Before you incorporate, run this 1-week public-data screen — or pause

You are about to file paperwork for a company that may not need to exist yet. That is the moment to stop and run a small, boring screen. Public data is useful, but it is not complete: free public sources cover only about 70% of investor-company interface events, the public records where investors and companies show up; they populate per-investor amounts for about 16% of rows and cover sovereign-wealth cases about 50%. It is a structured go/no-go check for whether anyone would pay, and a way to validate a startup idea before building anything.

A good screen works best when it is time-boxed, written down, and judged against public data you can inspect without a sales call. If the evidence stays thin, the honest move is to pause, not to incorporate and hope.

The screen is a pre-founding decision, not a mood

First, write a proposal profile. Name the customer, the job, the price band, the trigger, and the thing you will not build. If you cannot say who pays and why now, the rest of the screen will feel like research but will not produce a decision.

Then set a pause rule before you start. Decide what counts as demand evidence: a named buyer who says they would pay, a public product with traction in the same niche, a repeatable complaint with a workaround, or a channel where the buyer already spends money. If none of those appear, stop.

Keep the evidence together. A note with the source and the signal is enough. If the source is missing, treat it as a hunch.

The screen runs in passes

Start with the market check. Look for existing products, substitutes, and adjacent buyers. You are looking for proof that someone already pays for a version of the job. If the market is empty, ask why. Sometimes empty means no demand. Sometimes it means the data is poor.

Next, run the demand check. Search for complaints, workarounds, forums, job posts, and buying behavior. A buyer who already spends time or money on a clunky fix is more useful than a stranger who says the idea sounds good. Record the source, the date, and the exact signal.

Then ask the moat question. What would stop a larger player from copying the offer quickly? If the answer is "brand" or "passion," keep digging. If the answer is a workflow, dataset, distribution channel, or compliance burden, you may have something worth testing.

Finally, run the public-data check. Use free sources that show who is active, who is funded, and what is being built. Treat gaps as gaps. Do not fill them with confidence.

Use the public-data pass to support buyer conversations. It maps what is already visible, so you know what is missing.

Here is the checklist you can keep. Each item should be quick to mark done or not done.

• Write the proposal profile: customer, job, price band, trigger, and what you will not build.
• Set the pause rule: name the signals that would count as demand evidence.
• Find existing products or substitutes and note who pays for them.
• Find buyer complaints or workarounds with a public source.
• Identify a channel where the buyer already spends attention or money.
• Ask what would stop a larger player from copying the offer quickly.
• Check public sources for active companies, funding, or product launches in the niche.
• Write the go/no-go line: what evidence exists, what is missing, and what you will do next.

The list makes judgment visible. If you can complete it with clear demand signals, you may proceed. If you cannot, pause and change the customer, the offer, or the channel before you spend legal money.

Quiet data means pause

Incorporation is a small cost, but it changes your psychology. Once the company exists, the idea starts to feel real. The check is meant to break that spell before the paperwork does it for you.

If the public data is thin, do not treat that as a personal failure. It may mean the market is too early, too fragmented, or too hard to reach. It may also mean your proposal profile is wrong. Either way, the next step is a smaller test, not a bigger commitment.

Run the screen. Keep the checklist. If the demand evidence appears, move. If it does not, pause.