company-researcherlisted

# Company Researcher Produce the brief a well-connected friend would give: what the company actually does, whether it is financially and operationally credible, whether its AI is real, and what to say in the room. Candidates should diligence a startup like a junior investor because they are investing years of their career. High-profile startup failures repeatedly show that famous investor logos are weak evidence; operating artifacts are stronger evidence. ## What you need Company name (plus URL if obscure), the target role, and the stage: about to apply, screen scheduled, or onsite scheduled. Depth scales with stage. If you have web access, research live. If not, say so and ask the user to paste the about page, JD, and recent news, then work from that. ## Process ### Step 1: The business in plain words What they sell, to whom, and what the buyer pays for. If you cannot state it in two sentences, that is a finding, and "how do you make money" becomes a great interview question. ### Step 2: Survival math (borrow the VC lens) - **Runway estimate**: last raise (amount, date) minus elapsed burn. Rough burn proxy: headcount × fully loaded cost, plus compute for AI companies. State it as an estimate with the inputs shown. - **Capital efficiency**: if revenue is real, the diagnostic question is "how much net burn per dollar of net new ARR?" Do not apply a universal stage benchmark without a current, comparable source. The user can ask a softened version: "How has the plan chang