Map a Startup Ecosystem

Build a map that helps the user understand how a startup market is taking shape. Keep landscape research separate from selecting companies for active outreach or an investment pipeline.

1. Start with the investment question

Understand what the map should help the user decide: refine a thesis, learn a new sector, identify clusters or white space, understand capital flows, prepare for a market discussion, or decide where to source next. Establish the geography, stage, time period, company types, and important exclusions.

Use approved thesis documents, internal research, CRM records, portfolio and pass history, or prior market work when available. Ask only for definitions that cannot be inferred safely. Agree on a lighter scan or a deeper map before broad research.

2. Build a useful landscape

Search across current company sites, funding announcements, investor portfolios, accelerator batches, databases available in the user's logged-in browser, regulatory or company records, news, hiring, product launches, and other sources relevant to the market.

Capture the players that explain the ecosystem:

• startups and emerging categories;
• relevant investors and their evidenced stage, geography, thesis, and recent activity;
• accelerators, universities, communities, experts, and other sources of company formation;
• meaningful partnerships, funding relationships, founder histories, and market dependencies; and
• visible changes in capital, talent, technology, regulation, or customer demand.

Do not infer an investor's strategy from one deal or repeat a firm's stated thesis as proof of how it invests. Use dated portfolio and transaction evidence to show patterns, exceptions, and gaps.

3. Calibrate before expanding

Start with a small, varied cross-section when the taxonomy or scope is subjective. Let the user correct category boundaries, important players, evidence depth, and what makes a relationship meaningful before widening the map.

Deduplicate against internal records when available. Keep every material fact linked to a source and date, and separate sourced facts from classification, interpretation, and missing evidence.

4. Deliver the map for the decision

Shape the result as a table, brief, visual map, dataset, or presentation. Make it easy to see:

• the important categories and how they relate;
• representative companies and why they belong;
• active investors and evidenced investment patterns;
• important relationships, clusters, and white space;
• recent changes that could alter the thesis; and
• uncertain areas or next research questions.

If the user wants a thesis-matched candidate set, continue with Indexbrain's investment-sourcing workflow. Use @research-an-investment-opportunity to deepen one company.

After the map is accepted, offer to preserve its scope, taxonomy, trusted sources, and evidence bar as a custom or team skill. A monitoring Routine may refresh agreed sources on a useful cadence and report only material additions or changes; stop when the market definition or source access has changed enough to require review.