Perspetivo Turns Two - Here Are My Learnings and Thoughts
Reflecting on our achievements is something we, and especially I, do far too seldom. When I do, I realize that despite an unstable market, we have managed to grow the company alongside clients in banking and finance, real estate, media, and consumer brands. Being only two years old and having such strong brands as clients is truly a privilege. Our clients are not only leaders but also pioneers in their respective industries. Why, you ask? Let me share the challenges we’ve faced, and you’ll understand why our clients deserve nothing but praise.
Challenges & Learnings
Before founding a research company, I was a consumer of research. Throughout my career, I never received a single representative sample, often leading me to disqualify data before making important decisions. Let’s agree once and for all that making decisions based on surveys representing only 60% of your target group is not good enough. Surveys often cite a 95% confidence level with a 5% margin of error, meaning they reach the required number of respondents for such statistics. However, they exclude groups such as individuals with reading and writing difficulties, the young, the elderly, and foreign-born Swedes, who collectively represent about 40% of the population.
Did you know that one in three Swedes has at least one foreign-born parent? Among children, this percentage is 39%. This is one of many groups that the research industry finds difficult, and will continue to find difficult, to reach. Why? For many reasons, one of which is understanding.
Let me explain why.
The research industry is incredibly important because it creates and maintains norms, almost like an institute. We provide the data for public opinion, marketing, advertising, and public decisions. Yet, the industry is also a “buddy industry,” meaning clients often prefer to stay with their current research provider rather than switch to one that can ensure much higher data reliability. Decision-makers then base important decisions on this data, affecting you, me, and everyone whose voice wasn’t heard in these surveys.
Perspetivo – Solving a Market Imperfection
Perspetivo was created to solve a significant societal and market imperfection: the lack of representative and reliable surveys in the Nordics. When we explain this to clients, we expect everyone to want reliable data. Instead, we often hear they prefer to talk to “Stefan,” their contact at the research firm they’ve worked with for an average of seven years. I’m exaggerating slightly, but you get the trend.
When it comes to market research, I can imagine that it’s not “the end of the world” if it goes wrong, as it primarily affects the company rather than the public to the same extent. However, I believe that a company is not acting responsibly for its own sake if it does not demand representative and reliable data. But when public organizations such as authorities and municipalities do not ensure that their data is reliable, I consider it a severe dereliction of duty, to say the least.
An example of this is accepting a significant underrepresentation of foreign-born Swedes in a survey about trust in authorities. These are the Swedes most likely to have the lowest trust in authorities. Authorities also have the greatest need to understand why in order to build a trust capital that can be passed down to future generations. I find this unacceptable.
What happens when we use non-representative surveys as a basis for decisions over a long period?
We make decisions on incorrect grounds, make bad investments and misreport, lose trust, reinforce false stereotypes, create polarization, foster protest voting, and decrease voter turnout. Do you recognize any of these challenges today?
This is why the issue of trust is crucial for the future of the industry. For all Swedes, especially those the industry does not currently reach and engage.
And this is why our clients should be celebrated – for choosing a different path than most right now. A path that involves being part of a more positive development, not to mention the fact that they receive data with significantly higher reliability. With this, they make wiser decisions for their organization and for society at large. Our clients are progressive, and we are proud to highlight them.
Perspetivo’s Development
We are very much alive and growing. More people understand the importance of representative data. Over the past year, we have expanded our product, including a customer portal with a dashboard for insights, and tested various business models, with subscriptions for insights and trends, and package solutions growing the fastest.
We often hear and repeat that we are challengers of the research industry, and that may be true. I prefer to see us as developers of the industry, taking it into the future, which is now. With all the opportunities with ML and AI, there’s no reason not to ensure both the accessibility of all voices in our society and the accessibility of data so all clients, regardless of their work, can understand our data and the insights we deliver.
Perspetivo in the Coming Year
What can you expect from Perspetivo in the coming year? We will continue to ensure our surveys reflect the target groups they aim to represent, whether it’s all Swedes, a specific group, residents of Malmö, potential customers, or soon the entire Nordics. On May 15, we opened a Seed-level investment round to scale our go-to-market strategy in the Nordics, a major milestone for us.
We are ready to embrace the future with the same passion and commitment we have shown in our first two years. We look forward to continuing our work to create more representative and reliable surveys, developing our team and services to meet our clients’ needs in the best possible way. A big thank you to the team that makes our success possible. Thank you to our amazing investors and partners who not only believed in us at an early stage but also continue to support us throughout the process. Thank you to our clients for ensuring their surveys are representative, reliable, and inclusive of the society we live in. And most importantly, thank you for joining us on this journey – the best is yet to come.
