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SKILL.md
npx skills add deanpeters/product-manager-skills --skill company-research
Create a company research brief with executive quotes, product strategy, and org context. Use when preparing for interviews, competitive analysis, partnerships, or market-entry work.
npx skills add deanpeters/product-manager-skills --skill company-research
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.
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.
This framework synthesizes company intelligence across multiple dimensions:
Core Components:
Use template.md for the full fill-in structure.
Clarify what you're researching and why:
Document basic company information:
Sources to check:
Find recent quotes from key executives:
Sources to check:
Quality checks:
Synthesize product strategy and recent launches:
Sources to check:
Document how the company is evolving:
Sources to check:
Document how PM functions within the organization:
Sources to check:
Identify where the company is headed:
Sources to check:
If applicable, capture PLG strategies:
Sources to check:
Summarize the most important insights:
See examples/sample.md for a full company research example.
Mini example excerpt:
Symptom: "Stripe is a payments company. They process payments."
Consequence: No strategic insights.
Fix: Go deeper—find executive interviews, engineering blogs, product philosophy posts.
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)."
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."
Symptom: Using 5-year-old quotes or strategies
Consequence: Irrelevant insights (company strategies evolve).
Fix: Prioritize sources from the last 12-24 months.
Symptom: Only documenting successes, ignoring challenges or failures
Consequence: Incomplete picture.
Fix: Include "Anticipated Market Challenges" and competitive threats.
skills/positioning-statement/SKILL.md — Use company research to understand competitive positioningskills/pestel-analysis/SKILL.md — Company research informs market contextskills/proto-persona/SKILL.md — Executive quotes may reveal target personasprompts/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
### 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."]### 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]### 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."]### 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."]### 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."]### 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]### 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."]### 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]**Company Name:** Stripe
**Research Purpose:** Understand payment platform product strategy
**Key Questions:** Developer experience? Platform extensibility?