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Interview with John Williamson, CEO of Qualvu
Colorado-based Qualvu is an innovating high-tech company that has developed user-driven online video research technologies, offering a platform for businesses and their researchers that enables them to gain rich insights into the opinions, views and attitudes of their customers, focus groups, and other constituents they want to reach. David Hamburg
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Left to right: Rodney Holm, CTO Brooks Pettus, COO John Williamson, CEO
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Your online focus group platform is innovative. I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard about it before.
True, we’ve been flying under the radar. We’re very much technologists; our platform is something that is completely proprietary, from the ground up. We have a fairly aggressive operations model whereby we have hired a team of salespeople, about twenty, who are actively engaged in sharing the Qualvu message. We have grown a lot and have assembled a strong marketing team, which is why I think we are doing very well. My first impression of your product was that you are to the focus group what GoToMeeting.com is to the faceto-face meeting.
Exactly. If we could use that analogy, it’s similar to what SurveyMonkey is to quantitative research. When we first got into this, there was relatively little online innovation for focus groups in the qualitative space. Focus groups were live, but there was really no way to duplicate that experience online. We took the Internet and used it to produce freakish cost-savings with the ability to do it on a local or regional basis with great speed. We said that if we could crack the code around quality and get people to deliver what we expect in terms of the level of depth, geographic regions, and candour, and then replicate that online, then we would have a winning product. Beats doing qualitative interviews by phone, where there is no visual experience. There’s a lot of information you can pick up just from the visual aspect of the interview. I’m actually surprised no one has done it before.
That’s right. When we first started this, we asked ourselves, “How can we get quality interviews online through streaming video and face-to-face connections?” We did that, but we then asked, “How can we get consumers to participate in an asynchronous way?” With our system, when you push a button, there is a pre-recorded moderator who sets in motion a series of video sessions that are completely participant powered. They are self-serve videos. We found that with this method you can record people in environments where they are completely comfortable, where they are most relaxed and, more importantly, where they are usually using their interactive brains naturally. Secondly, there is that convenience factor where they are doing it on their own time, and that really enables them to relax; there are no time limits on how much video they can record. And this video program also prompts them in different ways – in, essentially, what you would refer to as probing. With focus groups, there is peer pressure. In fact a lot of the moderators’ skill is in how they are able to make the participants feel comfortable and get them to open up. In our world, the atmosphere is completely devoid of any peer
pressure. We have even constructed the platform so that, when participants push the right buttons, the moderator goes away. They are fully on their own, airing their own intelligent answers. That lack of peer pressure enables us to see and hear things that participants would normally not share, even with a confidant in some cases. We find that is how they approach things like brushing their teeth, washing their hair, or even buying a car. We get below the surface reasons, below the vanity of your typical response. People have a tendency to come through, when they are alone, with candour: that is nothing less than remarkable. Left on their own, people will share sensibly when there is nobody there to interrupt them. We have designed a platform that gives the person who is watching the data the ability to probe by pushing a button and adding a follow-up question. So the participant can log in, see an alert, and see a follow-up question. We believe that, when consumers are left on their own, they will share with remarkable and in-depth candour, and give complete answers. It all sounds very technologically advanced.
It is, because we are very much a technology company. We also realized the need to have research expertise in-house – research strategy people – in order to bring to bear a depth of qualitative research and to understand the construct of projects. These people know how to ask the right questions. The other side of our office looks like an Internet startup. We have a fairly large team of developers working here full-time, continually innovating all of our systems so that data can be turned into intelligence. When we first started developing qualitative methods during our early days, we realized that knowledge in collecting the video is not as important as what you do with it. How do we create a technology and turn it into video highlight reels? So tell us how you do that.
First, we figure out what your business objective is; then we create a question guide, which is a series of pre-recorded video sessions that are recorded by a moderator. Next, we set up the project. As part of the collection process, screeners go to find the right people. Then, we create the questions to qualify those people, but we also do some innovative things; for example, we created an algorithm to ask questions that will give us the best answers from the participants. These questions may concern how consumers use a product, how they shop, or how they respond to media ads. So this is more than just a software program. You are really offering a technologically advanced turnkey research solution. There is also a consulting aspect to your service.
Yes, we really have two ways that our clients can use our system. We can help them hone in on their strategic objectives; we can look at the burning questions that we are vue April 2011
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aiming to solve in a particular project. Then we apply our resources to building the right project and getting people involved asking the right questions. We also provide clients with an analysis in the form of a video report. In short, we combine analysis with the real voice of the customer. It really is powerful, to actually hear your consumers talking about these things in their homes. You will see and hear consumers shaving or shopping online for a car. The simplest way that they can use it is to employ the DIY (do it yourself ) module. Users can log in and press the “build my project” button and actually set up their own project. They can ask whatever questions they want, decide who they want to reach – just by pressing a submit button. This launches an automated process in which questions are submitted to the interface, to people who are logged in and recruited. The client logs in to what we call our client portal, where they can see the information or search a keyword or a key phrase. They can even produce their own highlight reels using our video editing tools. The system is very intuitive. How it’s used all depends on the business case and users’ objectives in utilizing our service. Another advantage of your platform is probably that you save a lot of money by not going to live focus groups. It also seems to be saving on the brainwork part of it. Lots of the clients’ questions are basically pre-programmed to be asked; the clients don’t have to do that part themselves.
We were actually getting ready to launch a series of templates that are tailor-made for the size of your company, from small to a Fortune 2000–sized company. We have been able to create an incredible cost compression around getting this kind of information from people face-to-face. You will be able to test an ad simply by pressing the “test the ad” button. We will automatically compile a project of appropriate size and, virtually automatically, bring the cost down even lower. Quality projects can go for as low as $2,000 for a fairly sophisticated focus group–quality experience.
expire the information. That data is available to you for as long as you need it. Understand that there is a tremendous amount of data in there that you may not need right now, but you can go back to that data time and time again. Imagine if you do multiple sessions: all of that data is searchable. We’ve even had clients send us DVDs with data and ask us to upload it, digitize it to a quality platform, and make it searchable. We will actually time-stamp that reel so it can be searchable to the focus group session. Any key points we didn’t discuss?
To summarize, I’d say that the key point to all this is the innovation. It’s about getting a depth of consumer qualitative research that cannot be acquired traditionally. And it’s streamlined, easy to use, quickly executed, and much better priced than a live focus group session. Lastly and most importantly, the data is true; it’s from consumers who are more candid – to the point where our clients are often surprised. This is critical. If you are not making business decisions based, fundamentally, on accurate information, then you are just barking up the wrong tree. This is about using stream of consciousness to gain insight, not about filling out forms. It’s about talking, about explaining yourself, reacting to something in the moment. If you got this level of interaction in a focus group, it could be overwhelming. But we’re actually collecting more data per person than you get in a focus group. That’s why it’s so important to have at your disposal the tools to be able to mine that information, to answer your questions, and to get direct answers that will help you make those business decisions. We can build a video reel of this experience for the company within days. Alternatively, you can have us take a look at it and provide you with analysis, feedback and observations. It’s really all up to the customer. This all sounds so great, John, so groundbreaking for qualitative research, that I’m sure it will meet with tremendous success. We’ll be following Qualvu closely. Thanks for your time.
Is the feedback “truer” compared to a live focus group?
It definitely is truer. In fact, we’re able to get more quality information from a smaller sample size than you’d get from a focus group. Consider that the average focus group session lasts two hours, which also includes ten to twenty minutes of ice-breaker time. With us, we typically get between three and a half to five minutes of uninterrupted feedback every time a participant presses the record button. And the average product has seven video sessions, so you’re looking at between twenty-five and thirty minutes of uninterrupted feedback from every participant. So this is all done with a cloud environment?
Yes. I think that there is also an advantage to having this within a client portal, which we provide. We actually never 14
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Tell us about one of your success stories.
Some of the success stories are from users of personal hygiene products like toothbrushes and razors. We were able to provide our client completely unencumbered access to everyday consumers who were using their product in the bathroom every morning. They were setting up cams on the vanities and talking to us through the entire experience, telling us not just what they were thinking, but what they were doing. We’ve never had this level of access. This is truly qualitative research in its raw form, and not through a third party environment in an office building. This was about actually watching and capturing those thoughts, when the participants were in the appropriate mood, at six in the morning or whenever it was they were getting ready. This is one example of where these experiences happen, and in a context where they are most valuable.