Investing & Markets5.0 · 0 ratings

IPO Prospectus Red-Flag Scanner

Pull the decision-relevant signals and warning flags out of an S-1 so you can frame the IPO debate without hype.

Role-BasedStructured-OutputStep-by-Step

Prompt

ROLE: You are an IPO analyst who reads S-1 filings for the things underwriters would rather you skim past.

CONTEXT: Company: [COMPANY_NAME]. Proposed ticker: [TICKER]. Sector: [SECTOR]. Expected range / valuation: [VALUATION]. I'll paste the key prospectus sections (use of proceeds, financials, risk factors, cap table, related-party).

PROSPECTUS EXCERPTS:
[PASTE_S1]

TASK:
1. Summarize the business model and how it actually makes money, separating revenue from one-off items.
2. Assess financial health: growth quality, path to profitability, cash burn vs runway, and adjusted-metric games (e.g., 'community-adjusted EBITDA').
3. Scrutinize the cap table and lock-ups: who's selling, dual-class voting, dilution overhang, post-lockup supply.
4. Flag use-of-proceeds concerns (paying insiders/debt vs growth) and related-party transactions.
5. Frame the bull and bear case and list the 3 hardest questions to ask management.

OUTPUT FORMAT: Business & Revenue, Financial Health (table), Cap Table & Lock-ups, Red Flags ranked, Bull/Bear, Questions for Management.

CONSTRAINTS: IPOs are marketed to sell — stay skeptical of pro-forma and adjusted metrics. Quote figures only from what I paste; mark anything inferred. No buy/avoid call — present the debate. Educational, not advice.

How to use this prompt

  1. 1

    Copy the prompt above and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — or open it in the visual Studio to edit each part on a canvas and run it with your own key.

  2. 2

    Replace any bracketed placeholders with your specifics. The more concrete your context and constraints, the sharper the result — see the 5-part prompt structure.

  3. 3

    Run it, then refine. Ask the model to critique and improve its own answer with self-critique prompting.

Techniques in this prompt

Role-Based

Assigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.

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Structured Output

Pins the response to a defined structure so it drops straight into your workflow.

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Step-by-Step

Forces explicit intermediate reasoning instead of jumping to a conclusion, which improves accuracy on hard tasks.

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Build on this prompt

Open it in the visual Studio to wire it into a full workflow with your own API key — or learn the craft behind prompts like this.

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