Welcome to the WIRe Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from the WIRe MRx Meet & Mingle event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Garrett Gil de Rubio, Vice President of Business Development/Client Engagement at P2Sample.

Contact Garrett Online:

LinkedIn

P2Sample

[00:02]

My guest today is Garrett Gil de Rubio, VP of Business Development at P2Sample.  Thanks for being on the Happy Market Research Podcast today.

[00:09]    

Thanks for having me.

[00:11]

We are at the WIRe event, part of IIeX, Austin.  Have you been on the floor so far?

[00:18]

I have.  It got started just a few hours ago.  It’s been a very busy, pleasant time so far

[00:24]

Yeah, it’s been completely different, structurally different than it was when it was in Atlanta.  What do you think about the differences?

[00:31]   

A lot more space.  Some of the exhibitors have a lot more room to grow and move.  Everyone is on the same corridor, which is a plus, but further there’s a lot more ability to go off and have private areas and discussions and client meetings and the like, which is always great.   

[00:50]

You know I think that the current layout is effective (It’s kind of like moving to market mode) is more effective if you do a really good job of pre-recruiting to your booth.  If you’re just reliant in the trade show industry nowadays or events or walk, walk... I mean that’s going to happen; you’re going to get drive-bys. But you’re going to do so much better if you can start getting critical mass there.

[01:15]      

Absolutely.  And to have people be able to meet you in a common meeting spot where there’s so many human beings in one place it’s convenient for them as well.

[01:23]

So, look, one hack that I’ve been toying with on that subject is doing events, like whether it’s a demo or bring in a special speaker or something like that.  It’s not like you’re taking the floor of the exhibit hall, but it could be something where you could do a five- or ten-person presentation, right, just to kind of like get that activity level up in those rooms.     

[01:47]

For sure.  It can be a bit challenging just because of space and the dynamics of everyone being on top of each other, but if you have an effective booth area, certainly the capability to do that is there.   

[01:58]

Yeah, for sure, for sure.  Do you guys exhibit at a lot of shows?

[02:03]

We do.  We are not exhibiting at IIeX this year.  We’re nomads, as it were.

[02:07]

OK, got it.  Perfect. Walking the floor?

[02:11]

Yes.

[02:12]  

Cool.  So, you guys have had a hell of a big run.  I see your name everywhere. And I believe you announced your biggest quarter ever in Q1, which is actually rare ‘cause Q1 in our industry is kind of like Q3, those are the quieter quarters, right?  So, coming off a big Q4, a lot of momentum, what was the key to success? Give us the wisdom.

[02:34]  

Well, I can’t give it all away, [laughter] but there’s a few factors that play.  Number 1 is we have seen a drive throughout the entirety of industry to move towards automation and programmatic sample.  That has certainly weathered well with us. And jumping onto our programmatic stance has certainly been a big aspect of growth with our client base.

[02:58]

So, really quick, I’m going to interrupt you.  Tell us a little bit about what that stance is.

[03:02]  

We believe in being as programmatic as possible with sample, and not just the sense of having everything automated, but having as real time an aspect of engagement with not only the studies and the ability to launch them but also with the engagement with the respondents and the panelists that are involved as well from our side of things.  So to be able to truly work in real time has afforded a number of our clients the ability to get, I would say, a higher quality of data.

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Patricia Houston, Founder and Chief Operating Officer at MMR Live.

Contact Patricia Online:

LinkedIn

MMR Live

[00:00]

Patricia Houston.  We were live at IIeX.  MMR Live is the name of the company.  She is the founder and Chief Operating Officer.  Enjoy the episode.

[00:12]    

My guest today on the Happy Market Research Podcast is Patricia Houston; MMR.Live is where you find them online.  Tell me a little bit about what you guys are doing.

[00:24]

Sure.  So, MMR Live is only about ten months old now.  We’re a startup within an established market research company that’s 20 years old, MMR Research, the ones in Atlanta, not the UK.  But our focus is on experience. So we’re on a mission to improve every experience, be that retail, digital, physical events. That’s my world, and that’s where we love to live.     

[00:42]

Perfect.  Like an older company...  And now, is it a rebrand or a division?  

[00:49]

Division, a new team.  And partly why I did it...  It’s not just my passion ‘cause my background is in experiential marketing.  That’s how I started as bringing my two careers together. But it’s also about future-proofing.  So, if we think about all the consolidation we’ve seen in the panel space, you know panel is changing; it’s always going to continue to change.  So how long until panel is no more? And getting somebody to answer one direct feedback question is too much?     

[01:16]   

Perfect.

[01:17]

That’s what we’re trying to solve for.

[01:18]     

That’s a really interesting point right now.  I don’t know if you heard the Greyhound presentation.

[01:25]

No…

[01:25]

So, they were talking about when they were going through the activation stage of their research, they wound up moving from a 20-minute longitudinal study to a 2-minute survey.  And – this is what’s interesting – they saw no degradation of insights that they were able to get out of between the two. So, there was like no negative tradeoff, except that it was a much better experience and the data that they pulled out of the 2-minute survey was so accessible to the larger organization they improved their net promoter score by 20 points. 

[02:02] 

Oh, that’s incredible.

[02:03]

It just speaks to the importance of thinking about a respondent’s point of view and the better that we do, I think, servicing them, then the better their information is that they’re going to provide us to do stuff. 

[02:14]

And that’s right, and it’s all part of your brand, right?  So every interaction you have with the consumer, even if it’s a research survey, that’s part of your marketing.  It’s part of your brand-building.  

[02:24]

It’s so funny that you bring this up.  So, actually my first brand plant was a company called Intuit, is a company called Intuit, which, of course, you’ve heard of (QuickBooks, Quicken), largest S&B company, I believe.  So, they started their research-based organization. If you know anything about the up-and-comings of that company, market research is a core tenet; consumer insights is a core tenet.  One of the things that I found that was real interesting as I was working with them as they were installing online surveys in the early 2000s as the main way of doing consumer insights:  we were touching about each customer 1 to 2 times a year, and some customers as many as 16 times in a year. Now, we were touching those customers almost as much as marketing was touching the customer.   

[03:16]  

That’s right, and if you add those marketing touch points on top of your touch points...

[03:21]  

Huge win.

[03:21]

Yeah, I mean what is that?  Picking the right context...  We’re actually doing some work now pro bono w...

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Vignesh Krishnan, CEO of SampleChain.

Contact Vignesh Online:

LinkedIn

SampleChain

[00:00]

Vignesh Krishnan, SampleChain.  This is a young startup. This guy is bringing a breath of relevant expertise to the market research space.  He’s an early employee of Lucid. After leaving that, he started this DMP, which is a Data Management Platform that is intent on connecting sample and tools to improve overall source transparency and, ultimately, quality, which I know is a really important issue based on the interviews I’ve done.  Enjoy the episode and the conversation with him.

[00:32]  

So, my guest today is Vignesh Krishnan, SampleChain.  We are live today at IIeX in Austin. What do you think about the show?

[00:40]  

So far, so good.  I went to one of the conferences.  Again, it’s all about meeting the people and listening in.  So, it was pretty enjoyable, yeah.

[00:47]

Yeah, I think in business you really only have a single piece of IP, and that is your connections.  

[00:56]

Yes, I would agree.  Absolutely.

[00:57]   

And there’s probably not a better venue from my vantage point than events like IIeX.

[01:03]

Yeah, for sure, yeah.  Well, Andrew got me on the podcast.  So, there you go. That’s a connection, right?  

[01:08]  

You know that’s true actually.  That’s funny. Andrew with Lucid.  So, in a year, how many of these events or events like this do you wind up going to?

[01:17]

Yeah, so I just started SampleChain; it’s been about six to eight months since I started it.  I’ve been to SampleCon, and IIeX as well; so, this is the second one. I would say I’m probably going to Insights Association too.         

[01:28]

Alright, cool.  Yeah, Insights Association has a great...  Of course, a different organization (GreenBook, apologies) but they also have some really good, unique shows.           

[01:37]

Absolutely.  And it is in the backyard in New Orleans; so, I’m just going to walk across the street and go to that one as well.

[01:42]

So, you’re based out of New Orleans.

[01:43]

Yes, I’m in New Orleans.

[01:44]  

OK, perfect.  Well, tell me about SampleChain.

[01:46]

So, my background, you know...  Starting with the New Orleans story, I graduated from Tulane about ten years ago, the local university there.  And I got into Lucid pretty early joining it at the company; had and saw amazing growth. And then, after a while, decided that, “You know what?  I just want to try something new.” I did see there was a lot of analogies that we made as an industry to the ad tech industry. So in a way, the idea is to introduce a DMP to the space.  Just like ad tech has DMP’s, so that’s kind of…

[02:20]

Maybe, you can expand on what that is for our audience.

[02:22]

Yeah, absolutely.  So, a DMP is a Data Management Platform, and what it does is that it is... It has tentacles into different parts of the industry like the exchanges, and the suppliers, and the buyers, and so on and so forth.  And specifically, I’m talking about the ad tech advertising industry. And the idea here is to help all of these participants understand their traffic sources better. Are they all getting attacked by bots, for example?  Are they having issues with conversion that could do better with some piece of information? So the idea is to create that entity and provide that information to these clients.

[03:01]

That’s beautiful.  So, you’ve been at it just under a year.

[03:04]

Yep, exactly.  Something like that.

[03:06]   

Did you guys come out the gate with funding or...?

[03:09]

So, we got some funding:  local funding, Angel Funding from New Orleans.  So,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Tom Anderson, Founder, Executive Chairman & CRO at OdinAnswers.

Contact Tom Online:

LinkedIn

OdinAnswers

[00:00]

Tom Anderson, OdinAnswers is the name of his company; OdinTexts was prior to the IIeX event.  Huge fan of this guy. He and I co-presented at a few different events: the CEO Summit a few years ago is probably the most recent.  Tell you what: I consider him to be the father of text analytics in this space. He has this interesting point of view about how we should be triangulating truth based on multiple data sources, including KPIs and customer voice.  Enjoy the episode.

[00:30]  

Here with Tom Anderson, OdinAnswers is the new name of your company, sir.  We’re live at IIeX in Austin. How are you?

[00:39]  

Great.  Thanks for having me.

[00:41]

Yeah, of course.  It’s an honor to have you.  You’ve been the pioneer, I think, in this space.  I can’t think of another company anyway as it relates with text analytics.  Talk to me a little bit about OdinTexts, now OdinAnswers, and that journey.

[00:53]

Well, from the get-go, we were very much about realizing that good text, interesting text data never lives in isolation.  There’s always important structured data accompanying it. Twitter might be a little bit of an exception, but pretty much all other interesting data has very valuable structured components.  So, that was our thinking from the get-go in the patents and so forth that I filed. But now we’re taking that to the next level. We’ve been working with a lot of cutting-edge, digital-first clients and really looking at more and more data, so connecting different data types and variables to really get to what an answer is.  And that’s what’s reflected in the company: really trying to combine and think about the topics that people talk about in their own voice, unaided, what’s most important to them (thoughts and feelings) together with who it is, all the segmentation-type variables. And then the third part is the KPI. And so, some of our clients, for that, it’s return behavior, clicks on a link, or revenue is the holy grail.  But, for others, it might be MPS or customer sat. And then, there’s always, of course, emotions and sentiment to fall back on in the events where there aren’t important KPIs.

[02:17]   

We’ve evolved as an industry, right, because you were around before AWS, well before.

[02:21]

Yeah.   

[02:22]  

So, I mean you’ve seen a lot of new tech that’s been entering this space here, specifically in the way of text analytics.  And you guys have rebranded, which I think was a brilliant... I love OdinAnswers; I think that’s such an action-oriented framework versus OdinTexts now.  Not to say that there’s anything wrong with that. I think it’s just modernization and change of what the customer really needs right now. How are you helping customers like...  Let’s pick on NPS ‘cause it’s a super common use case, right? So, how are you interacting with that data to add that value to the customer.

[02:58]

So, NPS, a lot of clients can add a lot of data from other sources.  So, what they have internally first and foremost might be CRM or data on how much these customers have purchased, how frequently they purchase, what they purchase, that type of thing.  And then, of course, you can go beyond that to other data as well. But that is one of the things we’ve been working hard on and continuing to move in that direction.

[03:28]

Got it.          

[03:29]

And in terms of the industry overall, yeah, I mean there’s been...  I think there’s a new (definitely don’t want to call it a bubble because I believe it’s absolutely...  it’s sort of finally the time of text analytics,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Tim Lawton, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of SightX.

Contact Tim Online:

LinkedIn

SightX

[00:00]

Tim Lawton, SightX, solid company.  This firm has been... has the best actually UX for analytics that I have seen.  It is absolutely beautiful, and they have created a lot of shortcuts in statistics that let you get to key insights.  It’s almost like Big Data for Dummies, and I don’t want to take away from the power behind the tool. I spent a lot of time with Tim and his co-founder, talking about the statistical side.  I’m not a statistician – nor am I claiming to be – but, having said that, having worked in this space for so long, you get inundated with these types of requests. And they have created some really cool technology.  If you’re in the insights space, you absolutely should check out because it is impressive tech. Enjoy.

[00:56]  

My guest today on the Happy Market Research Podcast is Tim Lawton, founder, I think.

[01:02]  

Yes, co-founder of SightX.

[01:03]

I got to spend a lot of time with your counterpart last night before dinner.  Very intrigued with the story. You guys had spent almost two years in stealth mode right before you came up.  So, maybe, you could talk to us a little bit about why you guys started SightX, what you saw as the market opportunity, the white space, and the pain point.  And then walk us through that sort of journey of going dormant for the R&D phase.

[01:31]

Sure.  So, the intriguing part of the story is certainly on Naira’s side.  A lot of what we’re doing is her background in research. But when we started initially the onset was solving for a broader problem in the general research process of everything from the data collection to analyzing the data.  At the end of the day, the idea was to automate a lot of those processes for (1) for researchers but, more importantly and equally important, is for non-technical people. So that there’s a level of analysis that’s possible, especially when you talk about market research or any sort of end-user engagement.  So much information nowadays can and is collected that a lot of times what’s valuable and insightful there (to use a key word that everybody is familiar with) is not always easy to do because it takes a lot of time and the level of expertise. So we set out to democratize that expertise, for lack of a better description, for users and researchers of all types and skill levels, everyone to get to that end state of the data that’s been cleaned, coded, organized, and analyzed so that our clients and users can do what they were presumably hired to do:  which is to think creatively, strategically about their brand, their company, their organization but a lot of that time spent as we see as inefficient in that process. So SightX was designed to add efficiencies and augment teams and help teams get to that end state faster by bringing them from the data collection to the analysis and reporting all in one platform.

[03:03]   

It’s like from my vantage point...  I have a weak background in statistics…

[03:11]

Myself included.

[03:11]  

…more of a practitioner, actor versus like a...  but you know I understand and all that kind of stuff.  So, I’ve done a fair amount of regression modeling and whatever in my early career.  What I really like about the value prop is statistics can be hard and daunting, but what you guys do is take all that out.  But what you leave behind is the actual connection to the data.

[03:36]

Right.

[03:37]

So, it’s like: “These are the five things that are driving customer behavior or purchase intent.”  And you don’t care about the necessarily. Well, you might care about it,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Steve Mast, one of the Founders of Methodify.

Contact Steve Online:

LinkedIn

Methodify

[00:00]

Steve Mast with Methodify.  These guys are just crushing it.  They were the best exhibitors at the event, maybe even at any event I’ve ever attended.  A lot of things that were clever. My favorite was... They had these little stickers, which basically were fill-in-the-blanks.  “This blank has been certified by Methodify.”  And they would write in what it was.  So like, “This water cooler or this cup or this microphone or this coffee pot or this person’s back or whatever...”  It was really funny, created a lot of buzz. Also, it drove my good friend, Matt Gershner, and other GreenBook pros crazy, but, having said that, the entertainment value was huge.  Enjoy the episode.

[00:48]  

I have Steve Mast, the founder and CEO?

[00:51]  

One of the founders of Methodify, yes.

[00:54]

Methodify.  Yep, that’s right.  So, we’re at IIeX in Austin.  You guys have been here before.

[00:58]

Yes, we have, yes.  First year, we’ve actually done a full activation:  the booth, speaking, all those kinds of things, so...

[01:04]   

And you’ve been testing everything according to...

[01:07]

We’ve been testing the water coolers, the food stations.  Yeah, everything’s been Methodified.

[01:13]  

I love “This has been Methodified.”  You know that’s an interesting kind of...  OK, so, talk to me a little bit about that.

[01:21]

So, where that actually came out of ‘cause we actually have registered Methodify IT.  So, we’re not an Italian company; we’re actually born out of Canada, right, but Methodify is a global platform.  But the “Methodify it” came out of our clients literally saying, “We want to Methodify it” or “Was that piece of creative or was that new product, was it Methodified?”  So that’s where we actually came up with the whole “Methodify it.” So, it was our clients. So literally we’re listening to our customers, and we’re applying what they’re saying to our marketing and various...           

[01:53]

Isn’t that the best proof of concept? You know you can have this thing like founder-market fit where you have a personalized need, and you recognize it in the marketplace.  “Oh, good, I can solve that need.” But when the market actually starts changing language around your product and your solution, that’s a nice confirmation.

[02:13]

Yeah, I think it was interesting because (I don’t know what your feeling is but...) we’re obviously Methodify is research automation.  Like that’s the space it’s playing in. But I think what’s interesting is the last couple of years everybody’s been, “Yeah, we’re kicking the tires; we’re checking it out; we’re trying things; we’re piloting programs.”  This year I feel a substantial change in that where people are not kicking the tires. Now it’s about “How and when do we implement this?” “Where does it fit within the ecosystem of our market research tools, platforms?”  So I think the whole industry has changed. The other big thing too is (and I think you may have talked about it in other episodes as well) is when you look at the martech industry, right, it’s very mature obviously, but if you look at the research space, now we have this huge rise of research technologies.  And I think the big thing that has to happen is those two industries have to start to move closer together and start embedding research tech inside of martech. So very often, we’ve had some of our clients, if you think of their marketing-operations process, instead of it being a separate thing over somewhere else where you have research basically living on a data lake or living on some other knowledge platform inte...

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Sheila Akinnusi, Senior Manager of Consumer Marketing and Insights at Nedbank.

Contact Sheila Online:

LinkedIn

Nedbank

[00:00]

Sheila Akinnusi with Nedbank.  They are a monstrously massive, large bank out of Africa.  She attended IIeX this year with the intent of finding out what the rest of the world was doing as well as bringing home some best practices.  Again, I just want to underscore how good this event is for connecting your brand with, specifically technology, with perspective buyers. One of the things I really struggle with, as an exhibitor of events for a few decades, is nobody is usually there with a fire to purchase right away.  Instead, it feels a lot more like the long tail but, having said that, it is really a good way to put a face to a name, especially if you’ve been interacting on social with attendees. Anyway, I wanted to offer that piece of advice. If I was going to be exhibiting, I would be looking at the companies that are going to be attending and that is a published list.  And then I would be reaching out to them on social, creating some level of connection – not in the way of like asking but in the way of properly interacting. Like see the things they’re posting about; find out what’s interesting to them. And then, you actually have some context for your conversations. Hope you enjoy the episode. I certainly did. Sheila, thank you so much for joining me on the Happy Market Research Podcast.       

[01:20]  

Sheila with Nedbank, South Africa.  You live in Johannesburg. So, this is your first event at IIeX.  Is that correct?

[01:28]  

It is, it is.

[01:31]

Tell me a little bit about what you do there.

[01:32]

So, I’m a Senior Market Research Manager in a large, I suppose, corporate bank.  I do everything from strategic insighting, research projects, consulting internally, managing vendors, governance.  Being a bank, obviously, there’s a lot of that; there’s a whole lot, whole lot. Jack-of-all-trades as researchers are known for.  And, yeah, I get sent to places like this to find out what the rest of the world is doing and bring home some best practice and bold leadership to instrument.

[02:02]   

So, today is Day 2.  Do you have any big takeaways from the first day?

[02:07]

I did actually.  I think what was most encouraging is that we’re challenged by the same things even way across the ocean, which is quite encouraging for me.  I did feel like I was going to be bit overwhelmed. but I’m actually feeling quite comfortable in a crowd, which is really, really nice. The sessions that I attended were really quite interesting was the online influence one, how to leverage social media influences for your brand.  That was pretty cool. Yeah, the Women in Research event was really nice. Met lots of great people. I think everyone in the States is quite open. You guys are go-getters and just getting stuff done. It’s really nice to see.

[02:44]  

Have you been to any other market research conferences?

[02:47]

I have, not here.  I’ve been to ESOMAR so a few years back, I went to Nice, France.       

[02:50]

In general, ESOMAR, the Insights Association, of course, what we’re doing here, IIeX, the GreenBook – all of them, I think, market research, in general, is a very open community.  And it was good; we met at the WIRe, as you said, last night. One thing that I’ve seen as a trend, obviously, we’re seeing this globally, but it’s been really pushed hard over the last ten years in the WIRe organization is an atmosphere of inclusion because it creates a better picture of what the world really is and helps us identify truth and, honestly, it’s just more human.  It’s interesting, like for me,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rob Benson, co-founder of dwindle.

Contact Rob Online:

[email protected]

dwindle

[00:00]

Rob Benson with Dwindle, dwindling it down as it were.  They are a new entrant into the market research space. Really cool in real time AV testing that is designed to work alongside designers.  Enjoy the episode.

[00:17]  

We are live today at IIeX, the Innovation Show for market research in the U.S.  I’ve got Rob with Dwindle. You have a co-founder. Is that correct?

[00:30]  

That’s right.  That’s Joe.

[0:31]

Joe’s standing over there, but because we only have two mikes, you’re going to go ahead and represent and represent well, I’m sure.

[00:36]

Sure.

[00:36]   

OK, good.  Tell me a little bit about Dwindle.  What do you guys do?

[00:39]

So, a little bit of background maybe:  We come from an internet marketing background, and it’s our first conference here, our first kind of dive into market research.  We’re still trying to learn the lingo and the vernacular, which is strange. But we’re getting there. So, we started... we’ve been doing internet marketing for 15 years or so, and we have plenty branding and logo projects, right?  We kind of developed this tool out of necessity because at one point presented, I remember we presented a really big, big branding project. It was a big deal. It didn’t go so well. And we learned things during the presentation that would have been great to know beforehand, right?  So we developed this quick-choice model, where we present two images to a person on an app on their smartphone. They start tapping, and each of those taps tells us something about their preferences: whether they like literal logos versus abstract, Sara versus Sans Sara font. So, going into a branding project, our design team now is armed with this information.  So, we’ve been using it internally with great success. (probably 40 or so projects to date) and kind of sampling it out to some other agencies. It’s going well. So we wanted to come here to try to learn where we might be able to fit a product like that.

[02:05]  

Got it.  Now, you’re connected with Patrick Comer, who we all know as the founder and CEO of Fulcrum, now rebranded Lucid.  How do you guys know each other?

[02:16]

So, Patrick married my aunt, who is a...       

[02:20]

That really is a family connection.          

[02:23]

Yeah, afraid so.  I’m understanding what a tight-knit family this whole industry is, right?  So just knowing one person in that industry has put us in touch with people like you, who are heavy hitters in this place, and it’s a...  

[02:38]

It makes me feel old that Patrick married your aunt.  

[02:42]

Well, now, she’s only four years my senior.  She’s more like a big sister. Yeah, sorry.

[02:50]  

Patrick and I are around the same age, so.

[02:51]

Right.  So, his wife, my aunt, and my mom are 15 years apart.

[02:57]

Got it.  Totally got it.  Perfect. Thanks for the clarity.  I feel a little bit better now. Patrick, I still think I’m older than you.  Ahh, you guys have been to the show. Just today’s your first day, right?

[03:07]

Well, yesterday we came.  This is our first show; so, we’re still learning.  

[03:10]

What do you think about the show so far?

[03:11]

Oh, man, it’s phenomenal:  the resources and this tight-knit community.  Everybody is so willing to help and really mentor us as newbies.  We kind of weren’t sure where we might get the answers to the questions we’re having, but everybody that we’ve talked to just, whether it’s at lunch or in these break-out sessions, have been so helpful.    

[03:34]   

That’s awesome.  Are you... So, going back to Dwindle.

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Rick Kelly, Senior Vice President of Product & Research at Fuel Cycle.

Contact Rick Online:

LinkedIn

Fuel Cycle

[00:00]

Rick Kelly, Fuel Cycle, Senior Leader at that company.  This is the second interview we did with Fuel Cycle. As I already mentioned, Fuel Cycle is a research, cloud-based platform that has their own set of qualitative and quantitative solutions integrated directly into it as well as they’ve plugged in some other tools.  Interesting fact: Rick Kelly and I have picked grapes in the same fields; I think there might have been a decade in between. But it was really funny talking with somebody with a very similar cultural point of view, having a very similar upbringing. Hope you enjoy this episode.  It was a lot of fun for me.

[00:38]  

Hey, everybody.  I am here with Rick Kelly, Fuel Cycle.  Rick, thanks for joining me on the Happy Market Research Podcast today.  

[00:46]  

I am thrilled to be here.

[00:46]  

I promise you you’re not more excited than I am.  

[00:49]  

OK, that’s going to be a tough competition, but I’ll let you have it for now.  Let’s see how this goes.

[00:53]

So, Day 1, you’re my very first interview.  So I’m going to do some special promotion around this particular episode.  Fuel Cycle, tell me what is going on there.

[01:02]

I mean there’s a lot of things going on.  So, obviously, we have a big background in research communities.

[01:07]   

So, actually, let’s back up.  When did you guys start?

[01:09]

So, Fuel Cycle’s been around for 12 years now.  We were formerly known as

Passenger, and we branded it about three years ago to Fuel Cycle.  So, we’ve been around, known for our research communities. And then, over the past little while, we’ve launched like a product exchange where we integrate with a bunch of different partners and everything as well and really been repositioning ourselves as a market research cloud, centered around our research communities, with the idea being that we can integrate with just about any other technology provider in the research space and link that to the research communities and run just about any type of project you’d like.  

[01:43]  

Got it, cool.  Give me an example of your favorite project you guys have worked on.

[01:47]

You know what?  There’s lots of really cool ones, but here’s a great example.  We just launched a feature called FC Live. And what we can do is we can do UX-testing on mobile devices.  So a research respondent can take a prototype that’s sent to him by a researcher, share that screen on the phone, capture the entire screen and walk-through experience whether it’s a online shopping experience or a new app or something like that.  All that video is captured and then it’s transcribed by Voxpopme and available for analysis in a few hours. So it’s really taken the idea of remote usability, testing and putting it on steroids.

[02:24]

That’s really cool.  So, how many companies are you guys connected to?          

[02:29]

So, right now we have about 100 clients, just got to a 100.  When I started five years ago, there were about 13.

[02:35]

Yeah, ‘cause I remember you guys way back when.  And then the rebrand, of course, I think, was absolutely brilliant.  Was the rationale like it was just an aged brand or did you feel like it was a strategic pivot?  And, if so, from what to what?

[02:52]

Yeah, so I think there was a new team there.  There were no more founders left in the organization.  And we kind of wanted to re-establish what it meant to be us in the marketplace.  And also, Passenger felt like a very passive brand, and none of us are passive people.  And so,

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Ray Fischer, CEO and Founding Partner of Aha! Online Research.

Contact Ray Online:

LinkedIn

Aha! Online Research

[00:00]

Ray Fischer, Aha! Online Research.  First off, he is the best voice in market research.  I wish it was me, but it’s not. For those that don’t know, Aha! Online is a qualitative platform that’s used by many large brands.  They support an asynchronous data collection approach for digital ethnography. Enjoy the episode. You can find his contact information in the show notes.

[00:22]  

Ray Fischer, the CEO and founding partner of Aha!, also has been on the show, one of my favorite podcasts.  The best voice in market research. Seriously, 100%, it’s absolutely true. We’re live at IIeX here in Austin.  What do you think about the show so far?

[00:43]

Oh, it’s been great, great.  Great energy, new venue, which is super cool.  I think this is my fifth or sixth one. I’m not sure how many they’ve had, but I’ve been to all of them.  This one is really neat. Love Austin, different energy. Atlanta was great, but this is super, super cool.  

[00:58]

Yeah, it really is.  I agree about the energy point.  I call it the Coke versus Pepsi effect:  some of the executives or people on the floor have been a little bit apprehensive about the structure of it early in Day 1 ‘cause it felt a little bit separated.  But everybody in Day 2 has been excited about the show floor and the interactions that they’re getting and value, value, value.

[01:20]

Some people aren’t open to change.  You know how that goes.

[01:23]  

Are we in market research still?

[01:25]

You’ll always find a complainer, but “no,” it’s awesome. You got to make it what it is, but it is an amazing venue.    

[01:31]  

Yeah.

[01:31]

Look at the walls behind you.  And it’s just the color popping out.  I mean that’s emblematic of the energy in this place.         

[01:38]

I got in big trouble actually because I had placed my...  I have a large case for the equipment, and so I had placed the Penquin case by the...  Anyway, I got in big trouble for it. “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t realize it was actually art.”  It’s legit art.

[01:54]

It’s definitely.  Don’t scrape yourself on it either; it’s 3D.

[01:57]

So, Aha!, what’s going on, man?

[02:00]

I’ve been busy as heck.  It’s really... Last year I think we talked, somewhere near the end of last year.  We had a great year last year. This year we’re off to a rip-roaring start. We’re thrilled.  We’re launching new activities, new things, kind of spreading the word on online qual. Remarkedly, everyone has not yet tried online qual.  So there’s still a lot of untapped territory out there. We’re working to spread the good word and, obviously, spread our own product word. But a lot of big stuff happening in the whole customer experience world.  The video world has changed quite a bit; I think we might have touched on that before, but. All the connectivity: I’m excited about 4G going to 5G on the mobile scene because this is going to increase uploads speeds from respondents with video and pictures, which are so important to the whole online experience and the online mobile experience.    

[02:47]  

There’s a lot you just said.  And I just want to take a step back because probably some of our audience isn’t familiar with exactly what it is that Aha! does.  So, if you could just give me like the high-level overview, not too in the weeds, so that everybody can like level set with where you guys fit in the market research ecosystem.   

[03:07]

We’re an online qualitative platform.  We do what we call asynchronous approach, which means people come in usually on a multi-day t...