Prompt Specter Agent like a Pro
Weak: "Tell me about fintech."
Strong: "Find B2B fintechs at Seed or Series A in the UK, DACH or the Nordics, 20 to 100 employees. Give me a table with company, HQ, headcount, last round and one line on why each fits."
Name the threshold. "Fast-growing" means nothing until you define it. Say "headcount up 30% or more in the last six months" and the Agent has something it can build a filter for.
Say what to leave out. Exclusions cut a list faster than anything you add. "No marketplaces, no consumer, nothing past Series B."
Find a shortlist
Three prompts to start from when you're sourcing.
Sector shortlist with a fit reason
Find B2B vertical-SaaS companies headquartered in the Nordics that raised a Series A in the last 12 months, 20 to 150 employees. Give me a table with company, HQ, headcount, headcount change over 6 months, and last round with type, amount, date and lead investor. Add one line per company on why it fits. Say when a field is empty rather than filling it, and mark estimates as estimates.
Hiring as the signal
Find fintechs in the UK and Germany where headcount grew 25% or more in the last six months. Rank by headcount growth. For each, show total headcount now and 12 months ago, and the last round with its date.
Spin-outs and stealth
Find people who left @Revolut, @Ramp or @Monzo in the last 12 months whose current position is blank or Stealth. Give me a table with name, signal date, signal type, score, and the background the signal already carries. Flag which of them look senior. Link each name to their profile.
Read one company
Before a call, this shape works. It asks for a word limit, which keeps the answer usable.
Brief me on @Rippling, short enough to read before a call. At a glance: growth stage, HQ, founded, headcount now and at 3, 6 and 12 months, total funding, last round with type, amount, date and lead, revenue, valuation. Then three sentences on what they do and who buys it. Then momentum in four lines: is hiring speeding up or slowing, and against what baseline. Then the latest Interest Signal with its score and date. Under 400 words, and mark every estimate as an estimate.
Map a market
Ask for the market structure first, then the companies.
Map the space @Rogo competes in. Three sentences on what this market is and who buys. Then Specter's competitor set as a table with company, why it competes, headcount, total funding and estimated revenue, most direct first. Then the dimensions the market splits on and which companies sit on each side. Then anything that moved in the last 12 months for the five closest rivals, dated.
Follow the money
Interest Signals show which investors are looking at a company, each with a score and a date.
Show me which investors are circling @Ramp. Table for the last 90 days with date, score, investors, whether each is a VC, an investment bank, PE or an insider, and what the signal says. Then the same table for the previous two years. Then four lines on how to read it, and the last round with its date so I can see what stage the interest is aimed at.
Point the Agent at your own work
Three buttons sit under the message box, and each has a keyboard shortcut.
@ (Entity) tags a company, person or investor, so the Agent works on the exact record you mean rather than guessing at a name. Use it whenever a name is ambiguous.
# (Search/List) pulls in a List or a Saved Search. The Agent reads the results and works from them.
/ (Skill) opens your saved skills, covered in Specter Agent Skills.
From #Portfolio, which companies have had a departure signal in the last 90 days, and which of those also show Interest Signals? Flag which departures were senior.
Go one turn deeper
The Agent keeps the thread, so your second message is usually where the real work happens. Start broad, then narrow.
Step 1: Map the European defence tech space. Segment by sub-vertical and show every round in the last 12 months.
Step 2: Now find people who left the companies in that map in the last 12 months and are in stealth.
Ask for the shape you want
Say the format up front and the Agent builds to it. Any of these work on their own line at the end of a prompt.
"Give me a table with exactly these columns and nothing else."
"One line per company, no preamble."
"Rank by headcount growth and show the number you ranked on."
"Under 300 words."
Keep what you get
You can either copy, download or add the contents of a table to a List.
Follow-up suggestions
Follow-up suggestions appear under each answer to help guide your chat.
