How to determine if a source/website is reliable ?

Hey guys, so I am doing an internship in a deal-sourcing shop. A lot of my work involves doing research and identify potential acquisition targets for PE clients.

An associates in the company has taught us interns some basic/a little bit advanced techniques on doing this kind of research, but when I look for a company's revenue, how do I know that the source/website I'm looking at is reliable ?

For example, on a website called "Manta.com", company XYZ has an estimated revenue of $3M, but on a website called "ZoomInfo", the company can have $10M. How do I know which one is correct? Or neither is?

Thank you.

2 Comments
 
Best Response

You don't know. One could be correct, neither could be correct, or both could be correct, but for different years. I had one internship where I needed to pull data like this for a potential acquisitions list, and what I did was compare several of these websites and then make an educated guess based on that information as well as what I found on the company's own website. Say Manta tells you $10M, but ZoomInfo tells you $12M. If the company's website shows a CEO, a sales guy, and a receptionist as their only employees, I'd guess the actual revenue is probably under $10M.

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