Diligence Meeting Prep
Workflow
Step 1: Meeting Context
Ask the user for:
- Meeting type: Management presentation, expert call, customer reference, advisor check-in, site visit
- Attendees: Who from the target company or third party
- Topic focus: Full business overview, or specific workstream (financial, commercial, operational, tech)
- What you already know: Prior meetings, CIM, data room findings
- Key concerns: Specific issues to probe
Step 2: Generate Question List
Organize questions by priority and topic. Structure depends on meeting type:
Management Presentation
Business Overview (warm-up)
- Walk us through the founding story and key milestones
- How do you describe the business to someone unfamiliar with the space?
- What are you most proud of? What would you do differently?
Revenue & Growth
- Walk us through revenue by customer/segment/geography
- What's driving growth? Price vs. volume vs. new customers
- What does the sales cycle look like? How has win rate trended?
- Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities in the next 3-5 years?
Competitive Positioning
- Who do you lose deals to and why?
- What's your moat? How defensible is it?
- How do customers evaluate you vs. alternatives?
Operations & Team
- Walk us through the org chart — who are the key people?
- What roles are you hiring for? What's been hardest to fill?
- What keeps you up at night operationally?
Financial Deep-Dive
- Walk us through the margin bridge — what's changed and why?
- Any one-time or non-recurring items we should understand?
- How do you think about capex — maintenance vs. growth?
- Working capital seasonality?
Forward Look
- Walk us through the budget/plan for next year
- What assumptions are you most/least confident in?
- What would need to go right/wrong to significantly beat/miss plan?
Expert Network Call
- How do you view [company]'s positioning in the market?
- What are the secular trends driving this space?
- Who are the strongest competitors and why?
- What risks should an investor be aware of?
- If you were buying this business, what would you diligence most carefully?
Customer Reference Call
- How did you find [company] and why did you choose them?
- What alternatives did you evaluate?
- What do they do well? Where could they improve?
- How likely are you to renew/expand? What would change that?
- If they raised prices 10-20%, how would you react?
Step 3: Benchmarks & Context
For each key topic, provide relevant benchmarks:
- Industry growth rates and margin profiles
- Comparable company metrics (if comps analysis exists in session)
- Data points from the CIM or data room that warrant follow-up
- Discrepancies between different data sources to clarify
Step 4: Red Flags to Probe
Based on what's known, flag specific areas to dig into:
- Inconsistencies in the CIM or financials
- Customer concentration or churn signals
- Management team gaps or recent departures
- Unusual accounting treatments
- Missing data room items
Step 5: Output
One-page meeting prep doc:
- Meeting logistics: Who, when, where, duration
- Objectives: Top 3 things you need to learn from this meeting
- Question list: Prioritized, grouped by topic (star the must-asks)
- Benchmarks: Key numbers to reference
- Red flags: Specific items to probe
- Follow-up items: What to request after the meeting
Important Notes
- Lead with open-ended questions — let management talk, then follow up on specifics
- Don't lead the witness — ask neutral questions, not "isn't it true that..."
- Take notes on body language and confidence levels, not just answers
- Always end with: "What haven't we asked about that we should?"
- Keep the question list to 15-20 max — you won't get through more in a 60-90 min session
