Anika sat down with Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich to explore how Good Ques transformed the traditionally rigid world of market research by embracing creativity, humor, and psychological safety. The conversation revealed a counterintuitive truth: to get to real human insights, you cannot ask robotic questions; you have to shift the perspective and design an experience that makes people comfortable telling the absolute truth. Holland and Maria's unique journey—from working side by side at Grey in New York and navigating the unexpected hurdles of launching a business right before a global pandemic to earning recognition from Inc. Magazine and working with giants like P&G, PepsiCo, Adobe, TikTok, and Meta—offered a practical look at how two co-founders with contrasting working styles ("waffle brain" and "spaghetti brain") built an anti-research research company on mutual respect, clear communication, and purposeful creativity.
In This Episode
- The Waffle and the Spaghetti: How balancing statistical rigor with big-picture creative strategy builds an indestructible co-founder partnership.
- The Spark in the Cream: Turning a New Year's Eve conversation about stale corporate jargon into a mission to reinvent consumer insights.
- Surviving the Pivot: How an early client backing out right before COVID unexpectedly forced them into the research boom.
- The TikTok Validation: Landing early major enterprise accounts by showing up with a genuinely different point of view.
- Rewiring the Factory: Why using AI to innovate the ultimate output rather than just speeding up the assembly line matters.
- The Power of Memes in Healthcare: How a viral internet joke helped a healthcare client accurately double their anticipated market size.
- The Empathy Deficit: Why modern brands get lost in best-practice perfection and forget to design human experiences for respondents.
- Co-Founder Dynamics: The importance of clear role separation, shared values, and leaving ego at the door.
Timestamps
- 00:00 Intro: The anti-research research company
- 02:05 Waffle brain vs. spaghetti brain
- 03:54 The origin story at Grey
- 06:20 Taking off corporate guardrails
- 09:30 Carving a distinct agency path
- 11:42 Good Ques: Asking better questions
- 13:35 The 2020 pandemic pivot and TikTok
- 15:58 AI integration and industry innovation
- 20:53 Pitching enterprise clients
- 23:55 Creative research tweaks
- 25:10 The condom meme case study
- 29:26 Comfort with creative boundaries
- 31:32 Co-founder rules and motherhood
- 37:35 Remote culture and global teams
- 43:07 The respondent experience
- 46:26 What's next for Good Ques
- 47:24 Advice for new founders
- 49:32 Favorite quotes and business mantras
Key Insights & Takeaways
Insight 1: Invisibility Isn't a Content Problem—It's a Strategy Problem
Traditional market research is bogged down by rigid, robotic phrasing that invites equally robotic, surface-level responses. When researchers focus entirely on extraction rather than the respondent's experience, they miss the underlying truth. Asking better questions requires designing an environment of psychological safety where people feel comfortable revealing their real behaviors.
Insight 2: Creativity Belongs in Methodology, Not Just Execution
Many corporate brands assume creativity only applies to advertising copy or visual design. True innovation happens when creativity is applied to the research methodology itself—using tools like creative drawing, changing the frame of reference to bypass social desirability bias, or even incorporating internet culture like memes to capture authentic consumer sentiment.
Insight 3: AI Should Innovate the Output, Not Just the Assembly Line
While many companies use generative AI simply to streamline traditional processes and speed up data collection, true market leaders use it to reimagine the final product. Technology should be leveraged to push beyond industry averages and discover entirely new frontiers of understanding rather than just producing faster mediocrity.
Insight 4: Counterbalance Is the Anchor of a Strong Co-Founder Partnership
A successful co-founder relationship relies on having complementary skill sets rather than duplicate visions. Pairing a structured, analytical mindset with a fluid, big-picture creative approach creates a resilient leadership team, provided there is absolute clarity in roles, deep mutual respect, and zero ego.
Insight 5: Embrace Discomfort as a Metric for Growth
Building a disruptive company requires a constant willingness to step outside the boundaries of convention. Whether it is pitching unconventional methodologies to skeptical executives, riding a bicycle across a bridge in freezing weather during a crisis, or pivoting business models overnight, treating discomfort as a sign of progress is essential for long-term survival.
Resources & Links Mentioned
GoodQues.com
Good Ques LinkedIn
Columbia University (guest lecturing)
About Holland Martini & Maria Vorovich
Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich are the co-founders of Good Ques, widely known as the anti-research research company. Having met while working in strategy and data at Grey New York, they bonded over a shared frustration with stale industry jargon and rigid methodologies. Together, they built an award-winning agency recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., delivering breakthrough consumer insights for global brands like Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Adobe, TikTok, and Meta. Holland serves as Chief Insights Officer, bringing statistical rigor and data precision, while Maria serves as Chief Strategy Officer, driving creative vision and disruptive positioning.
Connect with Holland & Maria
Website: https://www.goodques.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/goodques
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