Insight-led strategic intelligence Your customers will make or break your plan. Meet them first.
Before you bet millions on a product, a market or a brand, we study the people it depends on, what they do and why, through three lenses, and fuse what we find into one answer you can defend. We’re a boutique firm of social anthropologists.
Illustration: a market drawn as a crowd of dots, one dot per person, read in turn through the three lenses of the H3™ method and fused into one answer.
Trusted by teams who can’t afford to be wrong
Services
Whatever decision keeps you up at night
Eight areas of work, each built around decisions companies can’t afford to get wrong. Find yours and the services inside it.
8 areas | 38 services
See them on one page“Where should we grow next, and how do we win there?”
“Will people use this, and will they pay for it?”
“What does our brand mean today, and what could it mean next?”
“How do we know this campaign will work before we pay for the media?”
“Why do customers choose us, and why do they leave?”
“Where is our customer experience breaking, and what should we fix first?”
“What will change our category in the next five years?”
“How do people see us, inside the company and out, and what is that costing us?”
The H3™ method
One question, three lenses, fused into one answer
Many big decisions rest on a single survey, a few focus groups or some interviews, which only show one side of people. We design three methods around your question and fuse what they find.
Almost is the most expensive word in strategy.
The research was rigorous, the findings were clear, and the strategy failed anyway. That usually happens when the question the study answered and the question the boardroom needed answered were almost the same thing.
See how the H3™ method worksWho you work with
Senior people, from the first call to the final debrief
Abdo López and Norah Walsh, both social anthropologists, lead every project in person, with senior specialists around them who have ten years or more in each lens.
- 2017
- Founded in Asturias, Spain
- 25
- Countries with local fieldwork
- 38,000+
- Participants in our studies
- 100,000+
- LinkedIn Learning learners
“The riskiest assumptions are the ones everyone in the room already agrees on. Our job is to find out whether they’re true before you bet on them.”
Work
Four decisions, and the research behind them
Part of our work stays under NDA. These are four of the cases we can talk about, with the number each one was built on.
12shoppers followed for three weeks, and into the shop with each oneWhere does a purchase in Spain get decided: in the shop, or on the phone in the shopper’s hand?E-commerce | QualitativeRead the case 
500category consumers surveyed onlineIs our lead in two categories built on preference, or on habit?FMCG | QuantitativeRead the case 
24in-depth interviews in Germany and FranceWhat do European entrepreneurs actually need from the bank they run their business on?Fintech | QualitativeRead the case 
109in-depth interviews, plus 1,300+ sourcesHow do we become the voice people trust on tech careers?EdTech | QualitativeRead the case
How we work
Evidence that holds up when someone asks how you know
Senior people on every project, every respondent checked, a second senior review and a written stance on AI. The standards are public, so you can hold us to them.
Insights
Written in the field, by the people who ran it
Articles by Abdo and Norah, each one born in a real project, a free checklist to test any study, and the courses we teach.
First TuesdayStraight answers
Questions we get about HIPOPOTESIS
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly. You’ll get an answer from the people who would run the work.
What does HIPOPOTESIS do?
HIPOPOTESIS is an insight-led strategic intelligence firm. We research the people behind a business decision, through qualitative research, social listening and quantitative research, and turn what we find into a clear recommendation. Typical decisions are entering a market, launching a product, repositioning a brand or understanding why customers leave.
What is insight-led strategic intelligence?
It’s strategy built on evidence about people. We start from the decision you have to make, research what customers and markets actually do and say, and only then recommend a course of action. The research and the recommendation come from the same senior team, so nothing gets lost in a handover.
How is the H3™ method different from running three studies?
Three separate studies give you three reports that rarely agree. With the H3™ method we design the qualitative work, the social listening and the survey around one question, and analyse them together. When the lenses agree, you can act with confidence, and when they disagree, the disagreement usually points to the most useful finding.
Who will work on my project?
Abdo López and Norah Walsh lead every project, with senior specialists in each lens, all with ten years of experience or more. The people you meet on the first call are the people who design the study, run the fieldwork and present the findings.
How much does a project cost?
Every project is designed around its question, so the price depends on the markets, the audiences, the lenses and the deliverables. Most of our projects are six-figure investments. You always receive a fixed price and a delivery date before anything starts, and we keep both.
How long does a project take?
A focused study can take two to three weeks. A project across several markets with all three lenses usually takes two to three months. Trackers run in waves, monthly or quarterly. Once we understand the brief, you get a realistic timeline with clear milestones.
Do you work outside Spain?
Yes. We’re based in Asturias, Spain, and have delivered research across Europe, the US, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, in six languages. Local recruiters and moderators join the team where fieldwork needs a native speaker in the room.
Do you use AI in your research?
As an assistant, always under senior review. People run the fieldwork, interpret the data and write the conclusions, and AI helps with tasks like transcription or checking our analysis for contradictions. We never use synthetic respondents, every use is disclosed in the project, and our AI Manifesto sets out where AI helps and where it doesn’t.
Before you commit the budget, find out what people will do.
Tell us the decision you’re facing. You’ll get the lenses that can answer it, what it realistically takes to reach the right people, and a fixed price with a date we keep.
- You get in touchBy email, through the form or on a video call, whichever suits you.
- We ask for the briefEvery detail we need, so the proposal is shaped around what you actually require.
- We design the proposalThe approach that answers your objectives, with the timeline and the budget.
- Approval, and we beginYou sign off, the paperwork is settled, and the work starts.
- Senior researchers only. No juniors.
- End to end. Design, fieldwork, reporting.
- No AI automation. Any use, disclosed.