PRAPI

methodology

How PRAPI research reports are built

Reports on /research follow a fixed methodology: PRAPI publishes a research brief, founder operators submit responses on cohort-native surfaces and on the owned form, submissions pass an AI-detection gate at intake, and the published report names cited contributors in full. No marketing CTAs in the body. No gated downloads.

1. Where the data comes from

Two sources, anchored together. PRAPI's journalist source-request log corpus provides the quantitative anchor for anchor reports (Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 quarterly cuts). Founder operator submissions, collected through the owned form at/briefs/<slug>/respondand through cross-posted briefs on Indie Hackers, Hacker News, X, dev-tool builder podcasts, veteran entrepreneur orgs, Featured, Qwoted, and Help a B2B Writer, provide the qualitative contributor data for contributor briefs.

Distribution channels are weighted toward cohort-native surfaces. Traditional source-request platforms are backfill, not the primary channel.

2. How submissions are filtered

  • AI-detection gate at intake. Every submission runs through an AI-detection classifier before it reaches the review queue. Submissions flagged as likely AI-generated land in the queue with a warning badge. Submissions classified as definitely AI-generated are pre-rejected with the classifier rationale recorded for audit.
  • ICP scoring. A second classifier scores each submission for fit against the brief's implied ICP (founder operator, role match, evidence of relevant experience). The score and a one-line rationale surface in the review queue.
  • Manual review. A human operator reads every submission before approval. Approve, reject (with reason), or hold for follow-up. Rejection reasons are stored for audit, not sent to the respondent.
  • Quality over volume. If a brief pulls 50 submissions and 6 are quality, the report cites 6. The temptation to pad with weak submissions to look bigger is the temptation that killed HARO.

3. Citation and consent

Two separate consent fields at submission time, both default false:

  • consent_named_citation — opt-in to be named in the published report
  • consent_link_back — opt-in to link a profile or company URL alongside the citation

A submission without consent to name can still inform the report's framing but cannot be quoted by name. Anonymous summary only. Off-platform outreach to respondents is forbidden: a respondent who submitted via Featured does not get a follow-up email from PRAPI on LinkedIn or anywhere else. The conversion is passive: read the report, see the byline, click through.

4. The eight exposure surfaces

The primary metric for the research program is brand exposure across multiple compounding surfaces. Each report produces impressions on up to eight surfaces that compound over time:

  1. Report impressions on /research
  2. Third-party citations of the report
  3. AI-search appearances (Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity)
  4. Backlinks earned from respondent portfolios and case studies
  5. Social reshares across the founder graph
  6. External mentions in newsletters or trade press
  7. Respondent submission view counts on the source platforms
  8. Cross-report references when later reports cite earlier ones

Conversion (trials, paid customers) lags exposure by 60 to 120 days and is not evaluated until the exposure baseline forms (3 published reports running 60+ days each with at least 4 of 8 surfaces covered).

5. What we deliberately do not do

  • No sales CTAs in briefs or reports. Conversion happens through the byline, the methodology footnote, and the colophon. Not through inline promo boxes or lead-gen forms.
  • No gated downloads. The full report renders on /research with no email wall.
  • No off-platform outreach to respondents. The platform they submitted on is the only channel we use.
  • No drip campaigns to respondents.
  • No AI-generated quotes presented as human submissions. The AI-detection gate is mandatory.
  • No padding the contributor count with weak submissions to look bigger.

6. Try PRAPI

PRAPI is the GTM platform for founders running portfolios. PR-Pitch, Editorial Calendar, Outbound, Asset Management, Backlinks, and Research are live today. Source Directory ships Q4 2026. Same brief.md drives every module.

Try PRAPI →