How Askable landed major clients and 5000 users within seven months of launching without any external funding

Brisbane market research startup Askable has only been around for seven months, but it’s already looking at taking a chunk of the “archaic” $2.2 billion Australian market research industry after landing some big-name clients.

Since being founded in mid-February, the startup has already worked with the likes of Woolworths, CBS Interactive, Deloitte and Canstar; built a user base of 5000 research participants; and employed a team of 10, all while being self-funded.

So how did Askable see such growth while still in its infancy?

Co-founders Andreas Zhou and John Goleby say the key was identifying what is a critical pain point for countless companies: the prohibitive price and time taken to run market research and user experience testing.

Billed by Zhou as “the Uber for user testing”, Askable helps companies find, book and pay people for focus groups and user testing through an on-demand sharing economy model.

Participants can make between $50-$100 an hour, and Goleby says the startup is working towards having participants arrive at a company’s front door within 15 minutes of a test being requested.

It’s an offering that fills an existing gap in the market for affordable and quick user testing, a pain point Goleby and Zhou identified from founding 10-year old digital marketing agency Orange Digital, where Goleby still works. Another employee of the agency, Vivien Chang, is Askable’s third co-founder.

“I started Askable after working 10 years in digital marketing because it was painful. Really painful,” Zhou tells StartupSmart. Read more

Angela Castles - Smart Company - 15 Sep 2017