Entrepreneurship & Business Planning

Public Companies (U.S. and global)

Publicly-traded companies are relatively easy to research because they release financial and operational reports to the public on a regular basis, as required by the SEC.

Search by your company's name or its stock ticker symbol.

Private Companies (start-ups, family businesses, etc.)

Private companies are often difficult to research because they are not legally required to release information about their finances or operations. PitchBook and similar services specialize in providing access to this specialized information. 

Remember to use the target company's website in your research!

• Company websites are fantastic resources for information on organization structure, corporate culture, product lines, business models, and other information. 
• If you have trouble getting past the product information, check the website headers and footers for links to subpages on hiring, company background, and other organizational topics.

Sub-page Searching Shortcuts

There are certain keywords and phrases you can use in internet searches to get to specific website sub-pages that are part of almost all public company websites (even if they're hard to find).

companyname investor relations > nike investor relations = http://investors.nikeinc.com
The Investor Relations page will include links to 10-K reports, corporate governance reports, and other stockholder-oriented information

companyname hiring > Maersk hiring = https://www.maersk.com/careers
Hiring pages are especially useful for the Internal Resources part of your project because they discuss corporate culture, employee benefits, organizational structure, and illustrate current hiring trends.