Up: Best Practices

Context
For Business Development, Corporate Development, Venture Capital, Industry Research and other use cases.

Problem
Developing a database that tracks companies and transactions requires input from a diverse group of domain experts. The same experts who may pick up on critical intelligence are also some of the most busy people in an organization. Structured databases offer benefits when data is captured, but less structured solutions may ensure the right data is shared in the first place.

1. As contributions may be high-volume, consider creating a separate workspace
2. Create a Company Page for each company tracked
3. Create a Weblog for each sector you are tracking, categorize Company Pages appropriately. Company Pages can apply to multiple sectors.
4. Encourage contributions by asking experts to CC to Wiki. Send research, meeting notes, call notes and other information by email to the workspace using the CompanyName as the Subject. If the page already exists, the new information will be included at the top of the page.
5. Consider creating [Index Page]s for other dimensions
6. Similarly, consider using other Categories, such as:
1. Transaction type
2. Deal size
3. Relationship to your firm

Resources

Digital Deals by Geis & Geis (the former is a UCLA business school professor), offers an in-depth description of practices for business development and creating a deal database.