Read Startup explains one real company decision at a time: what the company decided, the business mechanism that made it work or fail, and the lesson a founder or operator can reuse. This page sets out how we research and write each breakdown, so you can judge how far to rely on it.
Every breakdown is written by a person
Breakdowns are researched and written by people on the Read Startup Team, not generated by software. They carry the byline “Read Startup Team”, and the team as a whole is responsible for the accuracy of everything we publish.
One decision, three questions
A breakdown covers one company and one decision, and it answers the same three questions every time:
- What did they decide? The choice the company made and what it was up against at the time.
- Why did it work, or fail? The business mechanism underneath, such as pricing, unit economics, distribution or positioning.
- What can you reuse? The lesson, framed so you can apply it to your own company.
Each breakdown is filed under the mechanism it demonstrates, so you can study one mechanism across many companies.
What we use as sources
We work from public information: company filings such as annual reports and IPO prospectuses, earnings calls, founder interviews and letters, and reporting by established business publications. Where a fact rests on a single source, we say so.
Breakdowns link to the sources behind their key figures.
Facts, estimates and interpretation
We keep three kinds of statement apart:
- Reported facts come from a source and are linked to it.
- Estimates, such as the margin on a single ride or the cost to acquire one customer, are our own calculations from public figures. We show the inputs and label the result as an estimate.
- Interpretation, meaning why we think a decision worked, is our analysis. We write it as analysis, not as fact.
Independence
Read Startup is independent and self-funded. No company pays to be covered, issues are not sponsored, and the team holds no investments in the companies we write about. We choose companies only for what their decisions teach. If any of this ever changes, we will say so at the top of the affected breakdown.
What we do not cover
Read Startup is not a news service, and nothing on it is investment advice. We do not publish funding announcements or stock picks. We cover a company only when a specific decision teaches something about how businesses work.
Updates and corrections
When we get something wrong, we correct it and add a dated note at the end of the breakdown saying what changed. Our corrections policy explains how this works, and you can report an error at any time.