Tomasz Tunguz Publishes One Data Chart a Day. His Blog Built a $1.6B VC Fund. Original Research Is the Most Underused Growth Channel.

The Play

Tomasz Tunguz wrote one blog post per day for over a decade. Not opinion pieces. Not listicles. Data. A chart showing median SaaS growth rates. A table comparing startup burn rates by stage. An analysis of public company revenue per employee.

Each post was 200 to 400 words with one original chart. Simple, repeatable, unglamorous. And it turned him into the most-cited voice in SaaS investing.

The same pattern appears everywhere once you look for it. Benedict Evans publishes an annual tech trends report that gets millions of views and establishes him as the default analyst for the industry. CB Insights publishes original funding data and built a $1.2 billion business on the back of being the primary source. AMI Labs, Yann LeCun's new startup, just announced they will publish papers and open-source code. The stated reason: "We think things move faster when they're open, and it's in our best interest to build a community around us."

Open research is not generosity. It is distribution strategy.

Why Most People Miss This

Because it feels like giving away value for free. The instinct is to keep data proprietary, gate it behind a paywall, or save it for a product. But the math works in the opposite direction.

A proprietary data report behind a paywall reaches hundreds of customers. The same report published freely gets cited by thousands of articles, each one linking back to you. The compounding backlink value dwarfs the subscription revenue.

The key insight is that the chart is the product, but the authority is the business. Tunguz did not monetize his blog directly. He monetized the deal flow, board seats, and reputation it created. CB Insights started with free research and layered paid products on top of an audience that already trusted them.

The Steal

Find your data source. The best sources are public, updated regularly, and overlooked by your competitors. Job board listings (how many AI engineer roles were posted this week?). App store rankings (which AI apps grew fastest this month?). GitHub stars (which open-source projects are gaining traction?). SEC filings (what are public companies spending on AI?).

You do not need proprietary data. You need to analyze public data in a way nobody else bothers to.

Publish findings, not summaries. The title should read like a headline, not a topic. "Series A rounds for AI startups averaged $14.2M in February, up 31% from last year" gets cited. "AI funding trends in 2026" gets ignored.

The outreach loop. Every time you publish a new chart, email it to 5 to 10 newsletter writers and bloggers in your space. Keep the email to two sentences: "I just published [finding]. Here's the chart if it's useful for your next issue." No pitch. No ask. Just utility. Within months, you will be a regular source for multiple publications.

Compile into pillar content. Every quarter, take your weekly charts and compile them into a comprehensive report. "The State of AI Funding: Q1 2026" with all your original data in one place. This becomes a pillar SEO page that ranks for broad category keywords while your weekly posts capture the long-tail.

Who Should Do This

You work in a niche where data matters and people make decisions based on numbers. You have access to public data sources you can analyze regularly. You are building a personal brand, a product, or a service where being seen as an authority directly drives revenue.

AMI Labs is spending $1 billion on research and giving most of it away for free. They are doing this because they calculated that the community, ecosystem, and deal flow the openness creates is worth more than keeping the research proprietary. You do not need $1 billion. You need one chart per week and the discipline to keep publishing.

Start this week. Pick one data point you can track. Make a chart. Write 300 words. Publish it. Do it again next week. In six months, you will be the source everyone cites in your niche.