Frostline

One year ago we launched Contrary Research as the best resource to understand any private tech company Since then, we've published ~250 pieces, written 500K+ words, hit 40K+ subscribers, & launched a podcast To celebrate, here's 5 key takeaways from building Contrary Research: (1) The market demand for understanding private companies has been more significant than even we expected! You can see in the video which memos jumped to the top of our site traffic each week. As these companies launch new products, announce new funding, or hire for new roles, people want to understand the stories behind these companies. We’ve built Contrary Research into the best starting place to understand private tech companies. But moving forward, we’re going to go deeper on the companies we cover. Some companies have more complex stories than others. Making sense of that complexity means doubling down on high-quality analysis and research. (2) Companies are evolving rapidly (some faster than others)! Building an up-to-date repository of company breakdowns is as much a muscle as covering them in the first place. So many company breakdowns represent a snapshot in time. No matter how interesting they are, once they’re a year or two old, they no longer represent the true story of the company. At Contrary Research, we’ve built an engine to ensure that every 3-6 months we’re doing a full refresh on our coverage of each company. We’re not interested in being a historical record; Contrary Research is meant to be a repository for the best (and most up-to-date) coverage of each company’s story. (3) The world is filled with information on these companies, just waiting for someone to bring it all together. Along the way, we’ve found some exceptional partners like Tegus, Packy McCormick, Colossus, Patrick O’Shaughnessy, and so many more who are doing their part to collect corners of these company stories. With each company, we’ve built a section of in-depth resources to go deeper on each company into some of the best deep dives, podcasts, white papers, and breakdowns for each business. Contrary Research can be the starting point, but it can also be a guide to the best sources of information about a company. (4) A company’s story is more than just its team, product, market, and traction. Jobs and culture play a huge part Earlier this year, we announced the combination of Contrary Research + Startup Search. Now, each week we share open roles from the companies we cover. On top of that, each company profile has an overview of the roles each company is hiring for. As we go deeper into these companies, we’ll not only cover what a company does, but also how they do it, and what it’s like to work there, and the culture the company is built on. (5) Our readers are the best guides to where the most interesting stories are! As you can see from the video, there’s a huge variety of interest in all sorts of different companies across AI, fintech, hardware, marketplaces, and more. As we increase the level of depth we go into many of these companies, we’ll use the excitement of our existing audience to gauge where we should spend even more time going even deeper. Follow along to see our coverage of the world’s most interesting private tech companies, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates in your inbox!