As Rep Data brings together SightX, Owl, ReDem and Research Defender, we're launching a Brand Spotlight series to introduce the companies and founders behind each part of the business.
Each company was built to solve a different challenge within the research process, and together they are working to connect research design, respondent sourcing, fraud prevention, data quality and analysis into a more unified workflow. Over the coming months, we'll sit down with the founders and leaders behind each brand to learn how they got started, what problems they set out to solve and what we are building together for market research.
We're starting with SightX.
Founded by Tim Lawton and Naira Musallam, SightX has grown from an idea focused on research analytics into a platform that supports the full research process. We spoke with Tim about how the company evolved, what makes SightX different and why joining Rep Data felt like a natural next step.
Helping organizations understand consumers
Tim starts with the practical purpose behind the technology.
Researchers use SightX to answer questions about products, pricing, messaging, innovation, brand perception and consumer preferences. “Ultimately, the platform helps you understand consumers and consumer behavior.” Some teams conduct research every day, while others run projects only occasionally. Tim says the platform was built to support both experienced researchers and people who may not have formal research training. “An entry-level researcher can get on the platform and still conduct the same types of studies as an advanced researcher with years of experience.”
SightX supports a range of methodologies and research needs while keeping the experience approachable for different types of users. Tim also points to the pace at which consumer behavior changes today and the role technology plays in helping researchers keep up. “What market research is and will continue to be at its core is fundamentally about humans and asking questions,” he says. Technology, automation and AI speed up design and analysis, but they ultimately serve as enablers, rather than a replacement for the researcher.
Tim shares that SightX combines the speed technology makes possible with the depth researchers have traditionally expected from full-service research. “What SightX allows is a way to keep up with the change in consumer behaviors.”
How SightX got started
Today's SightX looks very different from the company Tim and Naira originally set out to build. “When we first started talking, it was initially around automation of the analysis and analytics.”
Naira's background in research methodology, analytics and academia gave her firsthand experience with how researchers worked with data. Tim brought experience from the military, finance and investment banking. They put their heads together to start exploring ways to improve the research process. As they dug deeper, they found themselves looking beyond analysis. Researchers were moving between survey platforms, analytics tools and reporting systems. Solving one part of the process often exposed limitations somewhere else.
And eventually the conversation shifted, “We should probably build the survey tool ourselves.” Tim laughs when he says it now. “It ended up being a lot tougher, more challenging than we probably ever thought it would be.”
What followed was an expansion from a single idea into a platform that spans both data collection and analysis. “The two halves of the research equation are really the data collection and the data analysis.”
Building everything in one platform
When asked what he's quietly proud of about the platform, Tim immediately points to something many customers never see. “Everything in SightX is native to SightX. It's all proprietary.” Building the technology internally gave the team more control over how the platform evolved.
“There are a handful of companies that just do dashboarding, just do analysis, just do text analysis or just do video interviews.” SightX expanded across those categories, bringing advanced methodologies, analytics and reporting capabilities together within a single system. For Tim, that approach creates advantages beyond convenience. “It allows us to innovate faster.”
Because the technology is built internally, the team can continue adding capabilities and responding to customer needs without relying on external platforms or development roadmaps.
Coming into research from outside the industry
One of the more interesting parts of the SightX story is that neither founder came from market research. “We didn't come from the industry, so it may have been a good thing because we didn't get so myopic,” he says. “We were just kind of wide-eyed, like, 'Hey, we should do this,' probably because we didn't realize how tough it was going to be. There was a level of ignorance that was a strength.”
Like most startups, SightX had to navigate fundraising, hiring, reorganizations, the pandemic and changing market conditions, all while continuing to build the platform and support customers. “You have the same problems that every startup has,” Tim says. “Fundraising, hiring, reorgs, all those things that come along with starting a company from scratch, all coupled with the need to continue to serve our clients and continue to evolve so we could keep growing.”
Why Rep Data?
By the time acquisition discussions began with Rep Data, SightX had reached an important point in its growth. The company was growing, profitable and evaluating different paths forward. Tim says the conversations with Rep Data quickly centered on a shared view of where research was heading. “We were thinking about the same things and going to the same place.”
The two companies already knew each other well. They worked together, shared customers and had experience supporting mutual clients. The acquisition formalized a relationship that was already developing in the market. “We can go further together and faster than if we just went about it alone.” Tim says the conversations felt different because both companies were working toward a similar vision for research.
Looking ahead
When asked what researchers gain from bringing more of the workflow together, Tim's answer isn't about technology for its own sake. “It really makes your life more streamlined, more seamless and gives you the flexibility to ebb and flow and pick and choose based off your own needs, versus having to deal with multiple vendors, multiple price points and a lot of black boxes.”
That thinking was already shaping SightX before the acquisition. Tim says it also explains why Rep Data felt like the right fit. “We were thinking about the same things and going to the same place. We can do this faster and bigger and really do something that nobody was doing in the industry.”
Tim says that same thinking guided the company's growth. SightX began as an effort to improve research analysis. As Tim and Naira expanded the platform, they broadened their focus to more of the research process. Rep Data is now applying that same thinking across research design, respondent sourcing, data quality and analysis.