Compelling People. Sharper Thinking.
You need this to
Mean Something.
Insights & strategic thinking that begins with respondents who are so compelling, you'll forget they were paid to be there.
“Our work requires deep exploration to find genuine future growth opportunities. Faster Horses learned across disciplines, got hands-on, and synthesized with a keen eye. David's work allowed us to move quickly from exploration to opportunity.”— Joe Santry, Senior Director, Futures Innovation, lululemon
The Right People Make All the Difference
Whether you're confirming a direction or exploring something genuinely new, quality insight begins with who you're learning from. Great respondents shouldn't just meet a simple quota. They should have emotional proximity to whatever it is you're trying to understand. The details of their individual stories, and the combined picture they form, matter as much as traditional recruitment criteria.
Meaningful Differentiation Is Built At The Edges
Most people are fashion-followers, not trend-setters. Research about what the average person thinks has a role to play, but it also has its limits. The insights that provide the building blocks for meaningful differentiation rarely come from the top of the bell curve. They come from the edges — in attitudes and behaviours that the average person can't yet express.
Complexity & Confidence Aren't Mutually Exclusive
When research is built from authentic characters with compelling stories, alignment comes more naturally, and so does the confidence to act. Stories work harder than abstracted findings, so a well-triangulated cast of characters allows you to build stakeholder confidence without erasing the humanity or nuance that leaves people feeling like research is surface-level.
Think Like a Casting Director
We actively pursue and recruit specific individuals whose stories and relationship to a topic make them exactly right for what you're looking to uncover. Like a casting director seeking the right actor to bring a character and story to life, our guiding question is always: who is right for this role? You will never find professional respondents in our work.
Transdisciplinary By Design
Every project is led by senior practitioners who understand what actionable insights look like in your world. Our team has worked in advertising, communications, design, innovation, and marketing. We bring that applied strategy experience into every aspect of how we design and deliver our strategic thinking.
No Weasel Words
We speak plainly. We surface contradictions, conflicts, and uncomfortable truths directly. We deliver recommendations without hedging. Clarity enables confident decision-making.
Casting Sets The Stage, Direction Brings The Story To Life
Every project is designed around your specific question or strategic need — not a fixed toolkit. Deep qualitative immersion built from authentic and passionate people. Quantitative, social and cultural data in a way that adds genuine clarity. Futures thinking to widen perspective and make strategic thinking more robust.
Our team has had a hand in work that has shaped some of the world's most recognizable brands and companies.
Respondents that are so compelling, you'd want them in your internal workshop.
Immersive fieldwork, so you can see the world as it actually is.
Understand what your audience sees in their feeds; immerse in the front-lines of online sub-cultures.
Understand What's Coming; Build More Robust Brands, Innovations & Strategies.
Mixed-Methods Projects That Require Surveys & Advanced Analysis.
Build Internal Capabilities & AI-Based Tools To Support Your Research Team.
“The team were thrilled with the respondents — they were knowledgeable, and very responsive, which made us all think even more. The client was really happy with the insights, and they really appreciated the flexibility with timings and how smoothly everything came together despite the fast turnaround.”— Jana Pomijova, Operations, Quantum Consumer Solutions
Women 50–65 are some of the most resilient, complex athletes alive, and among the most ignored by the brands that should be serving them. Our client wanted to understand what drives them, what weighs on them, and where genuine unmet needs live. We did a ballet class with a late bloomer, met a woman preparing for a Himalayan summit, and did Crossfit and Spin workouts with women who are breaking every myth about aging and athleticism.
The work culminated in a strategy workshop and the development of five new-to-company innovation territories — each grounded in real behaviour, with a map of the competitive landscape, and recommendations on what it would take to win.
Personalization is one of the most powerful tools a financial platform has, but also one of the easiest to get wrong. My client wanted to understand where the opportunities were, and just as importantly, where the risks lived. Through in-depth interviews with users, we mapped the full spectrum — from genuine unmet needs to the features that felt desirable in theory but introduced brand risk in practice. Some things people wanted, just not from this brand.
The work went on to inform updates to their payments app.
For transgender and gender-diverse shoppers, walking into most stores is the start of an uncomfortable compromise. My client wanted to understand how to genuinely serve this group in-store and online. Through mobile diaries and in-depth interviews with participants across the US, we uncovered how people navigate a retail system built around a binary — and the creativity they bring to assembling looks that are about more than style. They're about safety, identity, and self-definition.
The work led to the development of a framework for psychological fit, and went on to inform an e-commerce pilot.
Hey, I'm David. I started Faster Horses because I couldn't keep doing it the old way.
After 15 years in agencies and consultancies, I started to feel like research had drifted too far from the real world. It was doing the opposite of what it was meant to: Flattening complexity, ignoring uncomfortable truths, and reinforcing old assumptions. So I left, and started doing things differently.
I remember the moment that did it for me. For the fifth time in a year, the same respondent showed up in a group I was moderating. Five different brands. Five different categories. I remember thinking: How could this one average Joe possibly be worth this much time and money?
Faster Horses is what happened when I chose curiosity over cynicism. Creativity over caution. And committed to honouring the eccentricity and weirdness that research too often smooths into something safe and palatable.
The world is more complex and more interesting than most research gives it credit for. The future belongs to those brave enough to actually explore and try to understand it.
If any of that hits home, I'd love to hear from you.
Work With Us