Big companies spend millions on research, have entire teams and the fanciest tools money can buy.

But they’re also slow. At a glacial pace, big companies gather data while startups move.

While big brands are scheduling their quarterly research review… You can talk to 15 users, ship a feature, and test it out. And start another sprint. Learn. Adapt. Repeat.

That’s the magic of research ops for startups.

You don’t need much to do it right either. A small team is your secret weapon here. Below are some simple systems and habits any startup can use to build an incredible research operation… In a fraction of the time (and price) of big competitors.

Here’s what’s covered:

• What Is Research Ops For Startups?
• Sentiment Analysis Interviews Explained
• Why Startups Beat Big Companies At Research
• How To Build Your Startup Research Ops
• 3 Tools That Keep Your Research Ops Lean
• Common Mistakes That Slow Startups Down

What Is Research Ops For Startups?

At it’s core, research ops is how you run user research inside your company.

For startups, that translates into: systems, tools, and habits that help your team speak with users, gather insights, and take action.

Boom. That’s research ops.

A basic research ops setup includes four things:

• A reliable way to find & recruit users
• A central place to store interview notes
• A repeatable process for tagging insights
• One person responsible for the entire process

The goal here isn’t to build the perfect research ops foundation… It’s to build something that allows your team to learn something new every week.

Sentiment Analysis Interviews Explained

Sentiment analysis interviews are focused user interviews around how someone feels about your product, a problem, or their overall experience.

The goal isn’t just surface level information, but diving deeper into the emotions behind their answer. The frustration, happiness, anger, and relief they feel when using your product.

The tool you use to conduct sentiment analysis interviews matters here too. Most tools start to get pricey at larger scales, which makes sense. Most panels offered by big brands don’t line up perfectly with what your startup needs either. That’s why a lot of teams have been searching for alternatives for UserInterviews that work better for their stage.

Sentiment analysis interviews matter so much for startups because emotional connections lead to buying decisions. When you fully understand how your users feel about certain aspects of your product, you can start building features that resonate on an emotional level.

One of the biggest benefits of sentiment analysis interviews for small teams? Sample size doesn’t matter here. You don’t need 100 interviews to find major trends.

5-10 well conducted interviews per user persona is more than enough to discover actionable emotional patterns you can validate right away.

Pick a tool that integrates into your current workflow. Don’t try to adapt your workflow to fit a tool that was built for 500+ employees.

Why Startups Beat Big Companies At Research

Teams of five beat teams of 500 when it comes to talking to users. Here’s why.

Speed: Within your startup, someone can make the decision to start running interviews on Monday and be talking to users by Wednesday. At a larger company, getting that same decision approved may take you three meetings and an entire legal review.

Access: You’re already talking to users on customer support, sales calls, and product demos. Most of the biggest companies in the world would give anything to speak to your customers daily like you do.

Actionable insights: You ship new features in days, not months.

Why does speed matter so much? Well, consider startup failures…

Nearly half of startup failures are the result of no market need. To translate: businesses built something no one wanted to buy.

Your research ops is your insurance policy against building the wrong thing.

How To Build Your Startup Research Ops

Building your research ops structure can be easy. Here’s a simple four-step process that many high-output startups use to talk to users faster than their competition.

Step 1: Pick One Person To Own Research Ops

Establishing an owner is critical to your research ops process. While you don’t need a full-time researcher to make this work… Somebody needs to own the process. Product managers, designers, and even founders can be research ops champions. Just make sure you have one person who ensures wheels keep turning each week.

Step 2: Build A Simple Recruiting Pipeline

How will you talk to users if you don’t have users to talk to? Here’s where most startups fail. They want all these insights, but don’t actually spend any time recruiting users to gain those insights from.

Try one (or all) of these options:

• Existing customers (email list, in app messaging)
• Recent sign-ups who didn’t convert
• Support tickets / cancellations
• Places your ideal users spend time online

You should always have 3-5 interviews booked each week. Any less and you’ll dry up on new insights, too many and you’ll burn out users.

Step 3: Create A Simple Insight Repository

Find a central location to house your interview notes. Putting it on a shared Notion page, Airtable base, or even a Google Doc will do the trick. Whatever you do, make sure anyone on your team can easily access past insights before you interview another user about the same thing.

3 Tools That Keep Your Research Ops Lean

A lean tool stack is critical for your research ops. Here’s the exact tools you need to talk to users on a weekly basis.

• A recruiting tool: To help you find users to interview each week
• A recording + transcription tool: To record what users say during interviews
• A repository tool: To house your insights month over month

That’s literally it. Startups don’t need every shiny new tool that comes out. According to The State of User Research 2021 report, 59% of researchers use spreadsheets or docs to track their research. The point is: simple works.

Common Mistakes That Slow Startups Down

Don’t make these rookie mistakes. Learn from the best and watch your startup research operations fly.

Common startup research ops mistakes:

• Running one big study every quarter. Do small interviews every week.
• Only interviewing happy customers. Reach out to churned users too.
• Keeping insights to yourself. Share interview notes with the whole team.
• Ignoring sentiment analysis. Ask “why” when needed.
• Building a process for your startup that resembles a big company. You’re not one.

Correct these issues and your research ops process will feel like second nature. Ignore them and you’ll find yourself drowning in interviews and unused spreadsheets.

Wrapping Up

Teams of five can out-run teams of 500 at user research. Here’s how:

• Pick one person to own your startup research ops
• Interview 3-5 users each week
• Run sentiment analysis interviews to gather emotional data
• Only use three total tools to keep your stack lean
• Share your learnings with the entire team. Don’t bottle them up in a folder on your computer.

Your small team is your biggest competitive advantage. Use it. Talk to your users weekly, learn what they have to say, and ship features based on those learnings.

Big companies can’t operate at your speed. That’s your edge.