User Interviews: A Startup Case Study on Streamlined User Research Recruitment

As an entrepreneur, you already know how tough it is to get feedback from your target audience:

• Many would rather just use an alternative if you don’t meet their expectations.
• The other part wishes you’d change some product features but would rather you figure it out yourself. They are busy and don’t have the time to tell you what is wrong with your product.
• And then, there’s the minority that sings your praises because they love your product as much as you do.

Therein lies the problem! You have no idea what is wrong with your product, yet, sales show that your product is not all that. But don’t just take my word for it, this research proves that there is often a positivity bias in customer satisfaction ratings.

Back to our question, how then do you get the feedback you need?

User Interviews

User Interviews is a platform designed to connect researchers with vetted participants for user research. By focusing on speed, efficiency, and a large pool of qualified candidates, they simplify participant recruitment for everything; from quick user interviews to more complex research studies.

Status: Currently Active

Founding Year: 2015. Many articles reference 2013, we’ll tell you why in the founding story

Headquarters: New York, NY, United States

Industry: User Research Software Market

Business Model

Model Type: B2B, Two-sided, Product & Service

• Clients: Research teams of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, who need to recruit participants for their user research studies.
• Suppliers: Individuals interested in participating in research studies and getting compensated for their time and insights.

It’s Like: LinkedIn but for Paid User Research

User Interviews connects researchers with potential participants for user interviews, similar to how LinkedIn connects recruiters with potential job candidates. Both platforms offer tools for targeted outreach based on specific criteria, facilitating connections within their respective niches.

With some differences, though:

• Focus: LinkedIn caters to professional networking and job seeking, while User Interviews focuses specifically on facilitating user research.
• Interaction: LinkedIn interactions primarily revolve around professional profiles and networking, while User Interviews facilitates paid research participation through interviews and studies.
• Compensation: LinkedIn users typically don’t get paid for interactions, while User Interviews participants receive compensation for their time and insights.

Challenges

• Recruitment Challenges: Finding the right participants for specific research needs can be time-consuming and difficult.
• Participant Management: Organizing and managing participant data, communication, and incentives can be complex.
• Speed and Efficiency: Traditional recruitment methods can be slow, delaying research projects and impacting timelines.

Solutions

• Targeted Recruitment: User Interviews’ platform offers access to a pool of over 5 million vetted participants, enabling researchers to target specific demographics and behavioral criteria for their studies.

User Interviews boasts of a large participant pool and fast, quality feedback

• Streamlined Process: The platform handles scheduling, incentives, and communication with participants, simplifying the research process and reducing administrative burden.
• Fast Turnaround: User Interviews boasts a median time of just one hour to find qualified participants, accelerating research timelines.
• Research Hub: For larger research operations, Research Hub provides a participant management system, acting as a CRM for research and enabling the creation and management of custom user panels.

Founding Story

• When and How Founded: User Interviews was founded in 2015. The founders, facing difficulties with traditional user research recruitment for a previous venture, decided to create a platform to streamline the process. Most articles cite 2013 as the founding year for User Interviews because that is the founding year for MobileSuites; the venture that was pivoted to User Interviews.
• Founders’ Problem Experience: User Interviews was born out of the founders’ frustration with traditional user research recruitment inefficiencies. While working on a previous venture—MobileSuites, an app designed to streamline hotel service requests.The original concept aimed to simplify the post-booking, on-site hotel experience by allowing travelers to request services like room service, housekeeping, and spa appointments directly from their mobile devices (which failed by the way).
• Why They Started: The founders realized the importance of gathering user feedback but found the process of recruiting participants to be time-consuming and inefficient. This led them to create User Interviews, a platform that simplifies and accelerates user research recruitment.
• Founders: Basel Fakhoury, Dennis Meng, and Bob Saris

User Interview founders; Dennis Meng, Basel Fakhoury, and Bob Saris

• Employee count: 122
• Problem-Solving Approach: The company’s solution focuses on simplifying user research recruitment. It leverages technology to offer a streamlined approach to finding, screening, scheduling, and managing participants, significantly reducing the time and effort required for user research.
• Challenges: Finding early clients and suppliers.

Key Growth Milestones

• 2015: The company was founded
• 2017
  • First seed round
  • Partnered with Lookback to offer a seamless user research experience, combining participant recruitment with unlimited testing capabilities on any device.
• 2018: Became fully remote
• 2019: Raised a second seed round of $5 million
• 2021: Raised $10.3 million in a Series A round.
• 2022: Raised $27.5 million in a Series B round.
• 2022: Launched integrations and updates, including a revamped participant experience that increased completion rates by over 50%, and introduced features like invite limits and custom views to enhance team coordination.
• 2024: The inaugural YouX Conference took place, providing a platform for researchers to connect and share insights.
• The State of User Research Report: Published annually since 2019, reflecting User Interview’s commitment to advancing user research practices.

Market & Competition

Market Size

The user research software market is experiencing significant growth, driven by the increasing demand for digital products and services and the rising importance of user-centric design. Global investments in digital transformation are expected to almost double between 2022 and 2025, further fueling this growth.

While different sources provide varying estimates, the market size and growth projections highlight a substantial opportunity for User Interviews and its competitors:

• Straits Research: Valued the market at $217.80 million in 2023, projected to reach $638.67 million by 2032 representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.7%.
• Fortune Business Insights: Estimated the market size at $390.6 million in 2023, projected to reach $1,030.6 million by 2032 (CAGR of 11.6%).
• Business Research Insights: Reported the market size as $1.28 billion in 2024, projected to reach $5.46 billion by 2032 (CAGR of 19.93%).

The increasing integration of user research within organizations is another significant trend. Research from User Interviews indicates that the majority of UX researchers are now embedded in product, design, or UX teams, highlighting the growing importance of user insights in the product development process.

Target Market

• Researchers: User Interviews primarily targets enterprises; research teams of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, who need to recruit participants for their user research studies. They cater to a wide range of industries and research needs.
• Participants: Individuals who are interested in participating in research studies and getting compensated for their time and insights.

Potential New Markets:
The increasing integration of user research within organizations and the growing importance of user-centric design suggest potential for User Interviews to expand its reach within existing client companies. Additionally, the adoption of AI in UX research presents both opportunities and challenges, potentially leading to new markets or services related to AI-powered research tools.

Supplier Numbers:
User Interviews has a pool of over 5 million vetted participants.

Competitor Landscape

User Interviews faces competition from various companies offering user research and usability testing tools including:

• UserTesting: A leading user research platform with a wide range of testing and feedback solutions.
• Respondent: Specializes in finding participants for research interviews.
• dscout: Captures user behavior and feedback through mobile video, images, and surveys.
• Hotjar: Offers website analysis, optimization, user feedback, heatmaps, and session recordings.
• Maze: Focuses on continuous product discovery and usability testing.
• UXtweak: An all-in-one UX research platform with various testing methods, including user interviews and usability testing.
• UXArmy: A cloud-based user research platform with robust data analysis capabilities.
• Trymata: Offers moderated and unmoderated remote user research testing.
• Lookback: Specializes in rich media and open-ended data for qualitative research.
• TestingTime: Provides participants for various research methods, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

Marketing & Sales

Main Positioning Values: Time & Quality

Website & Socials

Monthly Visits: Approximately 2.6 million visits per month, reflecting strong interest from researchers and participants alike.

Traffic Sources: The majority (over 70%) comes from direct visits, indicating a strong brand presence. Additional traffic flows from organic search (around 20%), referrals (about 4.6%), paid search (around 2.5%), social networks (about 1.2%), and a small share from ads (about 0.1%).

Top Countries: Over 71% of traffic originates from the US, followed by the UK (~10%), Canada (~4.6%), India (~1.8%), and Australia (~1.3%).

Social Media Traffic: Primarily from Facebook (~27%), YouTube (~24%), Reddit (~21%), LinkedIn (~20%), and X/Twitter (~3.7%).

Media Coverage

• Tremendous Case Study: This case study highlights how User Interviews streamlined their global incentive distribution and fraud prevention efforts.
• Side Hustle Nation Review: This website, focused on side hustles and online earning, reviewed User Interviews as a legitimate platform for participating in paid research studies.
• Globe Newswire News Release: This release announces Outset, an AI-moderated research platform, partnering with User Interviews to integrate their participant recruitment services.

Marketing Strategies

• Target Audience: User Interviews primarily targets research teams of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, with a particular focus on enterprise clients. They cater to a wide range of industries and research needs.
• Value Proposition: User Interviews emphasizes speed and efficiency in their sales proposal, highlighting their ability to connect researchers with qualified participants quickly. They also position themselves as a trusted partner for businesses seeking reliable user insights.
• Customer Acquisition:
  • Content Marketing: They leverage their blog, podcast, and other resources like the UX Tools Map and UX Salary Report to attract researchers and establish thought leadership in the user research space.
  • Partnerships: User Interviews collaborates with companies like Lookback to offer a seamless user research experience, and Tremendous for incentive distribution, expanding their reach and offering complementary services.

User Interviews encourages partnerships for better results in user research

• Direct Sales: Their website offers a “Book a Demo” option, suggesting a direct sales approach for engaging potential enterprise clients.
• Affiliate Program: User Interviews incentivizes referrals through their affiliate program, leveraging existing users to acquire new customers.
• Supplier Acquisition: User Interviews attracts research participants through their website and promotes their participant panel, highlighting the opportunity to “get paid to participate” in studies. They emphasize a large pool of over 5 million participants and a median time to first match of 1 hour.

Product & Innovation

• Niche Focus: Unlike broader freelance platforms, User Interviews specializes in recruiting participants specifically for user research, ensuring a pool of individuals interested in providing feedback and insights.
• Vetted Participants: User Interviews boasts a database of over 5 million vetted participants, increasing the likelihood of finding qualified and reliable individuals for research studies through Recruit .
• Fast Turnaround: The platform’s efficient recruitment process, with a median time to find qualified participants of just one hour, sets it apart from traditional, slower recruitment methods.
• Integration with Research Tools: User Interviews integrate with various popular research tools including testing platforms, survey tools, and video conferencing software. These integrations create a seamless workflow for researchers using various platforms and software.

Deployment

User Interviews support both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

Qualitative research gathers non-numerical data through open-ended questions and interactions to understand user experiences and behaviors.

Quantitative research uses numerical data and closed questions to analyze user demographics and historical trends.

So, you can use the platform to gain needed feedback at different stages of the product life cycle, including:

• Understanding the market: Conducting user research to identify target audience needs and pain points.
• Developing user personas: Creating fictional characters that represent typical users.
• Getting feedback on ideas and concepts: Validating new product or feature ideas.
• Improving existing products: Gathering user feedback to identify areas for improvement.
• Creating and optimizing marketing campaigns: Ensuring marketing messages resonate with the target audience.

Financials & Metrics

Revenue Sources

User Interviews operates on a two-sided platform business model, generating revenue from both researchers and participants. Researchers pay for access to the platform’s recruitment and research management tools, while participants receive compensation for their time and insights.

Pricing Plans

1. Pay As You Go: For $49 per session, researchers get access to the full pool of 5+ million participants, targeting and screening tools, scheduling automation, incentive distribution, integrations, live chat support, and a project coordinator.
2. Essential: Designed for research teams conducting 60-150 sessions per year, this plan offers a lower per-session cost. $41/session for 60 sessions and $36/session for 150; all billed annually. It includes all the features of the Pay As You Go plan, plus the ability to roll over unused sessions and elevated customer support.
3. Custom: This high-tier package is tailored for high-volume research teams and enterprise-level organizations (from 250 sessions). It includes all the features of the Essential plan, plus prioritized support, a dedicated customer success manager, custom onboarding, and the best rate guaranteed.

Funding and Investments

Initially, the founders bootstrapped the company and relied on grassroots marketing efforts, including leveraging Craigslist to find early clients. As they gained traction, they secured venture funding and scaled their operations.

User Interviews has raised about $44 million through four funding rounds spread across 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022.

Structure & Culture

Structure

The company is led by CEO and co-founder Basel Fakhoury. Other key personnel include:

• Dennis Meng – CPO & Co-founder
• Bob Saris – CTO & Co-founder
• Jess Klek – CRO
• Erin May – CMO
• Nabil Syed – SVP, Operations
• Shonda Williams – VP, People & Talent
• Aimee Halbert – General Counsel
• Kevin Mershon – VP, Finance

This indicates a likely hierarchical structure with departments focused on areas like research, operations, marketing, and technology.

Culture

• Customer-Centricity: User Interviews’ mission centers on making user research integral to decision-making, indicating a strong customer-centric approach.
• Innovation: Their continuous development of new products and features, like Research Hub, suggests a culture that values innovation and finding better solutions for user research needs.
• Collaboration: The emphasis on integrating with other research tools and platforms implies a collaborative approach, aiming to fit seamlessly into existing workflows.
• Remote: The company has been remote since 2018 indicating its flexible and pacesetting work environment.

Impact & Success

As the company puts it, “From cutting-edge startups to well-established enterprises that value customer insight, thousands of teams rely on User Interviews to fuel their growth and innovation through fast access to quality participants.”

• Customer Success Stories: User Interview’s website is full of glowing testimonials from several companies including Microsoft, Zendesk, and Egnyte. These companies attest to the usefulness of User Interviews’ solutions (Recruit and Research Hub) in removing friction in their research by easing participant recruitment and helping them to make research a foundational part of their process.
• Participant Feedback: Side Hustle Nation, a website focused on earning opportunities, reviewed User Interviews as a legitimate platform for participating in paid research studies, indicating positive user experiences.

Growth & Future

From its inception in 2015 to now, User Interviews has been able to amass a large participant pool of over 5 million, creating a ready pool of participants for every kind of user-related research.

Challenges and Risks

• Competition: The user research market is becoming increasingly competitive, with companies like UserTesting, Respondent, and discount vying for market share. User Interviews must continuously innovate and differentiate itself to stay ahead.
• Adapting to AI: The rise of AI in user research presents both opportunities and challenges. User Interviews will need to effectively integrate AI into its platform to remain competitive and meet evolving customer needs.

Future Plans

• Vision: User Interviews envisions a future where user research is as fundamental to business as data analytics, aiming to make insights readily available for better decision-making.
• Expansion and Innovation: The company’s trajectory suggests continued expansion of their platform’s capabilities, potentially through new features, integrations, or strategic partnerships.

Key Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Niche Down for Impact: User Interviews found immense success by focusing on a specific need within a larger market (user research) instead of trying to be everything to everyone. Don’t be afraid to specialize and own your niche.
• Solve a Real Pain Point: They directly addressed the challenges of recruitment, management, and speed in user research, offering tangible solutions that resonated with their target audience. Identify a genuine problem and build your business around solving it effectively.
• Value Time as a Currency: User Interviews emphasizes speed and efficiency, recognizing that time is a valuable resource for their clients. Consider how your product or service can save people time and optimize their workflows.
• Embrace the Power of Community: By building a large and engaged community of both researchers and participants, they created a valuable ecosystem that fuels their platform. Cultivate a strong community around your product or service to foster growth and engagement.
• Don’t Underestimate the ‘Silent Majority’: The company’s insight about the ‘silent majority’ of users highlights the importance of going beyond vocal feedback. Develop strategies to understand the needs and behaviors of users who may not actively provide feedback, as they hold valuable insights.
• Implement User Feedback: The trajectory of User Interviews is a lesson for SMBs to always consider users’ feedback right from the ideation stage of their products or services to avoid making a product no one is interested in or creating services no one needs.