Short Thread

Investment process Is first and foremost about business and only business.

More you read, research, read and understand about business, better you would be able to progress in your investment & growth journey.

Business.

Understand the business in terms of it's
~ Past growth
~ Current performance
~ Future survival
~ Future potential
~ Sustainability
~ Competition
~ Monopoly nature if any
~ Any moat

Understanding of one business will help you understand many connected businesses.

Very few parameters to understand business

~ Is it Capital Intensive
~ Type of customer - B2B or B2C or both
~ Is it into daily usage thing, a must consumption
~ Is it into must consumption, but not daily usage
~ Is it easily replaceable (entry barriers)
~ Is there pricing power

Business.

Read thoroughly about end to end execution of business.
~ Planning
~ Start up Execution
~ Input raw material & it's dependencies
~ Input & Output supply chain

Once you have a reasonable understanding on the type of business, read about people who run the business and who can grow it or fail it.

Management.

~ Is it Honest & Ethical
~ Is it conservative or too aggressive or reasonable aggressive

Management.

~ Does it pay well to employees and to self
~ Are employees happy
~ Are customers happy. Does it treat customers as most valuable stakeholders
~ Does it give importance to research & innovation
~ Does it grow self or it believe in growing thru acquisitions

Management.

~ Does it understand investor's expectations
~ Does it pay honest taxes
~ Is it contributing reasonably towards environment
~ Is it contributing reasonably towards poor & social causes
~ Does it follow good dividend policy

Financials.

Business ultimately is reflected in it's numbers & financials.

~ Is debt reducing & manageable
~ Is promoter having reasonable skin in the game, good promoter stake in the shareholding
~ Is there so much pledging of promoter that it raises concern

Financials.

~ Is there any concern around Receivables or Payables
~ Is there gradually increasing Cash flow
~ Few technical terms that may be useful sometimes like RoCE, RoIC, RoE
~ Is there Equity dilution that could have been avoided
~ Revenue & PAT growing satisfactorily

Financials.

~ How have numbers performed during national crisis times ...good, bad, satisfactory..
~ Are profit margins being too volatile
~ Are revenue numbers too vulnerable

Read the thread again and get started with the basics.

Few pointers relate to common sense investing.