Check a startup by combining public records with direct questions about its current plan. Public information can establish dates, people and reported events. The team needs to explain today’s cash position, customer progress and the job you would actually do.
Keep a short record of what you know, where it came from and when it was checked. Mark unresolved questions separately. That gives you something more useful than a general feeling that the company looks promising.
Start with the questions about the work itself. The company and the role need to make sense together: an attractive business can still offer the wrong job for you.
Establish which company would employ you
Confirm the legal employer and how it relates to the trading brand. A product name, a parent company and a local employing entity may be different organisations. Ask which would appear on your employment documents and which operates the share plan.
For a UK company, Companies House provides information including incorporation details, officers, document images, charges and insolvency information. You can also follow updates. [Source 1] Use the company number to avoid confusing businesses with similar names.
Read the dates and the nature of each filing. Accounts describe a reporting period; they do not show the cash balance this morning. The information available can also be less detailed for smaller companies. [Source 2]
If a name or address differs from what you expected, ask for an explanation. A difference is a prompt to understand the structure, not a conclusion about the business.
Build a dated funding timeline
Look for the company’s own funding announcements, statements from named investors and relevant filings. Use databases such as Crunchbase as a way to find leads, then follow through to a dated original source where possible.
A YC company page can help confirm a public profile and batch. It does not by itself establish the company’s current funding stage or runway. Likewise, an announcement date may differ from the date money was received.
For US companies, a Form D is a notice of an exempt securities offering, filed through the SEC’s EDGAR system. [Source 3] Read what the document actually says rather than treating the offering amount as the company’s current cash balance.
Record the event, its date and the source. Then ask what has happened since it: new funding, changes in spending, revenue growth or a revised plan. You are trying to understand the present business, not assemble the most impressive list of investors.
Ask about runway under the actual plan
Runway is useful when you know the assumptions behind it. Ask for the date of the calculation, whether it includes planned hires and what must happen before the company expects to need further capital.
A practical sequence is: how long does the current cash support the agreed plan, what milestone should that spending achieve, and what changes if the milestone takes longer? The answer should connect money to work.
YC’s candidate guidance encourages questions about runway, burn and future funding, alongside an assessment of how founders discuss uncertainty. [Source 4] You can request enough context to make a decision without needing access to the whole financial model.
Listen for a distinction between committed funding and hoped-for funding. A conversation with investors, a signed agreement and money available to spend are different points in a process. Ask which one the plan relies on.
Understand who pays and why
Ask the team to explain the customer, the problem and the buying decision. A product demonstration can be impressive without showing whether customers repeatedly use or pay for what is being built.
Request a recent example of customer feedback that changed a priority. Find out what users do when the product is unavailable, what makes them continue and which problem is still hard to solve.
You can ask how the company describes traction without demanding individual customer identities. Useful explanations distinguish pilots from ongoing contracts, paid usage from trials and a pipeline from revenue already earned.
Explore what your work changes for that customer. If the company needs a new capability to fulfil an important commitment, understand the deadline and what has already been promised. This connects business diligence to the technical role you are considering.
Read hiring activity with care
Job adverts show what a company is choosing to advertise, not how many people it has successfully hired. Several adverts may refer to different levels of one opening, and the same role can appear on several boards.
Compare the careers page with the team’s explanation. Ask which roles are approved, which are replacements and which depend on a future event. If a position has been advertised for a long time, find out whether the scope changed or the search is still active.
Look at the balance of hiring. Are engineers being added alongside the product, customer and operational support they will need? What would happen if only part of the hiring plan were completed?
Use the first five engineering hires guide to understand the founder’s planning problem. It can help you ask why your role comes next and who will complement it.
Meet the people behind the explanations
Speak with your likely manager and at least one person you would work alongside. Ask both about a recent difficult decision, how priorities are set and what they would improve about the team.
Different perspectives are normal. What matters is whether the differences can be explained. A founder may describe the direction while an engineer describes the constraints. You want to see how those views meet in actual decisions.
Explore how the team handles mistakes and departures without asking for private details about individuals. Does the explanation focus on work and decisions, or on blaming people? Can someone describe a lesson that changed how the company operates?
Public profiles can help you understand experience, but avoid inferring a whole employment history from missing dates or a short biography. Ask the questions that are relevant to your prospective working relationship.
Check that the role survives the business plan
Ask what happens to your work if the next round is delayed, a large customer leaves or the product focus changes. You are not asking the company to predict every outcome. You are checking how leaders reason about decisions that would affect you.
Confirm who would manage you, what you would own and which skills the company expects to develop internally. Read the technical leadership mandate guide if the title includes leadership responsibilities.
Then compare the package with the responsibility and your own constraints. The salary guide helps with local advertised evidence, while the offer documents explain the terms of your particular role.
Finish with a short decision record
Write three paragraphs before accepting. First, what the business is trying to achieve and why you believe the work matters. Second, why the team and role fit what you want to do. Third, the unresolved risks and how they would affect your decision.
Return to the company with the questions that could change your answer. A concise list is easier to resolve than a broad request to prove that everything will work.
You are ready to decide when you understand the proposition well enough to accept its uncertainties. A complete set of public records cannot make that judgement for you, but it can make the final conversation much more specific.
If you are considering your next technical role, Start a conversation.
Sources
- GOV.UK: get information about a company, official service guidance, checked 31 October 2026.
- GOV.UK: preparing and filing Companies House accounts, official guidance on reporting periods and filing requirements, checked 31 October 2026.
- SEC: filing a Form D notice, official guidance, checked 31 October 2026.
- YC: how to pick the right startup to work for, original candidate guidance, checked 31 October 2026.
The questions, decision framework and suggested wording are Corellia Talent’s editorial recommendations.