What a classification code will never tell you about your market
An activity label is an administrative declaration, not a field reality. The six gaps we measure every time between the registry and what we find by reading.
The blog · Opening September 2026
What you learn from counting.
Every piece produces numbers, methods and mistakes that do not fit in a spreadsheet cell. We publish them, including when they contradict us. One piece is already live. The next ones land from September 2026, one a month.
The lineup, from September
The subjects are written, the numbers are collected, the pieces are not drafted yet. We would rather say so than show cards that lead nowhere. To be told about the first one, an email address is enough.
Public data
Signal
Reading a drinks menu to qualify a bar
Happy hour, signature cocktails, what sits on the back bar: three margin markers readable online, and how we turn them into a column.
Method
Turning "our typical customers" into checkable criteria
The exact structure of the scoping call, question by question, with the four traps that derail a scope before collection even starts.
Freshness
Measuring the real churn of a local scope
Closures, takeovers, relocations, ownership changes: what we observe across twelve months of tracking, and what it costs a purchased database.
Compliance
Prospecting owners without leaving public sources
Registries, company websites, reviews: what holds up, what does not, and how an opt-out register is actually kept.
Signal
The lift, the pit and the power bench
Three pieces of shop equipment, three ways to spot them without walking through the door. The full reading guide from the automotive piece.
In the meantime, the count is already public.
The Observatory publishes one market a month, headline number up front, method and scope written out in the open. It is the same material as the blog, without the editorial packaging. The auto parts case study shows what that count becomes once it is sorted for a sales team. Not ready to talk yet? Size your addressable market.