Investigate Companies
Find Info About Companies Using These Powerful Tools
• Hoover’s – Narrow down companies in specific locations and industries – filter by size & other criteria.
• DMOZ Yahoo Directory – Other information sources about companies (US, Canada & Worldwide)
• Lexis Nexis Legal News, Public Records & Business Info
• ThomasNet – Focus on manufacturing & engineering companies.
• Find a company using “Dun & Bradstreet” – Limited searches possible for free.
• LinkedIn – Click on the companies tab and then search for companies in your preferred location using zipcode.
• Don’t Forget to visit the company’s website once you have identified the name. Search by a combination of company name and location to make sure you get to the right website, since many companies may have similar sounding names. If you can’t find a company’s website search in the “chamber of commerce” of that city for the company’s address.
Business News
-
CNN – Money
Business, Financial & Personal Finance -
CNBC
World News, Stock Market and Financial Earnings
Magazines & Websites
• Business Week
Search for lists of companies – For example list of most innovative companies, top 100 IT companies, best places to launch a career etc.
• Forbes Lists
Use lateral thinking – eg. Top richest men in India – (which company they own?), Best small companies in USA, 100 Best mid-cap stocks etc.
• Corporate Information
Use this site to Investigate. For example filter companies based on their 3 year sales growth or by country.
• Financial Web
Search for your target companies based on their market performance and fundamentals.
• Fortune 500
Check out interesting companies in the F500 list as well as other Fortune Rankings (under “Ranking” tab).
• Visit your local library and ask the librarian for the directories in print which have lists of companies. Clarify that you are not looking for job openings but want information on organizations.
• Speak with your friends, relatives and contacts to get ideas about companies which you could shortlist.
Follow The Money
Which Companies got recent funding (USA only)? Wo are the hottest Start-Ups who may need skilled people?
• In your target region, which industries and companies got VC funding ? – PWC Money Tree – Free registration to drill down into company names, email and amount of funding.
• The Biz Journal for your target city – Set up a RSS feed to igoogle from your target city’s Biz Journal home page.
Additional Misc Resources
Associations & Directories
• US Chamber of Commerce
Check the chambers directory by city and then find members for specific industries.
• Local Canadian Chamber of Commerce
If you are not in Canada, search on google to find your local Chambers of Commerce in your country and city.
• Gale Directory of Directories
Check the “Free Download” tab for lists of major companies in US & worldwide in different sectors.
• SEDAR: Docs Filed By Public Companies
Searching on the internet
- Go to google search settings in your browser and set 100 results to display as your ptoolkit. Default is 10 only.
- Use the other search engines to search also, not just google. The top 4 search engines are
1. google
2. yahoo
3. bing (from Microsost)
4. ask
List Of Best Business Websites by Industry
“Best of the Best Business Websites” – American Library Association
