Information Request List Generator

Download a fillable .xlsx version of the GST IRL, personalized to a target or client.

Generate a structured .xlsx workbook recipients can fill in cell-by-cell and email back. The workbook mirrors the GST canonical Information Request List — one section per VDR folder, covering every input GST tools need to execute the engagement. Choose which sections to include and add your own engagement-specific requests below.

Each request row carries a Status cell (OPEN / PARTIAL / CLOSED) so partners and recipients can track progress at a glance. Pre-filled OPEN on every row; promote to PARTIAL (cream) or CLOSED (green) as answers land.

Reference content:Information Request List in the Library. The section taxonomy mirrors GST's canonicalVDR Structure Guide, so a filled IRL maps one-to-one to the folders the responder already maintains.

Engagement context (optional)
Sections to include
Requests in 00 — Basics

Click a delta to exclude a request from the workbook.

  • Company name (legal entity + brand if different)
  • Engagement context: sell-side preparation, buy-side review, post-close value creation, or other
  • Annual recurring revenue (most recent quarter, plus prior 12 months if available)
  • If applicable, funding stage and most recent round details (date, lead investor, headline valuation)
  • Business model (B2B SaaS, B2C subscription, enterprise license + services, marketplace, other)
  • Geographies of operation (revenue presence; engineering presence if different)
  • Headquarters jurisdiction (incorporation entity + primary operating location)
  • Company age (founding year; note any major pivot)
  • Total headcount (current and 12 months ago)
  • Year-over-year growth rate (revenue, and headcount if a different signal)
Requests in 01 — Product

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  • One-paragraph product description: what it does, who buys it, the problem it solves
  • Target market: primary buyer persona, segment (SMB / mid-market / enterprise), industry vertical(s)
  • Product roadmap snapshot: current-quarter priorities + next-12-month outlook
  • Top three features by adoption (DAU/MAU or equivalent engagement metric)
  • Customer profile: typical contract size, contract length, top concentration risk
  • Competitive landscape: three to five named alternatives and how the product differentiates
  • Operational scale: low (internal tools or small user base), moderate (thousands of users with steady growth), or high (millions of users or high transaction volume)
Requests in 02 — Software Architecture

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  • High-level architecture diagram (PDF or image): logical components, data flow, external integrations
  • Technology stack: primary languages, frameworks, databases, infrastructure providers
  • Repository organization: monorepo vs. polyrepo, number of services, approximate lines of code
  • Engineering FTE count: total and breakdown by team (product engineering, infrastructure / SRE, security, data)
  • Product personnel cost: annual fully-loaded cost for product managers and designers, if tracked separately from engineering
  • Annual build and tooling cost: IDE licenses, CI/CD platform, observability tooling
  • Third-party dependency overview: major licensed libraries or APIs + renewal exposure
  • Most recent technical-debt assessment or code-quality report (SonarQube, CodeClimate, equivalent) if available
Requests in 03 — Infrastructure & Operations

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  • Hosting model: cloud provider(s), self-hosted / managed mix, primary region(s)
  • The past three months' monthly hosting and infrastructure spend
  • 12–24 months of hosting and infrastructure spend history if available
  • Headcount dedicated to infrastructure operations (FTE equivalent)
  • Monitoring and alerting stack (tools, on-call rotation, escalation paths)
  • Deployment frequency to production (e.g., multiple/day, weekly, monthly, quarterly)
  • Capacity headroom: current utilization vs. provisioned
  • Material capital expenditure on infrastructure in the last 12 months
Requests in 04 — SDLC

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  • Development methodology (Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, hybrid) and release cadence
  • Branching strategy (trunk-based, Gitflow, feature-branch) and code-review process
  • Test coverage targets: unit / integration / end-to-end (measured percentage if tracked)
  • Production deployment process: manual or automated, gating criteria, rollback approach
  • Production incidents: quarterly counts over the last 24 months (or 12 if 24 unavailable), with severity distribution and mean time to resolution
  • Active maintenance burden as a percentage of engineering time
  • Annual investment planned for technical-debt remediation (headcount budgeted, capex allocated, or specific roadmap commitments — e.g., "rewriting the legacy billing system in 2027")
  • Open bugs by severity (P0 / P1 / P2 / P3) and aging
  • Engineering operating model: in-house, outsourced, hybrid (with rough split)
Requests in 05 — Data, Analytics & AI

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  • Data architecture overview: primary data stores, pipelines, warehousing platform
  • Data sensitivity classification: customer PII, financial, health, or other regulated categories handled
  • ML/AI capabilities in production (if any): models, training infrastructure, monitoring
  • Third-party data dependencies: licensed datasets, model providers, API integrations
  • Analytics stack: BI tooling, internal dashboards, customer-facing reporting
Requests in 06 — Security

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  • Most recent penetration test (date, executive summary if shareable, remediation status)
  • Security incident history: any reportable events in the last 24 months
  • Access controls: SSO/MFA coverage, privileged-access management approach
  • Compliance certifications maintained (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HITRUST, PCI DSS, others)
  • Business continuity and disaster recovery plan: RPO/RTO targets, last tested date
Requests in 07 — People & Organization

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  • Organizational chart with reporting lines (executive team + engineering leadership)
  • Engineering headcount by role: ICs vs. managers, seniority distribution, contractor mix
  • Average fully-loaded engineering salary, or salary band by level
  • Key-person dependencies: single points of knowledge, succession plans
  • Attrition: voluntary and involuntary turnover in the last 24 months
  • Twelve-month hiring plan: net new headcount, key roles, expected start dates
  • Recent organizational transformation: re-orgs, leadership changes, methodology shifts in the last 24 months
Requests in 08 — Corporate IT

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  • Enterprise applications inventory: ERP, CRM, HRIS, finance, communication tools
  • Identity and access management: SSO provider, directory service, provisioning workflow
  • Annual IT spend: software licensing, hardware, support services
Requests in 09 — Governance & Compliance

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  • Data categories handled (PII, PHI, financial, regulated industry data)
  • Jurisdictions of operation: where customers reside, where data is stored, where employees work
  • Applicable regulatory frameworks (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, NIS2, EU AI Act)
  • Audit history: outstanding remediation items from third-party audits
  • Data-processing agreements: standard contracts, cross-border transfer mechanisms (SCCs, DPAs)

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