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.
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
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
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
Run it, then refine. Ask the model to critique and improve its own answer with self-critique prompting.
Techniques in this prompt
Assigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.
Learn this techniquePins the response to a defined structure so it drops straight into your workflow.
Learn this techniqueForces 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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