An independent research firm

We study how durable businesses compound.

Flywyl is a research firm. We study how good businesses get built, how cash-generative businesses are bought, and how durable public companies can be found in the market. Then we write up what we learn. We don't manage money, hold client assets, or make investment recommendations. Our work is research and nothing else.

“Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.” Charlie Munger

The flywheel thesis

Advantages that compound on themselves.

Twenty-five years ago a small bookstore in Seattle began what Jeff Bezos would later call a flywheel. It was a self-reinforcing cycle, where each turn made the next turn easier. Lower prices brought more customers. More customers brought more volume. More volume lowered costs, which lowered prices again. That single loop compounded into more than a trillion dollars of value.

Amazon was not unusual in this. The flywheel is one of the most powerful ways value gets created in business, and plenty of smaller companies are building similar loops while the market still misreads them. Flywyl studies these businesses. We look at how their flywheels form, what keeps them durable, and how to tell a real one from a story. We publish that work. We do not act on it for clients.

20–30%
Rates at which the strongest flywheel businesses have historically compounded
Long-term
The lens we apply, measuring durability and compounding over decades rather than quarters
3
Research lenses: how businesses are built, how they are bought, and how they are found in public markets

What we research

Three lenses, one discipline.

Each lens looks at a different way durable value gets created. Together they make up how we think about what lets a business compound.

How we work

Patience, discipline, and a willingness to wait for understanding.

We read primary sources, study businesses over long horizons, and write what the evidence supports rather than what is fashionable. The goal of our research is to describe how value gets created and where the risks sit, so readers can think more clearly for themselves. We don't tell anyone what to buy or sell.

“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.”

Warren Buffett

We put this discipline to work in Philo, our research platform. It brings the kind of analysis usually reserved for professionals within reach of any individual.