax calculation. Removed compliance barrier for global expansion."]
2. **[Product/Feature 2]** - [Description and impact]
3. **[Product/Feature 3]** - [Description and impact]

**Product Philosophy:**
- [Key principles that guide product decisions]
- [Example: "Start with developer needs, not enterprise sales. Build for 10x scale before you need it. Default to public APIs."]

Sources to check:

• Product blog or changelog
• Product Hunt launches
• Release notes
• Product team blog posts or case studies

Step 5: Identify Transformation Strategies

Document how the company is evolving:

### Transformation Strategies and Initiatives

**Digital Transformation:**
- [Describe approach to digital transformation, emphasizing integration of cutting-edge technology with existing processes]
- [Example: "Migrated from monolith to microservices architecture (2019-2022). Enabled 10x faster feature deployment."]

**AI Transformation:**
- [Explain how AI is incorporated into core processes, product offerings, and market positioning]
- [Example: "Launched Radar for fraud detection (ML-powered). Reduced false positives by 40%, processing $640B annually."]

**Agile Transformation:**
- [Detail adoption of Agile methodologies, highlighting improvements in collaboration, project management, product delivery]
- [Example: "Adopted Shape Up methodology (6-week cycles, no sprints). Improved focus, reduced meeting overhead."]

Sources to check:

• Engineering blog
• Case studies or white papers
• Conference talks by engineering/product leaders
• LinkedIn posts about process changes

Step 6: Understand Organizational Impact of Product Management

Document how PM functions within the organization:

### Organizational Impact of Product Management

**Role of Product Management in Strategic Decisions:**
- [Discuss how PM influences strategic decisions]
- [Example: "PMs own P&L for their product area. Directly influence company roadmap through quarterly planning process. CEO reviews roadmap with PM leads, not just VPs."]

**Cross-Functional Collaboration:**
- [Outline collaboration between PM and other departments]
- [Example: "PMs co-located with engineering (not in separate 'product' org). Weekly design reviews with Design VP. Monthly GTM sync with Sales/Marketing."]

**PM Career Paths:**
- [If available, describe how PMs grow and advance]
- [Example: "IC track: PM → Senior PM → Staff PM → Principal PM. Manager track: PM → Group PM → Director → VP."]

Sources to check:

• PM job postings (describe role, responsibilities, team structure)
• LinkedIn profiles (track PM career progression)
• PM blog posts or interviews
• Glassdoor reviews (internal culture insights)

Step 7: Analyze Future Roadmap and Challenges

Identify where the company is headed:

### Future Product Roadmap and Challenges

**Upcoming Product Initiatives:**
- [Detail planned initiatives and alignment with strategic goals]
- [Example: "Expanding into embedded finance (Stripe Capital, Stripe Treasury). Goal: Become financial infrastructure for the internet, not just payments."]

**Anticipated Market Challenges:**
- [Identify potential challenges and PM team plans to address them]
- [Example: "Challenge: Increasing competition from Square, PayPal. Response: Double down on developer experience, global expansion (70+ countries)."]

**Competitive Threats:**
- [Document acknowledged or observed competitive pressures]

Sources to check:

• Earnings calls (forward-looking statements)
• Analyst reports
• Industry news (funding rounds by competitors, market shifts)

Step 8: Document Product-Led Growth Insights

If applicable, capture PLG strategies:

### Product-Led Growth Insights

**Implementation of PLG Strategies:**
- [Describe how the company employs PLG to enhance customer acquisition, retention, expansion]
- [Example: "Self-serve onboarding: 7-line code integration. No sales calls required for <$1M ARR. 90% of customers start with free tier."]

**Data-Driven Product Decisions:**
- [Explain role of data analytics in shaping product decisions and driving growth]
- [Example: "Instrumented every API call. PMs have real-time dashboards. Feature adoption tracked within 24 hours of launch."]

Sources to check:

• Product analytics blog posts
• Growth team blog posts
• Case studies on activation, retention, expansion

Step 9: Synthesize Key Takeaways

Summarize the most important insights:

### Key Takeaways

**Strategic Principles:**
1. **[Principle 1]** - [What you learned about their approach]
2. **[Principle 2]** - [What you learned]
3. **[Principle 3]** - [What you learned]

**Product Management Lessons:**
1. **[Lesson 1]** - [Applicable insight for your context]
2. **[Lesson 2]** - [Applicable insight]
3. **[Lesson 3]** - [Applicable insight]

**Questions for Further Research:**
- [Unanswered question 1]
- [Unanswered question 2]

Examples

See examples/sample.md for a full company research example.

Mini example excerpt:

**Company Name:** Stripe
**Research Purpose:** Understand payment platform product strategy
**Key Questions:** Developer experience? Platform extensibility?

Common Pitfalls

Pitfall 1: Surface-Level Research

Symptom: "Stripe is a payments company. They process payments."

Consequence: No strategic insights.

Fix: Go deeper—find executive interviews, engineering blogs, product philosophy posts.

Pitfall 2: No Source Citations

Symptom: "The CEO said the company is focused on innovation"

Consequence: Unverifiable, low credibility.

Fix: Always cite source and date: "The CEO said X (Source: Lenny's Podcast, Episode 185, Sept 2023)."

Pitfall 3: Mixing Opinion with Facts

Symptom: "Stripe's product strategy is great because they focus on developers"

Consequence: Analysis, not research.

Fix: Document what they do, not whether it's "good." Save analysis for "Key Takeaways."

Pitfall 4: Outdated Information

Symptom: Using 5-year-old quotes or strategies

Consequence: Irrelevant insights (company strategies evolve).

Fix: Prioritize sources from the last 12-24 months.

Pitfall 5: Ignoring Negative Signals

Symptom: Only documenting successes, ignoring challenges or failures

Consequence: Incomplete picture.

Fix: Include "Anticipated Market Challenges" and competitive threats.

References

Related Skills

• skills/positioning-statement/SKILL.md — Use company research to understand competitive positioning
• skills/pestel-analysis/SKILL.md — Company research informs market context
• skills/proto-persona/SKILL.md — Executive quotes may reveal target personas

External Frameworks

• Competitive intelligence frameworks
• Strategic analysis methodologies

Dean's Work

• Executive Insights Company Profile Template

Provenance

• Adapted from prompts/company-profile-executive-insights-research.md in the https://github.com/deanpeters/product-manager-prompts repo.

Skill type: Component Suggested filename: company-research.md Suggested placement: /skills/components/ Dependencies: References skills/positioning-statement/SKILL.md, skills/pestel-analysis/SKILL.md