The project started with stakeholder interviews to audit the current state of research capacity, clarify the vision, and make choices on process and tools. The audit revealed what is common to most young companies…a real struggle to organize and make sense of feedback, as well as less effective research efforts that come from not having a trained researcher on staff.

Bryan led a repository design workshop that aligned the team on the structure and use of the repository. After the workshop, we set up the repository and onboarded the team. The team chose to use the Rill Insights & Design Dovetail account and transferred the project to Overpass at the end of the project.

In parallel we began training the internal team members how to conduct interviews and hone the interview guides to ensure the best quality results from each conversation. The goal was to enable the Overpass team to skillfully conduct interviews and manage feedback. In the process, we realized that support was also needed with data analysis and insight creation. In response to this need, we taught the team how to code and interpret large amounts of qualitative data. They learned to leverage Dovetail to synthesize across interviews and projects, creating insights that could drive product decisions.

Phase 2 began with a review of all past data combined with internal stakeholder and customer interviews. From that we created the ‘scaling strategist’ persona of the past and existing customer base, as well as the top three industry segments leveraging the Overpass platform. We then targeted one specific vertical to build a more robust persona for the ICP, conducting interviews to define the company profile, their needs, use cases, barriers, and more.

Concurrently we used market intelligence tools to explore what specific verticals and use cases typically utilize services like Overpass. Next, we identified top competitors within those verticals and created a detailed competitive analysis to identify gaps/ opportunities. From this data we were able to deliver a SWOT analysis that outlines the opportunity in the market.

The final step was concept validation research specifically within the ICP identified in previous research. In these interviews we explored if potential customers had a need and desire for Overpass’s differentiated value. From this, we identified barriers to adoption and improvements needed for Overpass to be a viable solution. This translated into a product market fit report and churn reduction strategy.

Rill Insights & Design conducted different types of discovery and market research and provided multiple reports for both Saleboat and Overpass over the course of two project phases. Our research showed that ICP is not always a specific vertical or persona. It can be a behavioral pattern that many companies show. With a clarified understanding of the market and ICP, Overpass can now reposition themselves to either a specific segment, or be a solution for a broad range of companies in a particular stage of growth.

Saleboat, their technological innovation, is a different outcome. While every company wants to validate their uniqueness, sometimes the most important outcome of research is to find out that your original idea is not all that unique and it is time to pivot. That is what happened; but at the same time we identified true gaps in sales enablement. Now they are testing out a concept with a small set of customers, as well as exploring new technologies that can meet needs we identified better than existing solutions. 

Overpass’ investment in robust research puts them in a position of making informed decisions with a deep understanding of the market and their opportunity.