Why Your Customer Feedback Is Lying To You

Cat Agostinho built Imagen Insights on a bet that most brands get wrong: real, unedited feedback from real people beats any dashboard, survey, or assumption a company makes about its own audience. Tomorrow Group agreed enough to acquire it in March 2026, at six times EBITDA.

Cat explains why the feedback most founders trust often tells them nothing, why the loudest agreement in the room can be the least useful signal, and why the businesses getting this right are asking a very different question before they build anything at all. Stop guessing what your customers want, and start finding out what they're actually hiding from you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

A lot of founders would say they're customer led. They've got the dashboard, the MPS score, the quality survey, but there's a difference between data that looks like listening and input that actually changes what you build. It can be hard to tell which one you've got, and you don't find out until growth stalls, and nobody can say why. My guest today, Kat, built a research platform where real people can answer the questions brands actually need answered. And that idea got her acquired at six times a bit though. So by the end of this, you'll be able to tell the difference in your own business, because she's going to tell you exactly what she looks for. Hi, I'm James Johnson, founder and CEO coach. Welcome to Peer Effect, the podcast where your peers will tell you what's unlocking their 10 million plus business. Remember to hit subscribe before we get started. And now on with the show. So, Kat, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, me too, because I think we're going to dive into something that people might think they know what they're doing, but might not, which is my question to start with: like, do you think founders understand their customers?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Some do, but I think a lot of founders are guessing what customers want and not actually going to the customer or the consumer themselves and asking them for their real feedback. And then that assumption ultimately can lead to putting out something into that world, be that a product or a creative or social media, that isn't actually grounded in what that consumer or what that customer actually feels and thinks.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

And so how can they understand them better then?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Well, we have created an amazing product called Imagine Insights, which is a proprietary piece of technology that connects brands directly with their consumers. And the reason that we did that is because we found that lots of brands, while doing great, great work, weren't always fully understanding what their audiences think, feel, how they behave. So what we've done is we've created this platform that allows these brands to access their consumers directly, ask them questions, and get raw, unedited feedback and verbatim that they can use to then help to shape that creative or that messaging or that product or that development of strategy. And the power that comes with that is that you are hearing directly from a human. So this isn't synthetic data, it's not AI generated, it is directly from that consumer. And they're so brutal. And actually, if you are willing as a founder, as a brand, to be open to that type of feedback, the power within that that that can help to change something for the positive in what you're trying to achieve is so, so great.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Well, we'll dive into like how it changed. I was because you said if they're willing, what do you find people may not be willing to do it?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

There is an issue with time, I would say that people want to rush things through, maybe don't have a long enough process to feel that they need to gather the right data. And there's a historic element of making assumptions. And a key example of that would be to say, Gen Z are having a break from social media and they are not loyal at all to any brands, and they only want XYZ from you know their their brand. But how do you know that? Have you asked Gen Z what they think and feel? Have you asked them a specific set of questions before you go and make that assumption and then put whatever it is out into the world? So I think there's an issue of time and then an issue of actually, I think I probably know my audience because I work with that audience day to day. But actually, if you are not part of that group of people, plus there's various differences within that group of people anyway, how are you really gonna know?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Hmm. So there's kind of like a time end that people actually in a rush to get something out, and there's just this assumption that they they already know.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

How how doing what you do break does that break that down then?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So when so we have thousands of, and it's not just Gender, Gen Z an example, but we have thousands of, we call them a community, and the reason that we call them a community of people is because we have a one-to-one dialogue with with these people. Not all of them, because we have thousands and thousands all over the world, but we've treat we treat these people as if they are, you know, providing a valuable, ongoing service to our brands, and not to forget, they actually get rewarded properly. So every time that they provide an insight, they get paid in cash. So there's no being entered into a competition to potentially win a voucher. It's it's it's monetary value, which of course everybody wants, and can become a side hustle, if you like, to to these consumers. And if brands can come to us and get this really valuable feedback in a very short space of time, so we can turn these insights around within 72 hours. Actually, that solves that element of the time poor side of things. Actually, I know that if I go out and I ask the imagined community a set of questions, so let's say three questions to 25 people each, I'm gonna get that data, it's gonna be unedited. I can see that there is so much value in what these people are saying, and I know that it's directly from human beings, I can then feed that back into my timeline and my deadlines without it impacting my time too much.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Okay, so you can solve the first one, which is sort of the time-based thing. That sounds like quick quite a quick turnaround. I imagine that like you do a traditional survey or something, and it takes it takes quite a lot longer.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

It does, it does. And also we have got, so I mentioned that the data isn't AI driven, but we do have AI built into the platform. And what that allows to do is while the human team that we have internally are checking all of the data and all of the insights, we also have AI built in to check for plagiarism, to make sure that people are writing full sentences and also to help surface themes and baseline sentiment as well. So actually, just going back to that time poor piece, if you've got three questions to 25 people, that's a lot of data to read. But actually, if you click a button within the Imagine platform, it summarizes all of that data for you and picks out two to four themes that you can then take, and that could go to your stakeholders internally. So that's kind of summarizing that first part for the time pool. And then I guess to your second point, in terms of solving the assumption part, that's really where the education piece comes in. And for me, you know, as as much as possible to spend time with brands, really talking to them about the value of doing this piece of work. And just from my extensive experience in the industry, what often happens is research is one of the first things to get cut. And sadly, and of course I'm gonna be slightly biased here, it is the most fundamental because again, if you're coming back to that, I've made an assumption, and we can use an example of let's say you're putting a creative out there for any brand, you've made an assumption about what the audience may resonate with. That creative then goes out and people don't resonate with it. But you haven't done the research, and therein lies the product problem. So there's so much, there's such a cost associated with not doing that research that it's really fundamental for that education piece and for me to be visible to as many brands to just talk to them about the need and how impactful that will be to the overall product.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I mean, because you you hear about when someone's podcast about a month ago talking about uh customer interviews. So, how does this differ from let's say a customer interview? Because it sounds like you're saying you can't ask the question, we'll match you with the right type of people. Yes. And this is kind of like broad 25 people reply, you've got a lot of stuff. How does that compare to sort of a customary interview process?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

So the way that we like to position, imagine, is a focus group at scale. So you are still getting that benefit of that one-to-one dialogue, but you're just doing it via technology. So you're still getting that really rich, you know. People, when you see this, what how people write, it's exactly as they would speak, you know, and there's spelling mistakes included in there, and it's not grammatically correct because that's not how you would speak anyway. And there's a lot of personality in there. So actually, it is the powerful thing, is you get that same element of doing a focus group, but you just get it at scale.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And do you get the opportunity to like so ask follow-on questions?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah, absolutely. And also we can segment two different categories. For example, we work a lot with pet care brands, and they have a specific request that they want, you know, pet parents. So it will be a cat owner, a dog owner, or somebody that is looking to um purchase a cat or a dog as a pet. In that instance, that's obviously very specific and very granular, but it's so important to the brand to be able to do that. And then there's other factors like age and location, so city and country, and also any of those prerequisites, i.e., you have to be in market for a particular purchase of a particular product. So all of that can be really done as you would run a focus group. You know, if you were running a focus group for a beauty product, you would probably want beauty enthusiasts of a certain age range within that room.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

And could could someone go, okay, well, here are my questions, here are my customers. Can you run this for my existing customers? Or do they have to go to like your community?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

So we can do both. So uh earlier in this year we added an element to the platform where brands can upload their own community. So they then would have the beauty of both. They could then ask ours and then they could then ask theirs as well. So yes, both it's both is possible.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

And is this more sort of for brands testing sort of creatives as opposed to more, let's say, startups testing a product launch, or can it can it apply to it?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah, and anyone on that spectrum, to be honest, if you are in market, so if you if you have a brand new product, actually it's a really great way of testing that. So you could everything can be confidential. They community can sign NDAs and you can get that feedback, especially if you're in that developmental stage, because it's so crucial to get that feedback to then use that to develop. And you know, yes, we do stuff after, you know, when it comes to, for example, social media assets or creative. Sometimes that can already have launched and you're getting feedback, you know, in real time after launch. But actually, the beauty and the power is doing it before. And that's what we try to encourage is if you're looking at even in your strategic development, before you even get to product development stage, you know, what is your aim? What are you trying to achieve? That's a really good time to test as well. We do a lot of proposition testing. Uh, that could be a tagline that your, you know, a brand is thinking about, it could be an idea that you're trying to concept. So actually, the earlier on in that journey, the better.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

And where do you find people tend to ask? Is it when you say earlier the better? Do they tend to ask for early or do they tend to ask for it later?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah, there's a mix. I would say people that have worked with us a few times, recurring clients, definitely now see the value in doing that earlier. What happens is it tends to be slightly later, and I wouldn't say end, you know, end goal, but I would say somewhere in that middle of that process, pre pre-launch, for example, that we get a lot of people coming in. But actually, then that's our chance to go, look, this is great, but what would benefit you is to start that a bit earlier in the process, and then we just see a lot more value coming that way.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Right, it's kind of like coaching. People always come to you six months after the problem has been, as opposed to like ahead of it. So, so so if you were like clearly this whole research customer knowledge is an area you're very strong in, like, what would you advise sort of founders of scale up businesses? How should they be using this?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So I would again, if you are starting something, so you have your idea, you have your business plan, and you are, let's say, you're a brand that is focused on, you know, millennials is your core consumer group, then I would suggest that you get together a group of these millennials via the platform and ask them a series of questions that are really going to help you to shape that business idea. So is that that you are working on a particular element of that business idea, i.e., is it a physical product? Or actually, is it, you know, a particular location? If it's a digital business, is it your website? And start to build that community around that stage of your work. So you mentioned it earlier that you can ask follow-up questions. What you could do is you could get a group of people together who are with you on that journey. So you could actually have that feedback on an ongoing basis, and then each stage, you know, as that founder, that you are grounding that in research, but you're also getting really tangible changes coming from that research because you are continuing that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

And it sounds like you're doing so the heavy lifting in terms of collating that group as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, and to be honest, it's not. I mean, yes, obviously it is work, and we have an amazing team that are community-driven and focused on that community, but also the technology does a lot of the work, and that's really what we wanted to get to when we started seven years ago. It was very much all managed services. And then we realized quite quickly that the way to scale was going to be to make it into a self-serve platform. That said, it's not completely self-served. So we have a self-serve element, but then we also have a managed element because we appreciate that there are some teams that we work with. So with brands, we work with a number of different roles within a brand organization from marketers through to insights people. So if you have an insights team, they are much more likely to go, I'm going to use the self-serve element of the platform because I can ask them the questions that I want to ask. Yes, we review them, but I feel they feel more comfortable using that element. Then marketers actually they want that expertise from us to help manage that process. So yes, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the background, but also the technology does a lot of the heavy lifting.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Because it feels like you can almost build through research, build customers as well, potentially. So a sense of ownership of being on the journey, influencing the product. Yes. Kind of have you seen that happening?

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah, we have done less, I would say less so. Um, but we have, we definitely have, like I mentioned before, we have recurring clients. So they want to do a similar thing with that same audience because they see the value in again having that focus group, you know, having that regular dialogue with people that are then on board to help shape them. That doesn't mean necessarily they're going to agree with everything they're doing, because actually that would be the wrong thing to do. Um, and actually you want it's I use this example, but if you were on a panel, for example, if you have everybody agreeing with you, there's not really any value in that. So actually, what what you do want is a difference of opinion, but to have that difference of opinion moving forward over time can be extremely beneficial for you as a as a brand.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Hmm. What so Eric Reese, who's a lean startup, would say that sort of the only the only opinion that matters is customers spending money. What what's what's what's your view on that?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I mean, you know, customers obviously you need to spend money for for for brands to make money, uh, but there's a step before that, and customers aren't going to spend money if they are not resonating with your brand. And they resonate with your brand in a number of ways, and you know, loyalty now is really hard to achieve, and you have to keep up with the pace, you have to keep moving, and you're not always gonna get it right. Brands don't always get it right, so there's a there's kind of a number of things to unpack there. One, you have to be prepared to change as a brand, you have to listen to your change of consumers. So if we take it in kind of Gen Z, millennial, Gen X um demographic ways, people are gonna grow. Okay, people get older, people change, their preferences change. If you still think that you're gonna hit every one of those people within those age ranges, that's almost impossible to do unless you're gonna evolve. Your conversation has to evolve, the way you communicate with each audience has to evolve, the content that you put out, the messaging, the way that you're having a dialogue with them, you know, even if you think of if you have a social media channel and people are commenting, you have to think about the way that you're commenting to those people. So, yes, I get customers need to spend money, but there's so much more to get to that point before they spend money. And it's really hard, you know, it's a really difficult thing for a brand to navigate and be relevant and stay relevant and you know, try and gain that loyalty. But unless you're talking to your customers all the time and really hearing what they think, then again you get into that assumption of saying, well, they're just gonna spend money because that's the brand that we are. And in reality, I don't think that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Wait, do you I mean, do you see behavioral how rapidly do you think behaviour shifts within within consumer segments?

unknown 18:01

A lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

A lot. And I would say there are traits of, you know, you can't generalize certain groups of people because that's not possible, but there are definitely traits that you see. And, you know, there's so many factors, everything that's going on in the world, where you live, what stage of your life you're at, the education that you have, the access to technology, there's so many things that are constantly changing. You know, AI, everybody's talking about AI, everybody's working with AI, but they're also a whole proportion of people that aren't. And so if you then suddenly assume that everyone is completely focused and completely on board with, say, AI, then you're missing a whole subset of people that aren't. So things are just changing so rapidly, and it is impossible. I'm not saying brands have to be able to keep up with everything that's changing, but just listening and doing that piece where you are actually trying to hear what people are saying, even if you asked a question, you know, what are the what are the things in the world that are challenging you the most? That's gonna be different today than it would be in two weeks' time because, you know, whatever happens in another country, the news, etc., all of that is gonna have a different impact on you over time. So it's continually changing.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

It always feels weird to not when you put it like that in terms of this, it's it's quite rapid change. You're putting out new products, the market itself is changing. It feels kind of weird we don't spend more time asking people what's what's going on for them. Generally, and about our product.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah. And I I have this thing at um I did a LinkedIn post about it actually, about small talk. And I don't mean small talk as in just talk about the weather. I mean asking somebody how they are and what you did at the weekend takes two minutes, but the power in that and how people perceive that is the trust that you build, and it shows some somebody that you're interested in them. So I always, you know, everyone uses different tools for work, they use Slack a lot. Not saying that every single Slack message is, how are you? You know, tell me about your weekend, but if you're having a first conversation with somebody and you ask them that question, there's just so much, there's so much power in going, okay, this person cares, and therefore they're gonna hear me and they're gonna want to listen to me, and then we have a dialogue. And the same comes with research. You are asking people what they think because you genuinely care and you want to use that to then make something else better.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Hmm. It almost feels like I imagine your clients, you kind of get like different levels of as they get better at using it, they get better results. Is that right? Like it almost like it's almost like sort of use it for first time, it's like, oh, there's an assumption that you'll you'll use it and get something, and then by the time you're kind of like an expert user, you're getting. I'm just perhaps you could talk me through that, like what they start thinking they want it for and what they get, and then when they're really nailing it, what that's like.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

A lot of that comes from from the questions itself. So we'll start, for example, with quite broad questions, can be quite closed questions, so they're not an open end, they don't encourage much discussion, there's not really any anything that would help that consumer or that customer to go, oh yeah, I really feel like I can answer this question. So they tend to start quite narrow, and then what you see over time is that they get more experience with how to ask the questions, what to ask for. Actually, I'm getting loads of really juicy insights here with really tangible things that I can take and make changes back off the back of. And then that and that's going to improve over time. So a lot of it comes within that question and also the prompt within those questions if you're looking for a specific set of people, and then understanding again how to distill that information. If you are using the self serve side of the platform, then a lot of that is on you to distill that information using the tools that we all. have on the platform. But if it's a managed service, then they're still very heavily reliant on us. So what we try what we try to do is coach as you would coach them through what makes a great question, then what the output is going to be, and ultimately then you will feel more empowered to write better questions and to notice that the engagement with those questions is better.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

And do they find like more use cases as well? So it's kind of like they're asking better questions, which you say I totally agree as a coach. So once it comes down to the question you ask. But I imagine you you uncover like what are all the use cases that people are uncovering on this?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah. There are so many use cases and often again it can start quite broad of oh yeah we have a question or we'd like some answers. Okay, well let's think about the stages that you're going through. So say it could be you are working on multiple campaigns through a year. Every one of those campaigns is going to be slightly different. What is the goal for each of those campaigns and what is the role that insights are going to play? And that's really that consultative element because often people can go I know I need to do some research and that's great and I know I can get some good stuff back. But have I thought about what I'm actually using that research for and as if you're writing a case study for example what is that output and how did those insights impact what I am going to do? So if it's for example product testing or creative testing did you as a brand physically change that product or that design of the product or that creative asset as a result of the insights that we provided and that's really the bit that we're trying to get people to is understanding the value that it has in that process. So whether that's in your campaign process, whether that's in your very early stage of development, what's that impact and that goal and what is it that you want to achieve similarly as you would do with ROI. But we're just we're we're relating that back to you've got this verbatim, how are you using it and how did that impact that end goal?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Do you find that people ever ignore the data that they gather?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Oh I mean I'd love to say no of course they read every single word but I'm sure I'm sure that I'm sure that they do and you know whether that comes down to time or whether that comes down to potentially not liking what's being said. I mentioned it at the start but this some of this feedback is really brutal and it you know you have to you have to be prepared for that people will say they don't like what you are putting out there into the world or what you're proposing to put out there. And if that's the case and you choose to ignore that then you know so so be it. That's your that's your decision. But then maybe insights in this way isn't the right thing for you. But yes I'm sure that does happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

When I was running my business we used to think called engagement days every six months I mean the first time we did it there was there was way more negative feedback than there was anything else. Now you you keep on doing it and actually as you're making those changes each time it's kind of like the balance of positive versus negative is starts shifting. I wonder whether that's the same for research.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah it is and you know there's there's always going to be there's always going to be stuff that isn't great and there's always going to be stuff that is and and it's again up to it's up to us to help you to distill that and and pick out what the most important parts are but ultimately as a if you're going to spend this money on doing this you also have to be you have to take that responsibility of how you're going to position that internally.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I'm wondering like when when you get the results is it ever the case where it's kind of like there's a consensus one way but actually the true insight is the outliers?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yes. Oh yeah absolutely and and we see a lot of that I mean there'll be common themes as I said and there'll be things that people agree with generally but actually we look for those nuggets of information and those insights that are different and that stand out because sometimes there's so much power in something that something that has just come out of a conversation naturally. It has just come out of what they have thought naturally that is so, so important to pick out and again when we're yes the platform does a lot of that work for us but also as a human team you know we are here to go look we've really noticed this and we think you should have a look into this and actually what we recommend is to do a follow-up question around that specific part and that's where that follow-up comes into play.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

I was wondering that how do you how do you know what is just like an outlier versus something that you need to dig into and it's like you just it's by doing follow-up questions to to the whole audience?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

So again you could do a subset or you could do the whole audience and you could also use the same group of people or you could use a different group of people. So it kind of depends on on what you want to achieve. If you're looking for maybe a broader so you you've distilled one particular theme and you want to then go out to another larger group of people because you want a difference another different set of opinions then you can absolutely do that. But for us it's yeah really identifying as the imagined team saying we really think that this is a good area for you to follow up with because this could be really beneficial to your business and actually you're going to get a lot more if you delve into this area. And then over time you could start tracking that you could either ask a very similar question which we have some clients that do they ask the same question every single month to the same set of people and they look at how that changes over time. Sort of coming back to what we were saying about things changing in as you as a person change over time. But equally you could then go actually I'm just going to focus on a very set small group of people and we're just going to brainstorm that particular area. So again it comes back to what is the goal and what do you want to achieve and then as the experts here for us to recommend what we think you should be doing for the next stage. And you know for us the best thing is that clients keep coming back and we have retained clients that are with us for for the long time we also do project work. And if people keep coming back to us and keep doing that work then we're providing that value and that's our aim as a business is that we can always keep people coming back.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

I wonder whether it's all can become a bit addictive.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

It's kind of like yeah for me yes I mean this is literally my my world and I don't see I'm you know I'm sort of busy biased but I just think well why doesn't everyone spend money on doing it positive insights but I I wonder if you also like stop being willing to make your own decision I need to check that I need to I need to I need to like myself yeah yeah well we did we did it a lot around so when we started the business we the whole proposition of imagine insights didn't really you know from from the name for the colour schemes our branding all of those things came out from us doing groups ourselves. Amazing so yeah it was very much we've always said that and that we were when we started we were focused on Gen Z only and then we grew into Millennium Gen X audiences but it was very much about using young people's voices to help us to shape what we're offering because if they're going to be a part of our community and wanting to work with us and get paid by us then we want them also to evolve with us and to have their ideas because we're practicing what we preach and we still do that now.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

What what's the most painful insight that you've got from for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 29:34

That the proposition doesn't really make sense that they don't like the language the design doesn't land it looks too basic you know there's just that so so much stuff so much stuff but equally that's that's also some of the most beneficial because without that if everyone just agreed and said oh yeah it's really great and we love what you do you've got nothing to go on then and there's no one that has the perfect output that doesn't exist. So you have you have to continue to ask audiences.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

And so how do when you get that coming through how do you then know what to change around that say like you're you're getting it might be an outlier it might be a subset it might be you might be getting some feedback at the same time going actually that's great.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Like it looks lovely where how do you know what to index on so again it would come back to that what am I trying to achieve so I am I am a brand I have a new proposition I am creating a new tagline and this needs to be launched in three months I need to know that I have people on board that are behind this proposition and that would ultimately buy from my brand okay that's that's that's an aim. We look at that information there might not be from the first set of insights there might not be any particular thing leading there might not be anything that is really standing out going okay we need to change XYZ but there might be. Then we would ask another question to say let's drill down so let's say there is some really great feedback and it says you need to change that tagline we absolutely hate it it doesn't resonate with us at all I would never buy from your brand okay let's ask why what is it about that tagline that didn't resonate with you what would you change what would make you want to buy this particular brand and that's when you start that drilling down piece. So you would go have to go through a series of questions. So you know that time element like I mentioned things being turned around quickly obviously is turned around very quickly but you also have to have a little bit of time on your end to go, okay, if I need to ask those follow-up questions I just need a little bit longer to be able to do that to then implement the changes. So then that drilling down asking repeat questions about a specific element that is you know that focus of I need to know this is going to land and it's going to resonate what else do I need to ask to keep that happening then once you've got that data if you feel that there's enough there to go and change that proposition for the better then you can start making those changes so for so if there's a founder listening and they're going okay I I think I get I get this like I'm probably not doing enough customer research um I should probably be doing this earlier than I thought I should and I can see how I do this quite quickly. What is one thing they could do after listening to this episode right away so coming back to that not losing sight of what makes your business valuable in the first place that's like the number one so just making sure that you have you you are very set in your aim and your ambition but you are open to changing. So you are open to developing that with customers in mind. So that's that's kind of a first point of going right I believe in what I'm going to do. I'm starting this business I fully believe in what I'm going to do but I know that I'm going to need some help in the way along the way and I know that to bring consumers on board and to bring my customers on board I'm going to have to ask them. And if I ask them and they come on board with me at this very early stage and help me to shape this then the likelihood is that they're going to be with me for the longer term. So the answer to your question is ask your consumers know who your consumers are ask those consumers and be prepared to take that feedback on because if you're if you want to ask and you don't take that feedback on then there's kind of no point in you asking anyway and you are then coming back to that very first point you are then making an assumption that everybody's going to love your brand even though you haven't asked them I suppose I suppose it's tempting to think that you're Steve Jobs and you just know better.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

It's like people don't know what people don't know what they need. I'm just gonna when I create it though suddenly I'm gonna give them the iPod and they're gonna go oh my god I didn't know I needed an iPod or an iPad yeah fair enough but I I there aren't many Steve Jobs is around no no and maybe you know maybe he could have done some research at the start with us but hey if we're here this has been this has been really interesting. Uh I just I think the I'm taking this is just that you've really you can do this earlier than you think and you can do this quicker than you think. Because I think I agree with you I think a lot of people think oh I'm not gonna do the research because I'm I'm in a rush my I don't have too much runway I can't afford a month two months of research I just need to put it out and see what happens yeah but it sounds like you can really do this rigorously and quickly and sounds like you can save yourself quite a lot of pain down the road. Exactly exactly that well thank you very much for coming on today that was that was really interesting. Thank you so much remember to subscribe if you want more actual insight from founders scaling now thanks for listening and happy scaling