Who we are, and how we work

1. Who we are

Rival Study is a company registered in England and Wales, with a registered office in London, United Kingdom. We run primary market research engagements for product, growth, and investment teams who need a read on a named competitor that doesn't come from that competitor's own marketing.

We are a small, founder-led team of researchers and analysts. We don't publish individual bios on this page yet — if you'd like to speak with the people running a specific engagement before you commission it, ask at hello@rivalstudy.com and we'll set up a call.

ICO registration is in progress — see our privacy policy for data protection details.

2. What an engagement actually involves

A client tells us which competitor and which customer segment they want to understand. We then independently find, verify, and interview real customers of that competitor — people we have no prior relationship with the client through. Clients never contact respondents directly, and respondents never receive anything written by the client.

We deliver an anonymised, aggregated brief: themes, quotes (unattributed), and gaps. We do not pass raw contact details, recordings, or anything that could re-identify a respondent to the client.

3. How we source and verify respondents

Respondents are sourced through professional verification panels and our own outreach, never by scraping or impersonation. Before an interview is scheduled, we confirm:

• The respondent currently uses, or recently used, the named competitor's product in a paying or decision-making capacity
• Their role and company size or segment match the brief's scope
• Their identity, via a verified work email or professional profile — not self-reported claims alone

Respondents who can't be verified are excluded from the study rather than included on trust.

4. What respondents are told

We do not run pretextual or deceptive research. Every respondent is told, before agreeing to participate:

• That this is paid, independent market research conducted by RivalStudy
• That the findings will be used by a company evaluating the competitive landscape in their category
• That their name, company, and any identifying detail will be removed before anything is shared with a client
• That participation is voluntary and they can stop or withdraw their responses at any time

As a matter of policy, we do not disclose the commissioning client's identity to respondents. We also do not disclose a respondent's identity to the client — interviews are conducted, recorded, and anonymised by RivalStudy staff, not by client personnel.

5. Anonymisation and data handling

Direct identifiers are removed or generalised within 48 hours of an interview, in line with our privacy policy. Source recordings are retained for a maximum of 24 months and then securely deleted. Clients only ever see the anonymised output.

If you're a respondent and want to know what we hold about you, or want it deleted, contact privacy@rivalstudy.com.

6. What we won't do

• We won't misrepresent who we are or why we're asking questions, to respondents or to anyone else
• We won't solicit confidential, contractual, or trade-secret material from a respondent
• We won't sell or reuse respondent data across unrelated engagements
• We won't take a brief that requires deceiving a respondent about the commercial nature of the research

7. Questions before you commission a study

Happy to walk through methodology, sourcing, or disclosure in detail before you pay for anything. Reach the engagements desk at hello@rivalstudy.com.