Summary
In this Q&A session, you'll hear how former clinical researcher and PhD scientist, Clemens Janssen, is running research at 15x speed, supporting the needs of Nutrisense, an health tech company. As the first researcher, Clemens will share how he's built a research culture with training, standardized processes, and templates.
Key Insights
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Transitioning from academia to corporate research requires adapting from slow, methodical study to fast-paced, actionable insight delivery.
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Even when research exists in a company, it may be ad hoc and fragmented, requiring formalization and operationalization.
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Generating institutional buy-in often starts by sharing qualitative user stories and learnings to spark curiosity and demand for deeper research.
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An ops-first research approach focuses on creating scalable processes and tools that enable multiple stakeholders to conduct research without overloading a solo researcher.
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Training and quality guardrails are essential to ensure non-researchers conduct valid, unbiased user interviews and maintain research standards.
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Research teams can support learning and quality by establishing interview teams with regular check-ins and collaborative review of techniques and transcripts.
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Coding qualitative data collaboratively, with interviewers doing first-pass coding followed by researcher review, improves efficiency and consistency.
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Building a research business case often revolves around demonstrating cost-benefit in terms of saved time and accelerated product improvements rather than just abstract value.
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Even when solo, establishing processes prepares the team to quickly onboard new researchers and scale research efforts.
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Storytelling in internal communications helps translate raw research findings into business-relevant insights that motivate further research investment.
Notable Quotes
"I believe that research is actually a sales role."
"The transition was challenging because I had to adapt from slow-paced academia to fast-paced corporate life."
"Research was happening at Nutrisense, but it was ad hoc and not formalized or programmatic."
"We have to formalize a research department and adopt a research ops-first practice."
"Initially, I had to generate buy-in by telling stories from user interviews to get people interested."
"People asked if a pattern they saw in one user was happening in others, which justified qualitative analysis."
"Before giving someone the keys to our research ops tool, we do a 60-minute research one-on-one training."
"Research and design are not just things anyone can do without proper methodologies and guardrails."
"Our proposals always include the business case that testing now saves us two or three iterations later."
"Ops-first research is about being efficient, standardizing processes, and preparing to scale without me working 24 hours a day."
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