Early Studies
A signals intelligence company in London. Early Studies runs consumer and public opinion research built around one problem: people cannot reliably report on themselves, and most research asks them to.
The answer is better questions.
The position
Most research error is not sampling error. It is question error. A representative panel, correctly weighted, asked a question that nobody can answer accurately, returns a precise measurement of something that was never there.
Early Studies works on the question rather than the sample. That means asking about other people instead of the respondent, asking about the same thing in three tenses so the answers can be read against each other, and knowing in advance which items a given population will distort and in which direction.
What "signals intelligence" means here
Signals intelligence, in this context, means reading the indirect evidence rather than the stated answer. What somebody notices in another person's trolley. Whether they think a thing is getting better or worse. Which question made them hesitate. The signal sits in what an answer gives away, not in what it asserts — which is why the same questionnaire, reworded, can return a different market.
The tools
Early Studies puts its method in public rather than describing it in a deck. Each of these is a working instrument, free to use, and each one demonstrates a different part of the argument.
Freudit
A free consumer psychology audit of any brand, product or category. Enter a name and it returns five named mechanisms behind how people buy in that category — and a plain statement of what it cannot tell you without fieldwork. Freud pushes a trolley that never fills through a supermarket with no exit, which is the joke and also the argument.
Fear Diary
A qualitative tracker of the fears, worries and anxieties people volunteer unprompted — asked about the people around them rather than themselves, which is what makes the answers usable.
Lie Predictor
Check any question to see how likely people are to lie about it. Sensitivity is a property of the wording, and it can be estimated before a study is fielded rather than discovered in the crosstabs.
Low Takes
Predictions, recorded and locked, so they can be checked on the date they come due. Forecasting is only a discipline if somebody keeps the receipts.
Working with Early Studies
The company runs representative surveys and qualitative work across politics, technology, culture, economics, environment, health and behaviour. If you have a question you suspect people cannot answer honestly — or cannot answer at all — that is the kind of brief the method is built for.
Early Studies is at Young Space, 85-87 Southgate Rd, London. Enquiries go to sam@earlystudies.com, and the main site is earlystudies.com.
Questions people ask
What is Early Studies?
A signals intelligence company based in London, running consumer and public opinion research built around question design.
Is Early Studies a market research company?
It does the work a market research company does — representative surveys, qualitative research, analysis and reporting — and describes itself differently because the emphasis sits on question design rather than on fieldwork volume.
What is Freudit?
A free tool by Early Studies that runs a consumer psychology audit on any brand, product or category, and a demonstration of the method: name the mechanisms, then say plainly what naming them cannot tell you.
How do I contact Early Studies?
sam@earlystudies.com, or via earlystudies.com.