Historical Company Research Methods
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A method for researching company history using newspapers.com and other digital archives to find original source material instead of relying on retrospective biographies.
Newspapers.com Overview
- Owned by Ancestry.com
- Archives and scans historical newspapers
- Costs $10/month
- Allows searching through historical newspapers with specific date ranges and locations
Research Methods Using Newspapers.com
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Search Parameters
- Company name
- Geographic radius around company location
- Specific date ranges
- Filter by newspaper section
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Key Content Types to Search
- Company Profiles
- First-hand accounts of company culture
- Original revenue/growth numbers
- Founder interviews
- Job Listings
- Shows company structure
- Reveals salary information
- Indicates growth areas
- Demonstrates how company described itself
- Customer Advertisements
- Original positioning
- Marketing strategies
- Product offerings
- Company Profiles
Modern Company Research Methods
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Google Search Tools
- Use date range filters under search tools
- Remove common variations of spellings
- Filter to specific years around company founding
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Web Archives
- Use Wayback Machine/Archive.org
- View original landing pages
- See early product positioning
- Find launch announcements
Benefits vs Traditional Research
- Provides real-time perspective vs hindsight bias
- Shows how companies described themselves in the moment
- Reveals original market positioning
- Gives concrete data points from specific time periods
- More accurate than retrospective biographies that connect dots after success
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.