Sebastian (00:02):

You are listening to the Insightful Connections podcast. Our guest today is Hugh Carling. Hugh is a co-founder at Liveminds. Founded in 2010 Liveminds is democratizing qualitative research with AI. Their simple, fast mobile first platform has been used for over a decade in more than 80 countries by many of the world's leading brands. Now they're working to enable the other 70% of the world's economy to benefit from accessing qualitative insights. Prior to starting Liveminds, Hugh founded Liveline, a virtual digital agency back in 2006 that created many first of their kind applications, including PayPal's first Facebook app, diesel's first Facebook group, and an iPad cooking app for the restaurant. Jane Carluccio's. Hugh is a serial entrepreneur, innovator, and a consistent source of inspiration for my own endeavors. Hugh, thank you for being here.

Hugh (00:48):

Pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for very kind intro, Seb

Sebastian (00:52):

QualRecruit is a qualitative recruitment firm that delivers quality respondents so moderators can work confidently. Our best in class recruitment tech guarantees accurate recruits and high show rates, while eliminating bad actors through advanced respondent identity checks. For a limited time, new clients get a 20% discount when they use the offer code CONNECTION. To learn more, visit qualrecruit.com. So to start us off, I wanted to ask you a little bit about, if you think back, what brought you into market research originally and how does that help inform where you are today?

Hugh (01:22):

Well, I think it was a pretty clear pathway in many respects, although similar to many people in the industry as I understand it somewhat by accident as well. So when I was running liveline, the digital agency that you mentioned in your intro, I was approached by a friend of mine who was working for Hall and Partners in a kind of innovation role there, and he knew me as kind of digital guy. So you got in touch and explained to me what they were trying to do at the time. This was back in 2007, I think, and they were exploring taking focus groups online and using blogs and journals and forums and explained to me, which was previously an unknown, that this wasn't happening already. And focus groups were almost exclusively conducted in person at the time via telephone interviews. So yeah, I thought that was a really interesting challenge.

(02:12):

It was at a time where we were already building Facebook applications. Facebook was growing rapidly around the world. MySpace was probably on the way out. Friendster had come and gone. Blogging was growing rapidly, and everyone in the world seemed to be communicating a lot online. So it came as quite a big surprise that research industry, which obviously was I guess a big part of innovation and new, exciting things happening for brands around the world, hadn't really embraced using those technologies and methods themselves. So yeah, we worked with him and the team at Hall and Partners for a few years just using existing pieces of software, kind of hacking them together, working with their Qual team to understand exactly what they would best get out of these kind of technologies, what a platform that was custom built for the purpose would do, and ran some really interesting projects for a load of great brands.

We did projects using mobiles and capturing mobile video and mobile photos, I think in 2008, which involved very poor quality photo uploads. It took an outrageous amount of time to get those poor quality photos, but it became very clear that this was an amazing way to get insights in a way that you simply couldn't do from talking to people in a focus group facility. So it really extended the capabilities of qualitative research, getting much richer context, more authentic in the moment responses. And, over that time, it became apparent that there was a huge opportunity not just for that agency, but hundreds of thousands of agencies and researchers around the world to embrace this sort of technology and benefit from it. So, eventually we started building the platform that we were scoping, and in 2010 launched Liveminds, which was online only to begin with, and then we introduced mobile apps to it in 2012. That was the origin of my journey in the research world, and I've been here happily ever since.

Sebastian (04:11):

I think that's a really interesting origin story, and I kind of think, as you mentioned, it's a very common path from different fields where we'll get pulled into market research rather than necessarily set out to be in the market research industry. I'm curious maybe how the origin of Liveminds accounts for where you are today, and if you could tell me a little bit about where Liveminds is today.

Hugh (04:31):

Yeah, I mean, I suppose I've probably always felt like a little bit of an outsider in the industry, and I generally think that's a good thing because that enables you to, I guess, focus on what you're told by a great number of people in order to build the best software. I guess over the years there's been quite a recurrent theme in terms of software platforms saying built by researchers for researchers, which I've always thought is a kind of curious claim to make because researchers are expert researchers, they're not expert software developers. Having said that, that is a claim replicated in many industries for many things, and you can see the obvious appeal to the buyers for it.

The thing that really appealed to me about, I mean, firstly sort of going on this journey with the qualitative research world and later the sort of wider research world as well about embracing new technologies. It was always an aspiration of ours, having come from sort of small business background where these kind of methods and these tools to get these insights were just completely unaffordable and out of reach to us. Many of the businesses that we worked alongside in technology hubs and small business environments. So the goal that really excited me in the long run about it was always the ability to go beyond big agencies working for big brands, which is wonderful, and you get to do some really exciting projects and really interesting things. But as you touched on in the intro, there's a huge majority portion of the economy, which are not big brands and big businesses, and every company needs inspiring insights on which to make best decisions and progress their company as we do as a small business ourselves.

And I think the opportunity to play a role in enabling those people to have access to qualitative insights, to benefit their businesses, grow their businesses and do new and exciting and interesting things themselves is a challenge that's always really, really appealed to me. Having said that over whatever it is now, 17 years that I've been working in the industry for a number of reasons, I think it has always remained out of reach to SMEs, certainly on a kind of regular basis. But again, coming from a technology background where focusing on the user's interests being super customer centric has always been, quite vital to how you operate and how you think and the work that you prioritize. I would like to see that, I guess because the democratization has happened to a much greater extent in user research and usability and tech focused businesses, and it seems to be spilling out of that world now and into the wider business environment.

We've always wanted to play a big part in that. But because of, I guess cost constrictions, the need for expensive recruitment, incentivization, expensive consultants to be able to design moderate analyze and report, all of that requires a lot of expertise and costs to do at the highest level, but at a level which is out of reach to many businesses. And I think now artificial intelligence, new methodologies of recruitment, incentivization, new technology platforms and the proliferation of them which are bringing the cost down, all of these things mean that access to these methods is kind of much more achievable than it ever was before. And I think AI is pushing that very firmly in that direction as it evolves over the next few years. And that has brought me to a place where I'm really excited again about the future of the industry and the role that we can play in it.

Sebastian (08:30):

It's really interesting. So we're here, the location that I'm physically in and this nice booth that's around me is a startup accelerator that's based in Ottawa. And as far as I'm aware, we're the only company here in the market research space. But one of the things that has struck me repeatedly is how much all of the advising and the mentorship here keeps zeroing back in on the importance in particular of qualitative market research with your intended customer. And I always feel like I'm in some crazy simulation where maybe everybody's talking to me and my company specifically about how valuable what we do is. I think it's one of the things that can easily get lost within the industry that outside of the big brands that we typically serve, there actually is a ubiquitous need for insights for the kind of thing that we deliver, which is insights about customers or prospective customers. If you don't understand them, you can't sell to them, you can't please them. You don't really have a functional business. So I think it's so interesting and so inspiring that what you've always focused on with Liveminds has been sort of making that more broadly available, sort of that mission of democratizing market research.

And I think to be honest, that does come from painful personal experience to some degree as well. The first business that I started was taking the concept of fantasy football, but applying it to music and being able to select your ultimate band of musicians, and you scored dependent on how they did in the charts, what radio play they got, what celebrity exposure, et cetera. So one of those ideas that literally everyone I spoke to is like, oh, that's amazing. You have to do that. We had a good time doing it, struggled to make any money out of it, but it was very early.com days. But yeah, I think we made some assumptions, which proved to be deeply incorrect, and I look back on that and think, well, actually, ultimately we were servicing a market that we didn't really understand because it became apparent. It was like, this is really the sweet spot is for teenage girls.

And I was like a 20-year-old man. So that was not a world I understood particularly intuitively. I just looked back on it and thought actually, if we'd taken the time to really understand our audience and their motivations, their barriers to how we plan to do things and listen to the more we would've had a far, far greater chance of success. As we all know, the startup world is littered with startups that have had great ideas but not been able to achieve the success they wanted from them. Startups, I guess a kind of extreme example of that, because there's a whole world of bigger businesses that are still not doing research at all. I was checked a friend of mine the other day who had a seven figure marketing budget where they've never done any research at all, ever. And it's terrifying.

Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. And I guess since I've been working in research and talking to lots of other companies along the way, it is astonishing how everyone knows that you totally need to understand what your customers need and want to be able to service 'em properly to build a big business of it. But actually, so few of them actually take the time and opportunity to do that and the problems that causes them down the line. So yeah, I think if us as an industry and us as a company can help crack that nut for all the very inspiring and passionate business leaders and their teams around the world that don't sit in Fortune 500 companies and everything, then that'll be a beautiful thing.

Sebastian (11:53):

So it strikes me that Liveminds you guys started in the early days before social media had really taken off to the extent that it has now for better and for worse, and you've been through some of the kind of big paradigm shifts in the internet, generally speaking, and its role in our lives. I'm wondering how you've understood those shifts in particular, how they've played out in your experience in the market research industry and what you think lies ahead for the industry?

Hugh (12:16):

Well, I think at the moment we're obviously in perhaps a little bit of a corrective phase post pandemic where everything in Qual had to go online. And there's been a little bit of a reaction against that, understandably, because we all spent a lot of time at home, a lot of time locked away, a lot of time online. But I think, I guess on a global scale as well, the ability to reach people directly through the internet, be able to talk to them directly via our computers and mobiles the expansion of opportunity which that provides relative to let's get some people that are quite close to us and get them into a room together in Central London or New York or Ottawaor wherever it may be. Perhaps we can't really afford to do that and replicate that in lots of different places, but we'll just accept it because that's all we can afford and therefore we have opportunity for, that's just an amazingly powerful thing in a world where commerce is increasingly conducted online, where online interaction is such a vital part of People's Day-to-Day lives.

So frankly, getting more in step with that and using research methods that are more in keeping with how people are living their lives and the way they like to communicate, the time they have available to participate in these things, et cetera, just makes complete sense. So in my perception of it, there is always going to be the companies that the industry, particularly in Qual, is currently servicing, and they're always going to have the budget and need and opportunity to do the best research they possibly can in the purest possible way, but obviously budgets get squeezed as well. So increasing access and leveraging technology is going to be a huge benefit to those companies too. Being able to recruit people through social media or through email databases to be able to use off the shelf meeting platforms, to run focus groups or do interviews, to be able to use platforms like Liveminds to get private access to People's Day-to-Day lives reported back to you in real time. It opens up a great breadth of fresh contexts, diversity of insights, diversity of inputs, and yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the industry embraces that and uses it to grow over the next few years, because I think that's where we're at and where we should be.

Sebastian (14:33):

On the subject of democratizing Qual. So you've been talking lately about how AI may play a role in democratizing access to insights. What does that mean to you and how do you see the insights discipline changing as a result?

Hugh (14:47):

I guess what it means to me is it does seem to be a term which is used slightly flexibly. I perhaps apply it in a slightly different way to others. First and foremost is probably the natural next step is not just to be the preserve of the insights team within big brands, but for the innovation team, marketing team, RE, et cetera, to be able to get access to research themselves without having to go through the insights team who often are overworked with a big pipeline of requests and needs that they have to act upon. So I guess filtering access to interest in and ultimately recognition of the value of insights to drive decision-making throughout entire organizations. I see Democratization used a lot just to mean that. And I think that's great, and I think that should happen. And it's probably mainly for budgetary reasons, if nothing else, perhaps where things will go next.

But to me, the natural evolution of that as well over the years, we have definitely worked with some small businesses occasionally, but it tends to be very sporadic where it's an absolutely critical piece of work decisions to be made step change in their company where they can kind of justify it to themselves. But yeah, they're business people making business decisions that they want to do in as confident and well-informed a manner as anyone in big brands as well. So to me, ultimately it means empowering those people with the insights they need to make the right decisions and move their team forward in their business forward in the best possible way.

Sebastian (16:21):

And what role do you see Liveminds playing in that process of democratization?

Hugh (16:25):

Well, hopefully providing a platform that gives them the tools they need, a price point they can afford and access to the people that they need to talk to. A sort of one stop qualitative shop is really where we want to be. I mean, our focus got the platform and also being able to provide access to people as well is educating people as to how those that want to empower themselves and do it themselves and have more control over it can do. And those people that want to lean on AI both as a way of getting past that sort of blank canvas, but also perhaps certain circumstances leaning on it entirely to help them get the insights they need. I think we're not there yet. Certainly some use cases, limited set of use cases, some AI might be able to achieve that. But as I think we all know incredible though, AI is already, there's still a journey to go on and many, many improvements to be made until you might want to rely on its output entirely to inform your decision making.

Sebastian (17:31):

Last question, what keeps you motivated?

Hugh (17:33):

I'm really excited about AI just as a technologist. It's amazing to see a sort of breakthrough technology appear has just completely kind of reinvigorated my enthusiasm for what's possible with technology. I think in some ways I perhaps became a bit of a cynic about the having worked in social media for a very long time, perhaps became quite cynical about the impact it's had on the world in many respects, as I think many people have. But there's no doubt that it's also amazing in huge number of ways as well. AI obviously has that potential for bad as well as good. So I would like to be a part of steering that ship in a positive direction as best I can. Yeah, so I think it's partly the technology and the potential application of it and being part of that, but then also I still feel as I say, that what we really set out to achieve with qualitative research all those years ago hasn't really been possible because just as a pure technology platform, and then later on as a recruiter, it hasn't really been possible to move the dial a huge amount in terms of price point and accessibility. A convergence of developments makes that possible now. So the dream is within grasp.

Sebastian (18:55):

Yeah. Where can people find out more about Liveminds?

Hugh (18:57):

Well, they can go to our website, liveminds.com or follow us on LinkedIn where we fairly regularly post hopefully useful educational content about research and about making the most of breakthrough technologies like AI and implementing it in their work. And yeah, we've still got quite a big presence on Facebook, but that was predominantly for our recruitment piece. So yeah, LinkedIn and Via website, we'll always be happy with Connector, anyone that shares our interests and enthusiasms for research and technology.