How the work is actually done.
Most research suppliers treat method as a trade secret. Publishing it is cheaper and more convincing, and it lets you judge the reasoning rather than the typesetting.
AI does the reading. I do the deciding.
Every figure in your report is checked against its source by a human before it reaches you, and the source is printed next to it. Where something could not be verified, it is marked as an estimate, with the method and the range stated on the page. One invented number would end this practice, which is why the verification column exists and why my initials are in it.
Where the evidence comes from
Advertising archives
Public ad libraries hold every creative your competitors are running and much of what they have retired. Positioning changes show up here months before they appear in a press release.
Review and complaint corpora
Retailer reviews, app stores, software review sites and trade forums. Coded into a complaint taxonomy and counted, so the output is a proportion rather than an anecdote.
Community conversation
Where your buyers argue about the category unprompted. Licensed sources only — nothing is scraped for a paying client, ever.
Search and demand signals
What people look for, in what volume, and how that has moved.
Filings and public record
Company registers, accounts and regulatory records where the question needs them.
What is never automated
Collection, coding and counting are machine work. These are not, and they are what you are paying for.
The scoping question
Deciding what is actually being asked, which is frequently not what was first asked.
Which competitors matter
The obvious list is usually wrong at the edges, and the edges are where the finding is.
Which finding is the bottom line
Ranking four true things by how much they should change your next quarter.
The recommendation
Including the decision to tell you not to do something, which is the recommendation clients remember.
The verification pass
Every number, against its source, by hand, before it ships.
On licensing
Data used in client deliverables is sourced either from public record or from vendors whose terms permit redistribution in paid work. You are not buying access to someone else's platform through a side door, and nothing in your report exposes you to a licensing claim.