#41 - 10x: User Research for Growth with Aazar Shad of Userpilot

We’ve heard from a lot of designers and user researchers on the show, but we’re always looking for fresh perspectives on how research can help your business. So this week, Erin and JH chatted with Aazar Shad, Head of Growth at Userpilot, about how research methods are essential to his growth strategy.

Aazar started using research methods to find our who his users were, but continued using them to grow Userpilot’s business. He talked about how secondary research helped him find the best ways to connect with his target audience, continuous interviews help him identify where to go next, and how he honed his research skills over time. 

Highlights

• [3:44] User research is essential to acquisition 
• [5:13] Aazar found that his usual toolkit wouldn’t sway the product managers he was targeting, so he’d need to meet them where they were: Google Search
• [13:03] Asking users how they would describe Userpilot to other people helped to better understand what they might search.
• [13:38] Setting notifications for keywords to conversations he may want to jump in on in Slack helped Aazar be in the right place at the right time.
• [22:39] Aazar found that asking less questions, but digging deeper during his user interviews helped him learn more about his users.
• [29:56] Asking other people to review the feedback you get from research helps to identify trends with less bias.

Related links 

• How to use Slack for social media marketing & user acquisition
• SEO strategies for leads
• Conferences as a growth channel

About our guest

Aazar Shad is a growth marketing leader and founder of The Performers, a paid social mastermind group (at the time of our interview, he was Head of Growth at Userpilot). He is the host of the podcast Growth Marketing Stories