At Aboard, we’re building a tool that helps you build business software very, very quickly. And lately we’re starting to have more meetings to pitch our approach—and I’ve been using AI to prep myself for those meetings.

When I used to work at an agency, it was always hard to prep for meetings like those. It was incumbent upon me to speak their language, not the other way around—and I had to cobble research together by searching the web, or looking things up in—gasp—books. I was always jealous of the consulting firms that had huge databases describing every company and plenty of experts on tap.

But now is a different era, and I’ve developed an LLM prompt for learning more about the people who want to meet. It works pretty well, especially in “Deep Research” mode, so I thought I’d share it. It generates a lot of output and may seem excessive or overwhelming. But frankly it’s about the right level of detail, and Rich Ziade and I have closed a lot of business over the years.

I don’t present this information, by the way. No one wants to see their company presented to them by a stranger. I use it to listen and ask less-dumb questions.

If you want to see example output—for the purposes of this exercise, I searched for “health tech company with around a thousand employees” and picked the first one that came up. I know absolutely nothing about this firm, its industry, or its competitors, and they have absolutely no interest in our product. I literally just plugged their name in, answered followup questions, and walked away for a half hour. Here is output from the prompt, using ChatGPT 3o in “Deep Research” mode.

Is this...good? When I run the prompt on companies I do know very well, I found the output relatively accurate. It missed certain key things that wouldn’t make news—like a firm leaving a market or quietly cancelling a product. But as a narrative of positive, active things a company has done in the past, I found the output quite solid. Your mileage will vary.

The Prompt

I’m very interested in [FIRM NAME].

First, please describe their market sector, their size, and the industries to which they are connected.

Can you create a detailed event and overview of every significant event related to the firm and its leadership? At the same time, note major events in the industry and the markets at large that might have influenced the firm’s development. Probe deeply and also note anything interesting or novel. Start at the founding. Note all leadership events and bios. Include major industry changes and regulatory changes.

List the ten greatest risks to a business like this.

Who are the firms five biggest competitors? I want you to write brief corporate profiles of each company. Age, leadership, etc. At the end, make a table of their offerings by state. Also add the original firm back in.

Help me understand their supply chain. Make sure I understand their customers and how they make money. From whom do they buy and to whom do they sell?

Write a report on the overall information technology needs of firms in this space.

• I want to know where companies build versus buy.

• I want to know the different kinds of software that they use for a variety of uses.

• I want to know the kinds of tools that they use for interacting with their different customers, for regulatory approval, and for data management.

• How do they manage liability risk?

• What are common data formats, and common APIs and protocols that are used throughout the industry?

• What kind of technical debt do firms like this typically carry?

At the end of the report, I would like you to make forward-looking statements about the future of the IT industry, and how that might affect the technology development in these industries. Create an appendix on the idealized structure of the firm’s technology organization—organized for future maximum effect. How many people should be on the team, and how should the teams be structured?

When discussing build-vs-buy, go into depth on specific vendors around all systems where possible. Be exhaustive and explain the unique selling propositions for each vendor—make sure to list at least five differentiators where you can. Don’t forget to focus on internal R&D. A U.S.-centric view is fine.

Make a list of the key software vendors listed above and describe them, explain their size, and list their five major features for firms in this space.

Make a list of the five main potential acquirers for these kinds of firms. Who are the biggest players in the space?

Produce a full briefing with all of the information above. At the beginning, add a well-organized executive briefing with summary.

Finally, produce a formatted document I can import into Google Docs and edit.

That’s it. Try it and let me know how to improve it!