Template

Founder Research Template

A free founder research template for organizing founders, companies, roles, websites, LinkedIn URLs, emails, market tags, source URLs, status, and notes.

23 columns CSV + XLSX Founder research 4 min read

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Download the template

Use the CSV for imports into other tools, or use the Excel file when you want a cleaner founder research sheet for sales, recruiting, partnerships, investment research, market mapping, or outreach planning.

0 (empty) rows 23 columns

Download Excel

Use cases

Who This Template Is For

Use this founder research template when you are collecting founders from startup directories, investor portfolio pages, accelerator pages, company team pages, founder lists, conference speaker pages, award pages, public profile pages, or Google X-Ray results.

It is designed for founders, sales teams, investors, recruiters, agencies, consultants, partnership teams, and researchers who need to organize founder data by company, market, stage, source, status, and next action.

The template is designed to work well with ProfileSpider exports, but it is not an import format. Use it as a spreadsheet structure for manual founder research, post-export cleanup, outreach planning, client delivery, CRM import preparation, or market mapping.

Preview

What's in the File

Sample rows below. Downloads ship empty so you can fill them manually or use them to organize exported ProfileSpider data.

profilespider-founder-research-template.xlsx

Founder	Role	Company	Website	LinkedIn URL	Email	Research Status	Source URL
Sofia Martin	Founder	Northstar Talent	northstartalent.example	linkedin.com/in/sofiamartin	sofia@northstartalent.example	Reviewed	startup-directory.example/hr-tech
Daniel Weber	Founder & CEO	Weber Growth	webergrowth.example	linkedin.com/in/danielweber		Needs email	conference.example/speakers
Nina Verhoeven	Co-founder	ExampleTech	exampletech.example	linkedin.com/in/ninaverhoeven	nina@exampletech.example	Partner candidate	investor.example/portfolio

Schema

Column Dictionary

A founder-focused schema for founder-led sales, investor research, recruiting, partnerships, market mapping, and agency research.

Column	Type	Notes
Founder Required	string	Founder, co-founder, owner, CEO, managing partner, creator, or executive name.
First Name	string	Useful for personalization in outreach.
Last Name	string	Useful for sorting, matching, and personalization.
Role	string	Founder role or title, such as Founder, Co-founder, CEO, Owner, Managing Partner, or CTO.
Company Required	string	Company, startup, agency, fund, studio, business, portfolio company, or organization name.
Company Domain	string	Domain without protocol when possible, such as acme.com.
Website	url	Full company, personal, or founder website URL when available.
LinkedIn URL	url	Full founder LinkedIn profile URL when available.
Company LinkedIn	url	Full company LinkedIn page URL when available.
Other Social URL	url	Other public profile such as X, GitHub, personal site, speaker page, or community profile.
Email	string	Business email when visible, manually added, or found through email finding where available.
Email Status	string	Use your own status labels, such as visible, found, verified, needs-review, not-found, or invalid.
Location	string	City, region, country, headquarters, or founder location when available.
Market / Industry	string	Market, niche, vertical, category, or industry such as HR tech, SaaS, AI, ecommerce, climate, fintech, or agency.
Funding / Stage	string	Funding stage, bootstrapped, pre-seed, seed, Series A, public/private status, or company maturity.
Company Size	string	Team size, employee range, or rough company size when available.
Founder Type	string	Optional segment such as technical founder, solo founder, agency owner, local business owner, investor-backed founder, or bootstrapped founder.
Research Status	string	Use labels such as New, Needs review, Reviewed, Enriched, Needs email, Ready for outreach, Partner candidate, Investor target, Recruiting target, or Not a fit.
Priority	string	Use labels such as High, Medium, Low, Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3.
Next Action	string	The next task, such as review company, enrich profile, find email, personalize outreach, add to CRM, contact founder, or export.
Tags	string	Use semicolon-separated labels, such as founder;saas;country:germany;event:websummit;needs-email.
Notes	string	Free-form research notes, qualification comments, outreach ideas, market context, or review details.
Source URL Required	url	Where this founder came from. Keep this for verification, cleanup, and source tracking.
Last Reviewed	date	ISO date when you last checked, enriched, verified, contacted, or reviewed the founder row.

How to

How to Use This Template

Use it to move from scattered founder sources to a structured founder research file.

Fill it manually

Use the template as a founder research sheet when you are researching founders without the extension.

1Download the empty CSV or Excel file above.
2Add one row per founder, co-founder, owner, CEO, executive, or founder-led company.
3Fill Company and Source URL for every row so you can verify where the founder came from.
4Use Market / Industry, Funding / Stage, Founder Type, and Tags to segment the list.
5Use Research Status, Priority, and Next Action to track review and outreach progress.
6Use Notes for qualification comments, market context, personalization ideas, or next-step reminders.

Use it with ProfileSpider exports

ProfileSpider can extract founder and company data from public pages, save rows to lists, and export them to CSV, Excel, or JSON. Use this template to clean, segment, and organize those exported founder rows after download.

1Install ProfileSpider and open a public startup directory, investor portfolio page, company team page, founder list, speaker page, award page, search result, or public profile source in Chrome.
2Run extraction and save useful founder or company rows to a list.
3Review the saved list, add tags and notes, enrich where useful, or find emails per row where available.
4Export the list as CSV or Excel.
5Use this template to add Research Status, Priority, Next Action, market segmentation, founder type, and outreach notes before sharing or importing elsewhere.

ProfileSpider does not currently support CSV/file import inside the extension. This template is for manual founder research, cleanup, segmentation, export organization, and external spreadsheet workflows.

Founder Research use case

Questions

Questions About the Template

What is this founder research template for?

It is a spreadsheet structure for organizing founders, companies, roles, websites, LinkedIn URLs, emails, market tags, source URLs, research status, priority, next actions, and notes.

Who should use this template?

Founders, sales teams, investors, recruiters, agencies, consultants, partnership teams, and researchers can use it to organize founder research lists.

Can I use this template with ProfileSpider exports?

Yes. Use it to organize, clean, segment, or hand off founder and company data exported from ProfileSpider lists.

Can I import this template back into ProfileSpider?

No. ProfileSpider does not currently support CSV or file import inside the extension. This template is for manual work, cleanup, export organization, and external spreadsheet workflows.

What formats are available?

The template is available as CSV and Excel.

Does ProfileSpider export CSV and Excel?

Yes. ProfileSpider exports saved lists as CSV, Excel, or JSON.

Does exporting use credits?

No. Exporting saved lists to CSV, Excel, or JSON uses 0 credits.

Which columns are most important?

Founder, Role, Company, Website, LinkedIn URL, Research Status, Priority, Next Action, Source URL, Tags, and Notes are the most useful fields for founder research.

What should I put in Research Status?

Use labels such as New, Needs review, Reviewed, Enriched, Needs email, Ready for outreach, Partner candidate, Investor target, Recruiting target, or Not a fit.

What should I put in Founder Type?

Use labels such as technical founder, solo founder, agency owner, local business owner, investor-backed founder, bootstrapped founder, or operator.

Does this work in Google Sheets?

Yes. Download the CSV or Excel file and upload it into Google Sheets.

Can I use this for founder-led sales?

Yes. Use Research Status, Priority, Next Action, Tags, Notes, and Source URL to organize founder-led outreach and account research.

Founder Research Template

Download the template

Fill it manually

Use it with ProfileSpider exports

Ready to Extract Structured Leads?