We're jumping into our first practical lesson in the Find phase of Clay 101! In this lesson, we're going to focus specifically on finding companies using Clay's native dataset.

Companies are often the starting point for many workflows in Clay. Whether you're building an outbound campaign, enriching your CRM, or doing market research, you typically begin with a list of target companies.

📊 Understanding Clay's Companies Dataset

We often get asked which data providers power the Find Companies dataset.

And the answer is: a lot.

We combine data from 100+ providers and enhance it with our own best practices and data-cleaning methods to ensure accuracy, completeness, and usability. This means you get richer, more reliable data that helps you identify the right companies with confidence.

In the basic search, you can filter companies by attributes like:

• Industry and category
• Headcount size
• Geographic location
• Keywords in company descriptions
• Founding date
• And much more

This allows you to narrow down to very specific segments within your ideal customer profile.

🛠️ Step-by-Step: Finding Companies

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Let's walk through the process of finding companies in Clay:

• First, you need to create a new workbook. In Clay, a workbook serves as a centralized space where you can manage and organize your data workflows. Think of a workbook as a spreadsheet and a table as a sheet within it—just like in Excel or Google Sheets.
• To create a new workbook, navigate to your home dashboard in Clay and click on New > Workbook. Then select "Find Companies" from the import options to open the company search modal.
• Once your workbook is set up, it's time to start building your list by defining your search filters.
• If you've used prospecting tools before, you'll find Clay's Find Companies modal familiar. Like other prospecting tools, this modal allows you to filter by key attributes such as industry, headcount, location, and more.
• For industry and category, you can select from standardized options or use keywords to find matches.
• For headcount, you can specify ranges that match your ICP—whether you target startups with under 50 employees or enterprises with thousands.
• Location filters let you target specific countries, states, or cities, which is essential for geo-focused campaigns.
• There are also additional criteria available, like founding date, keywords, and more, to further refine your search.
• The next step is to preview your list before importing.
• In the preview view, you can scroll down to see a list of all companies and scroll right to find company details like descriptions and LinkedIn company profile URLs. This gives you a chance to verify that the companies match your expectations before importing.
• Finally, when you're ready, you can import your data.

At this point, you'll see options for enrichment during import. For new users, I recommend skipping default enrichments to conserve trial credits. You can always add enrichments later once you understand how they work in Clay.

🎯 Best Practices for Company Search

Now that you know the mechanics, let's talk about four best practices when it comes to company search:

First, create small, focused lists. We're talking lists of 1,000-3,000 companies. This gives you enough data to test your offer effectively and analyze what's working, without overwhelming your system.

Second, test hypotheses with targeted segments. Instead of creating one massive list, build several smaller lists based on different hypotheses about your ICP.

For example, one hypothesis might be: "We want to find bootstrapped companies led by technical founders who write publicly."

A second hypothesis might be: "Our product resonates with companies that just raised a Series B and are hiring aggressively."

Both of these hypotheses gives you a clear filter to build a Clay list and specific messaging you can test.

Third, use negative exclusions to refine results. For example, if you're targeting software companies but not agencies, make sure you exclude terms like "agency" or "consultant" from your search.

And the last best practice: Always consider your downstream enrichment needs. As we learned from the Jigsaw framework, essential company identifiers like domains and LinkedIn URLs will be your keys to unlocking deeper data enrichment later, whether through Clay's native providers or AI web scraping.

✅ Conclusion

That's a wrap on finding companies in Clay! To recap, we've covered:

• How to create a new workbook
• Define search filters
• Preview and refine your results
• And importing your company list

Remember, finding companies is just the first step in your Clay journey. It lays the foundation for finding people at those companies, enriching with additional data, and ultimately creating powerful GTM workflows.

In our next lesson, we'll continue with finding the right people at your target companies.

See you there.

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