You can get background information on a company and its product in many ways. Here are some of them:

Online data banks. ThomasNet® not only rocks for tracking down components for a prototype or a particular manufacturing source, but it is one of the best and most comprehensive sources for corporate profiles. Visit www.thomasnet.com to get free industrial market trends and news about product introductions.

Hoover’s. A D&B (Dunn & Bradstreet) company, Hoover’s (www.hoovers.com) offers profiles and data on 32,000 companies and 37,000 people.

Standard & Poor’s. If your focus is on the financial condition of a public company, you can gain access to a range of information on thousands of companies through S&P’s website (www.standardandpoors.com). These snapshots provide a great deal of information, including names of top corporate officers. Standard & Poor’s is a division of the McGraw-Hill Companies.

Also online, try Dow Jones (www.dowjones.com), OneSource (www.onesource.com), and ZoomInfo (www.zoominfo.com) for corporate lowdown.

The abbreviation Inc. after a company name is not significant. Nice offices, a few secretaries, a fax machine, a copier, and computers do not a successful company make.

After you have read all the literature and investigated the company inside and out, you must ask yourself these questions: Can the company deliver? And will you be comfortable working with its people?