Contrarian ThinkingReviews of contrarianthinking.co

Response from Contrarian ThinkingSep 28, 2026

Svenja, I’m sorry you’ve had this experience. If you’ve requested multiple times to unsubscribe and have still continued receiving marketing emails, that’s frustrating and not the experience we want anyone to have. We take requests to stop communications seriously, and we’d like to look into what happened here and make sure your account and email address are fully removed from our marketing communications. Our support team has removed you from all communications and we apologize for any inconvenience. We recently migrated to a new CRM system which resulted in a few broken workflows with regards to our outbound emails, but this has been corrected and we apologize for any inconvenience. Rylan Harvey Head of Academy

Response from Contrarian ThinkingAug 18, 2026

Muriel, You're entitled to feel the programs didn't produce the outcome you wanted, and I'm sorry it ended that way. But since this is a public review making specific claims, I want to add context. You describe being left to work substantially alone with essentially no support. That doesn't match the record. You joined the Academy in September 2025, attended 49 events, and made 23 posts, 85 replies, 71 reactions. You worked through valuation, EBITDA/SDE, SBA financing, LOIs, diligence, and deal structure, reaching an accepted LOI with a bank underwriting it before walking away after diligence surfaced risks you weren't comfortable with. That's not a failure of the process, it's what good diligence should do. You later decided buying a business wasn't the right direction and asked to move into Growth Boardroom yourself. We made that change and kept working with you. Your own refund correspondence acknowledged you'd used the community, studied the materials, and attended calls and coaching sessions. You say the Boardroom cadence was inadequate and advisors just repeated things back to you. The record shows five working sessions with your reassigned advisor between June 19 and July 29, covering 10+ prospect interviews and 5-6 second-stage calls. Your advisor reviewed the interviews, refined your ICP and positioning, went line-by-line through your webinar, reviewed your sales materials and offer structure, evaluated your pipeline, and advised against a commission arrangement that wasn't economically attractive, plus follow-up on founder dependency, pricing, lead generation, and outreach. That didn't guarantee a customer. As of the last session, you hadn't signed a client. You also say we took credit for your webinar and book. We've never claimed that, those were your accomplishments. But you did use the Academy community while developing and launching The Valuation Gap, promoting it to members from late May through July. The book covers valuation, financing, and structural risk, the same subjects you spent months learning in Academy deal reviews. You're entitled to write a book from what you learned. It's fair for readers to know it was developed and promoted while you were an active member of that community. On the idea we only responded because you asked for a refund: your first request came in June, after months of participation. Support escalated it beyond standard policy, and your advisor was reassigned. On May 28, before any refund request, you asked us to turn off auto-renewal. We did so immediately and you replied, "That's great, thank you very much." When you later requested a full refund for both memberships, we reviewed it against the membership terms and declined. Declining doesn't mean we ignored your concerns. I don't want to minimize your disappointment. You invested real money and expected a different result. Those are real facts. But there's a difference between "I didn't get the outcome I wanted" and "there was no support, no engagement, no work done." The record shows 49 events, extensive engagement, multiple deal reviews, an LOI at bank underwriting, a member-requested move to Boardroom, additional advisory support, and hands-on webinar help. We can always improve, and we should. But we won't accept a public characterization that leaves out that history. I wish you success with the business and the book. I mean that. But for anyone reading this review, the complete record matters. Codie Sanchez CEO, Contrarian Thinking LLC

Response from Contrarian ThinkingJan 23, 2026

Hi Tom, This is Rylan Harvey, Director of Strategy & Growth and Academy Lead and we spoke yesterday. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, and I am sorry to hear you didn't feel like you got the value you expected from us in Academy. As we discussed on our call yesterday with Travis Wheeler (Sales Lead), this was a miscommunication issue where you ended up being placed in the Academy by our onboarding sales team while already far down the road on purchasing the business you were looking at, when realistically at that point, you should have been onboarded as a CT Boardroom member to get post acquisition support. We have connected you to our Boardroom team who have a ton of great resources, tips, and people to assist business owners post acquisition and are looking forward to working with you in Boardroom to deliver you the value you expected. You can reach Travis or I at anytime to discuss this matter further. Regards, Rylan Harvey Director of Strategy & Growth, Academy

Response from Contrarian ThinkingFeb 25, 2026

Hi Sage,

 That sounds like a frustrating experience and we want to make sure you’re happy and well equipped to find deals that are up-to-date and accurate. We’ve got a team of over 12 engineers working on improving BizScout. I’ve reached out to you personally via email to schedule some time to hear more about your experience. I want to do everything I can to make sure you succeed in your business buying journey. 
Jordan
 Academy Coordinator.

Response from Contrarian ThinkingAug 28, 2025

Hey this is Codie. I pulled the call transcript because I would never want anyone to have an experience like you outlined. I’m so sorry you felt that way and happy to jump on another call. After listening it seems like you had selected that our company wasn’t right for you and then said, “bro this was an absolutely terrible call. I’m going to leave you a bad review,” and when Danielle asked you why? You said, “You'll find that out in the review,” and then hung up. No problem to have this feeling, but I’m not sure that call with one of our team members necessitated this reaction. Here to help if we can do anything differently. Please email me directly at [email protected]. We believe aggressively that small business is really hard and reviews are super important so if we didn’t meet your expectations that makes me sad and we certainly want do better.

Response from Contrarian ThinkingFeb 6, 2025

Appreciate you sharing your thoughts. It’s disappointing to hear the event didn’t meet your expectations—we take that seriously. Our goal is always twofold: to inspire with real success stories and to equip you with tactical, real-world strategies through main-stage sessions and deep-dive breakouts. Most attendees found massive value in everything from AI for small businesses to high-impact communication, but if you felt overlooked, that’s on us. We also regret any gaps in follow-up—that’s not how we operate. We reached out post-event to address any outstanding questions but didn’t hear back. That invitation is still open, and we’d be happy to connect. Your feedback helps us improve, and we’re committed to making every experience sharper and more seamless. Let us know if you’d like to chat further—we’re here. And thanks again for keeping us accountable.

Response from Contrarian ThinkingOct 31, 2024

Hi Ross, thanks for the feedback and I appreciate you also chatting with us via email in more detail. When we launched our original Small Biz Buy Course back in 2020 it was stellar content and resulted in many students successfully acquiring a business. Over time, the content definitely became outdated. That's why we created a brand new course (Main Street Accelerator) built from the ground up and launched at the beginning of this year. It's completely revamped and we're updating the content as necessary. All of our students and community members were given a free upgrade to this course. It looks like you haven't accessed it so I highly recommend you give it a look. I think you'll agree it's best in class. As far as our Community, value is certainly subjective. Our members who fully utilize the vast resources available tell us it's worth a lot more than we charge. It doesn't look like you've made use of features like Office Hours or attended any of our calls in a long time. I'd encourage you to take a look and we're happy to arrange a call and go over everything that's available. In our email, we spoke about being "ghosted" by Facilitators. You mentioned one situation where you contacted a Facilitator (our resident experts in business acquisitions) about an outside service that they provide and didn't hear back. We fully understand your disappointment about not getting a response and agree that should have happened. While it was not directly related to their role at Contrarian Thinking, we reminded them that all member communications should receive a prompt response. We appreciate you pointing this out. In short, I'd encourage you to take a look at the new course and all of the amazing features we've added to the Community over the past year. We're happy to arrange a call to go over everything. We definitely want to make sure you're taking advantage of everything and that your expectations are not only met but exceeded.