When is the right time to hire a User Researcher?

Too many blog posts tell you that the right time to hire your team's first UX Researcher is based on company size. In reality, every company has different research needs. So, what are the signals that you can use to identify when it's time to make that hire? 🕵️‍♀️

Building a startup is complicated 😕

There's an endless list of tasks to be completed and sometimes it can feel downright frantic. Despite this, everyone knows that a product won't succeed without an obsessive focus on meeting end user needs 🙋‍♀️

In the beginning, most companies prioritise this end user focus and deeply consider the user when making decisions 🔍 Keeping the team up to date is relatively easy and everyone is singing from the same 'user-first' hymn sheet.

As your startup begins to scale, remaining close to the voice of the user becomes more challenging. Once you add in a customer support function, that generally marks the end of user engagement for most of the team 🙇‍♂️

Time-constrained PMs are often forced to push in-depth user research to the side 🙅‍♀️ With lower bandwidth for research, PMs can unfortunately end up conducting lacklustre user research or making decisions on gut feel, neither of which are based on solid insights.

Inaccurate or biased insights inevitably cause poor product decisions. It's around this time that mistakes begin to happen which have a direct impact on user experience and product trajectory. This is where the connection to the end user is lost 🚫

In an attempt to salvage user experience, you hire a user researcher who is tasked with damage control 🚧 You're not the only one...

Most companies hire a UX Researcher in a state of emergency ⚠️

By now you might have guessed that hiring a UX Researcher in a state of emergency is probably NOT the best strategy 👎 Instead, it would make sense to prioritise your research and proactively hire a UX Researcher. But when is the right time to make that call? 🏁

So, how do you know when it's time to make that hire?

The trick is to detect the early signals of research neglect before they manifest as larger issues 🌱🌵 If any of the following 4 examples sound familiar, it's probably time to consider hiring a UX Researcher.

1️⃣ You understand 'what' and 'when' but not 'why'

While PMs are generally good at answering 'what', 'when' and 'how' questions, User Researchers can help you to discover the reason 'why' users behave the way they do. UXRs complement PMs through a collaborative flow of info:

2️⃣ You're experiencing high churn

If your retention rate says that users are coming back time and time again then you have little to worry about ✅ If retention is low then you have a serious research project on your hands which is best suited to an unbiased researcher.

3️⃣ You don't understand your user segments

You may have started experimenting with revenue-based segmentation, but can't figure out why users fall into each group. If you're stuck here, identifying the signals that determine your 80/20 split is a great project for trying out a UXR specialist.

4️⃣ You're not making time for exploratory/generative research

Exploratory research often feels like a luxury. But neglecting exploration is a mistake because it's this research that surfaces the most significant insights for driving future innovation 🔭

Let me know if you think there are other examples I've missed that are good indicators of the need for a UXR resource hire?

📖 This is a short summary of a blog post of the same title, which you can find on Medium or on my startup's website OpinionX

📩 We share our ideas on the future of user research every two weeks in our newsletter, The Full-Stack Researcher

📣 This same post can be found as a Twitter thread here

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