Pick the right corner before you sign a five-year lease.
Opening a café, clinic, gym, or shop? We find out who lives, works, and spends around each address on your list, how they get there, and what the businesses already on that block have figured out. Then we rank the list and tell you which one.
Three situations where this pays for itself
You have two or three units in mind
A leasing agent has shown you a few spaces and each one has a story. You'd like an independent view of which neighbourhood actually has your customer in it, at the hours you'll be open, before you commit to the rent.
You're opening a second location
The first one works and you're not entirely sure why. Before you copy it somewhere else, you want to know which parts of the first location's catchment made it work, and whether the new address has the same ingredients.
The rent is right and something feels off
The unit is cheap for the area and you can't work out why. Maybe the last three tenants can tell you. Maybe the foot traffic is on the other side of the street. We look before you sign.
A ranked shortlist with the reasons written down
You get one report per address on your list, in the same format, so you can compare them side by side. The recommendation at the end names one address and says why the others came second.
Who lives and works within a walk, a short drive, and a transit ride of each address. Age, household type, income bands, and daytime population from public census and municipal data, with sources cited. Written so you can see whether your customer is there or somewhere else.
How people move past the door: pedestrian counts where a city publishes them, transit stops and frequency, parking, and which side of the street the flow is on. For a café, the morning side of the street matters. For a clinic, the parking does.
Every business of your type within the catchment, plus the complementary ones that would send you customers. Who's been there a long time, who opened recently, and what has closed.
The chains and established operators who already chose this area did their own research first. We read their choices as evidence: where they opened, what format they picked, and where they didn't go. Our article on copying the homework explains the method.
Each address scored against the criteria we agreed at the start, a ranked list, and a written recommendation for one. Plus the questions to ask the landlord before you sign.
Two weeks from your list to a recommendation
A location research sprint typically runs two weeks. Most of it is desk research and site visits. If you don't have a list yet, we can start with a neighbourhood and build the shortlist as part of the work.
Define the customer and the criteria
A working session on who you're serving, when they'll visit, how far they'll travel, and what would rule an address out. Rent ceiling, minimum floor area, parking, whatever matters for your business. These become the scoring criteria.
Profile the catchments
For each address we pull the demographic and daytime population data for the walk, drive, and transit catchments and compare it to the customer you described. This is where an address that looked good on the leasing tour sometimes drops off the list.
Walk the block
We visit each address at the hours you'd be open. We count what passes the door, note which side of the street is busy, check the transit stops, and talk to nearby operators who are willing to chat. Photos and notes go in the report.
Read the neighbours' decisions
We map the competitors and the complementary businesses, and look at where the established operators chose to be. A chain that opened two doors down has already paid for a study of this block. We read the result off their signage.
Score, rank, recommend
A readout call with the scored shortlist and one recommendation. If none of the addresses pass, we say so and suggest where to look next.
The first case study is being written
Location research is a new service and the first case study will come from the first engagement. The method is the same research pipeline we've run on seven shipped products: define the question, gather evidence from people and public data, and let the findings change the plan. On Dwell, nine customer interviews produced two that rewrote the product. We'll say plainly when a location doesn't pass, the same way.
See how we run research on the seven products →Straight answers before you book
Where does the demographic data come from?
Public sources: the census, municipal open data, transit agency schedules and ridership where published, and business licence registers. Every figure in the report has its source next to it. We don't buy or resell personal data.
Can you do this for a city outside Vancouver?
Yes for the desk research, which uses public data available across Canada. The site visits are easiest in Metro Vancouver. For other cities we can work from photos, street-level imagery, and a local contact, and we'll be clear in the report about what was observed in person and what wasn't.
I don't have a shortlist yet. Can you start from a neighbourhood?
Yes. Give us the area and the kind of business, and building the shortlist becomes the first part of the sprint. It usually adds a few days.
Will you talk to the landlord or the leasing agent?
No, we stay independent of the deal. We'll give you the questions to ask them, including the ones about previous tenants and why they left, and we'll review the answers with you if you'd like.
Do you have a case study for this yet?
Not yet. This is a new service, and the first case study is being written from the first engagement. The research method is the one we've used on seven shipped products, and we'd rather tell you that than invent a client.
Send us the addresses you're considering, or just the neighbourhood and the kind of business. In thirty minutes we'll tell you what the public data can answer for that area and what a two-week sprint would cover. Pricing is quoted after the call.