Top 5 Best Practices for Using StartUs Insights’ Startup Scouting Platform

StartUs Insights’ Discovery Platform is a powerful and easy-to-use tool that enables Startup Scouting (among other things). It helps you discover relevant startups and scaleups in your industry quickly and exhaustively. With just one click, you can access 3.7 million+ emerging companies globally and filter them by topic, technology, location, and more. You can also find similar companies if you already have a business of interest and export your results to your knowledge base.

Our platform is data-driven, fast, and reliable. It uses AI and Big Data to analyze billions of innovation data points and provide you with actionable insights. Whether you are looking for new business opportunities, partnerships, investments, or trends, our startup scouting platform helps you identify the best solutions for your needs.

5 Best Practices for Using StartUs Insights’ Startup Scouting Platform

1. Do the Preliminary Research & Extract Keywords

You start by doing some preliminary research on the topic you are interested in. For this, we offer the Trends tab, under which you find the hottest technology trends in your industry. You can also use the News Aggregator to collect information from external sources and the Reports tab to get information from our extensive innovator’s blog. Through these explorations, you will come up with the keywords and phrases to begin your search. We also offer a Company Analyzer feature, which allows you to extract keywords from company websites that you already know are relevant.

Maybe you already know which keywords you need to look for. Either way, this initial list of keywords forms the base for your startup scouting project. So, choose them wisely!

2. Leverage Semantic Search & Use Qualifiers

The StartUs Insights Startup Scouting Platform uses semantic search — which means that it understands the meaning and context of your query (intent), rather than just looking for exact keywords (term matching). With this approach, you get results that are more relevant and accurate.

The qualifiers section is an extension to keywords that help you refine your search and get more specific results. By using qualifiers with each keyword, you can optimize your search and increase its precision. Further, our platform is designed to be both recall- and precision-agnostic. This gives you the flexibility to decide whether you want a big list of solutions or just the most relevant list to identify that one suitable solution.

Read more — High Precision and Recall: Quickly Scout the Best Startups

3. Use Filters to Increase the Precision of Your Results

Our startup scouting platform offers multiple filters such as industry, location, funding stage, funding amount, employee count, founding year, and technology readiness level to help you refine your startup scouting process. Here’s the list of some of the filters available to you:

• Location
• Founding year
• Number of Employees
• Funding
• Revenue
• Growth
• Company Stage
• Industries
• Investors
• Company Search & Exclude

We also offer more specific filters – to learn about them, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. You can make the most of these filters to find startups and scaleups that match your criteria and preferences.

4. Manage Your Searches in Different Ways

With StartUs Insights’ startup scouting platform, you manage your searches in different ways according to your needs and preferences. You can track the progress of your scouting projects over time, or access your past search parameters for comparison and improvement.

Our Scout Manager feature allows you to oversee the entire process for each set of keywords, over time. It also allows you to add startups, and mark them as Relevant or To Review or Blacklist — according to your evaluation. Through this centralized platform, you can easily manage multiple scouting projects and maintain structure.

Had a better set of results during yesterday’s exploration? Our Previous Search Manager is a handy feature that helps you archive the search parameters of your innovation projects. You can load or run your previously queried search parameters. And if you want to save your previous searches, you can create a template. This feature helps you to access your past searches and compare them with new ones to identify room for improvement.

5. Enhance Your Search & Use Additional Features

Our platform allows you to select dimensions to enhance your search and analysis of startups. Further, it provides additional features such as similar companies search, similar keywords search, and company comparisons.

Also read — Scout the Best Startups with StartUs Insights’ Cutting-Edge Semantic Search Technology

I. Decide the number of dimensions required

StartUs Insights’ Startup Scouting platform allows you to use up to three dimensions to refine your search query. Dimensions include positive and negative keywords, qualifiers, and additional positive keyword sets. Using these dimensions enables you to narrow down your results and filter out irrelevant solutions.

II. Similar Companies

This feature allows you to find similar companies based on a domain address that interests you. For example, if you find a startup that offers a solution that matches your innovation needs, you can enter its domain address and get a list of similar companies that offer similar or complementary solutions.

III. Similar Keywords

Our platform’s Similar Keywords feature enables you to discover and select the terms that have the highest correlation with the keywords you have entered. This way, you can enhance your search query with more relevant keywords.

IV. Company Comparison

Further, you can add multiple startups to compare them and find the most suitable one for your innovation needs. This gives you a comprehensive overview that saves time and effort while enabling direct comparisons.

By employing these tips in your next search, you can optimize the time you spend on the StartUs Insights Startup Scouting Platform to find the best startups for your innovation needs. If you have any questions or feedback about the platform, or about the tips we shared in this blog post, feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear from you and help you succeed in your startup scouting journey. Not using the platform yet?