Company research with Thirdwatch MCP: discovery to evidence

Company research has several different jobs: discovering businesses in a market, checking a known company and understanding public signals around a competitor. Choosing the right tool prevents a broad search from being mistaken for verification.

Discover businesses by category and place

Use search_businesses when the question is “which businesses match this category in this area?” A small US example is:

{
  "query": "coffee shops",
  "location": "Austin",
  "country": "US",
  "max_results": 10
}

First ask your assistant to call estimate_cost for the tool and geography. Then request a table with name, category, website, address, rating when returned and source links. Leave unavailable fields blank. Google Maps supplies global coverage; Indian discovery may also include JustDial and IndiaMart. Geography affects the source mix.

This is an illustrative query, not a validated list of businesses. A directory entry may be incomplete, duplicated or outdated. A published phone number is not proof of consent to outreach.

Enrich a known company

For an identified business, enrich_company collects company information and supported review sources. Pass company_name and, when known, an explicit company_domain and country. It never guesses a domain from a company name. Without an explicit domain, Trustpilot is skipped and the source charge is lower. Give your assistant the company identity you actually mean: ambiguous names can mix unrelated companies. Check that locations, domains and source links refer to the same entity before summarizing.

For a company whose domain you already know, an illustrative input is:

{
  "company_name": "Stripe",
  "company_domain": "stripe.com",
  "country": "US"
}

Preview this call with estimate_cost, passing tool_name as enrich_company, query as Stripe, and the same company_domain and country. Omit the domain from both calls when it is unknown; do not manufacture one to add review coverage. Inspect warnings and the actual charged credits after execution.

Use verify_business for a business-verification task rather than treating discovery as verification. Registration and directory evidence have different meanings. A successful data lookup is not an assurance of financial health or commercial suitability.

The company research workflow starts with discovery and a deliberate enrichment step. Each paid follow-up is a separate call; review its preview and the actual response metadata.

Research competitive signals separately

competitive_snapshot can combine reviews, hiring, employee profiles, launches and news into source-specific sections. Example:

{
  "company": "Stripe",
  "company_domain": "stripe.com",
  "sources": ["trustpilot", "google_news"],
  "max_results": 10
}

This deliberately narrows the request and supplies the known domain for Trustpilot. Without an explicit domain, Trustpilot is skipped and the credit preview is lower. Ask the assistant to identify the entity represented by each source, retain original links and keep reviews separate from news. A missing section must stay missing. Ten returned employee profiles would not equal a ten-person workforce, and job listings would not establish revenue growth.

A brand_sentiment sample can help organize review and discussion signals. It is not a representative survey. Make the sources, sample size, time coverage and gaps visible before interpreting a pattern.

Produce an evidence brief, not a confident guess

A useful brief has three parts: returned facts with links, interpretation explicitly labeled as interpretation, and unresolved questions. Include the query and request date so someone can repeat the work. Do not silently turn a missing website into a guessed domain or a missing registration number into a verified business claim.

These tools return results, metadata, warnings and suggested next steps. Read warnings before compiling a polished report. Source failure and a source returning no matches are different outcomes, even if both leave a blank table cell.

Connect Thirdwatch and check current pricing. Thirdwatch account credits serve the MCP workflow. The source-specific Apify tutorials remain useful when you need batch exports or Actor-specific input controls; those use Apify billing separately.