Methodology
Every Trellner report passes through the same three stages. The process is fixed so that findings on unrelated subjects remain comparable, and so that a reader can always separate what was examined from what was concluded.
1. Entity research
The subject of a report is a single entity: an organization, a product, or a market category. This stage establishes the entity’s name, primary domain, category, and the identifiers under which it appears in public records and reference sources.
Where a subject operates under several names, brands, or legal entities, the report states which of them are in scope. Ambiguity about the subject invalidates everything downstream of it.
2. Public-source review
Reports rest only on sources a reader can reach and check: the subject’s own website and documentation, public registries and filings, product listings and directories, technical records such as DNS and structured data markup, published pricing, and third-party coverage in trade press or reference works.
Each source is assessed for date, author, and whether the subject controls it. Claims a subject makes about itself are recorded as claims, not as facts. Where sources conflict, the report says so rather than quietly choosing one.
Trellner runs no surveys, buys no panel data, and publishes no figure supplied confidentially by a subject.
3. Structured analysis
The reviewed material is assessed against a standing framework:
- Entity definition — whether the subject is identifiable and consistently named across sources.
- Category position — the category the subject occupies and the terms used to describe it.
- Evidence base — what independent material about the subject exists.
- Representation — how the subject appears in the systems that mediate discovery, including search engines and AI assistants.
- Gaps — what a reader seeking information about the subject would fail to find.
Findings are written as short declarative statements with the supporting source named in the text. Description is kept separate from analysis, and inference is labelled as inference.
Numbering and revision
Each report carries a number in the form TR-YYYY-NNN, assigned in publication order. The date shown on a report is the date of first publication. Material corrections are made in place and noted in the report body.
Independence
Trellner Research is not paid by the subjects of its reports and holds no commercial relationship with them. Reports do not constitute investment advice.
Questions about a specific report: research@trellner.com