We operate as your dedicated research arm on a quarterly retainer basis, ready to jump on critical questions without the typical delays. Here’s how projects work:
Step 1: Quick discovery call
Business challenge assessment: Within one business day, schedule 15 minutes to discuss the specific product or growth challenge you’re facing and the questions you need answered to move forward.
Research approach alignment: We determine whether this is a rapid-turnaround study (days), standard research (1-2 weeks), or strategic project (2-4 weeks).
Step 2: Research brief delivery
Detailed methodology: Within one business day, our team creates a comprehensive research brief outlining approach, timeline, deliverables, and how we’ll balance speed with rigor.
Clear success metrics: We define exactly what insights you’ll receive and how they’ll inform your product decisions or growth strategy.
Fast approval process: Once you approve the brief, we kick off within one business day. No backlog, no waiting.
Step 3: Study design & stakeholder alignment
Test plan development: We design the study methodology and share it with your team to align on internal language, recruitment criteria, and expected outcomes.
Stakeholder buy-in: We ensure everyone feels included in the process so insights land with credibility when delivered.
Research question workshopping: We help your team ask better research questions by teaching when to research versus when to ship and measure instead.
Step 4: Full-service execution
We handle everything: Recruitment, scheduling, hosting, and facilitation—whether it’s usability testing, customer interviews, surveys, or market analysis.
Live collaboration: For usability testing, your team can watch live sessions and send follow-up questions in real-time. For surveys, we share results as they come in.
Step 5: Analysis & actionable recommendations
Insights you can act on immediately: Every deliverable includes a minimum of 3 specific next actions your team can take. No vague findings or academic reports.
Defendable methodology: If stakeholders challenge the research approach, we join the meeting and back it up with data.
Clear next steps: You’ll know exactly what to do next and why, backed by user evidence that removes the guesswork from decisions.
Types of growth research projects
While your internal team focuses on strategic, long-term initiatives, we handle the urgent research that keeps projects moving forward.
Rapid-turnaround studies (completed in days):
Tree testing for information architecture validation
First-click testing and task analysis
Nomenclature and terminology testing
Targeted surveys with prospective customers
Standard studies (1-2 weeks):
Usability testing
Customer interviews
User journey mapping
A/B test design
Competitive landscape research
Strategic research projects (2-4 weeks)
Market segmentation and user clustering
Willingness-to-pay studies
Large-scale survey programs with advanced analysis
The Good’s research expertise and fresh insight has made them a valuable partner.
Their recommendations have helped us move the needle on customer engagement and drive product growth.”
Aditya Lakshminarayan
Product Marketing Manager
Adobe Cloud
Having The Good come in allows you to validate your hypotheses, your thinking, and get an early read on whether you’re going in the right direction or not.
The case for change becomes a no-brainer. All the senior team needs to do is tick it off and say, ‘yes.’”
David Humber
Head of Conversion
The Telegraph
The speed at which we obtain actionable findings has been impressive.
We are receiving rapid results within weeks and taking immediate action based on the findings, unlike past survey research that often took much longer to yield insights
Gabrielle Nouhra
Software Director of Product Marketing
PirateShip
SaaS leaders trust The Good for research that drives measurable growth
Autodesk Improves Their Registration & Checkout Experience
How we clearly defined conversion barriers and gave Autodesk a strategic roadmap of testing opportunities to improve the registration and checkout experience.
How is this different from hiring an in-house researcher?
An in-house researcher costs $140K+ annually, takes 3-5 months to hire and onboard, and has limited capacity (typically 2-3 projects per quarter).
We start within 48 hours, handle 2-3 projects simultaneously per quarter, include all tooling and participant incentives in our retainer, and bring 16 years of cross-industry experience from day one.
You get multi-disciplinary, senior-level expertise without recruitment risk, benefits costs, or training time.
What’s included in the quarterly retainer?
Everything you need for 2-3 research projects per quarter: project management, research design, all tooling and software, participant recruitment for a set number of recruits, study facilitation, analysis, and deliverables. No surprise charges for incentives or tools.
You also get weekly check-in calls, live session observation for stakeholder involvement, and 24-hour research triage to determine what actually needs studying versus what you already know.
Can we start with a single project before committing to a retainer?
Yes! We’re open to an initial test project so you can experience our process and quality firsthand.
However, 90% of our clients move to quarterly retainers after that first project because they realize the value isn’t in individual studies, it’s in having research capacity available exactly when critical questions arise.
The retainer model eliminates the recurring onboarding friction that slows down traditional agency relationships.
How do you ensure insights are actionable, not just interesting?
Every deliverable includes a minimum of 3 specific next actions your team can take immediately. We don’t deliver academic reports or vague findings; we deliver roadmaps. Our job is to answer your questions clearly enough that you know exactly what to build, test, or optimize next.
How quickly do you deliver insights?
Once you’re on a retainer, we kick off any project within one business day of your request.
Quick-turn studies (tree tests, surveys) deliver results in 5 business days. Standard usability tests and interviews take 10 business days. Strategic projects run 2-4 weeks.
Compare this to the 3-month internal research backlog most teams face, or the 4-6 weeks traditional agencies require per project. Speed without sacrificing rigor is our specialty.
When should product teams do user research?
Product and growth teams should conduct user research early and often. Some examples of specific situations where it comes in handy are before building new features, when conversion rates stagnate, before major redesigns, and when making pricing decisions.
Research is most valuable when it prevents costly mistakes. Validating assumptions costs days, while fixing wrong decisions costs months.
The key is timing: research early enough to influence decisions but fast enough not to delay shipping.
What’s the ROI of user research in product strategy?
Organizations that do research report 63% higher customer satisfaction, 35% better product-market fit, and 34% increased retention. Companies prioritizing customer experience see 4-8% higher revenue growth than the market average. The ROI comes from building the right features first rather than fixing wrong ones later.
Does The Good only work with SaaS companies?
No. We optimize digital experiences for companies across industries. If you sell a product online, you’ll benefit from our deep understanding of your business model.
We’ve developed specialized expertise in SaaS because the optimization challenges are unique. Post-PMF SaaS companies need to optimize for metrics like activation, time-to-value, and trial conversion, which are very different from ecommerce or lead generation.
Work with a specialized consultancy, not a ‘do everything’ agency
Get access to a dedicated pod of experts in HCI, design, research, development, and more.
We leverage learnings from tens of thousands of research data points.
Our proprietary frameworks are trusted by leaders at Adobe, HubSpot, IDEO, and Microsoft.
500+ proven optimization patterns from working with Fortune 500 and scaling SaaS companies.
On average, team members have 10 years of experience in digital optimization.
Our founder has written three best-selling books on optimization.
Ready to drive research-led growth?
Insights delivered in as few as 5 business days
Wrong participants? We re-recruit at our expense
Monthly research question workshops included
Contact us to discuss how we can become your team’s embedded research capability.
No more waiting months for answers. No more missed opportunities because insights came too late.
Our rapid research team is ready when you are.
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