Through the 2 year partnership we facilitated 18 rounds of qualitative research across 3 markets.

These included deep ethnographic studies to uncover insights into the way small business owners manage company finances. We visited participants in their respective workplaces, enabling us to build a deeper understanding of the context of our audience’s business practices, and gather observational data in addition to interview data.

Key findings and insights from these ethnographic studies formed the basis of numerous collaborative concept workshops, facilitated between Xero and potential lenders. As part of these workshops, bespoke insight artefacts were created to ensure workshop attendees were able to empathise with customers and understand their worlds. This immersion led into collaborative ideation activities to identify solutions to customers’ unmet needs.

Lending concepts identified in the workshop were designed and tested with customers, before being refined and developed into fully fledged products. Additional studies to gain insights to inform messaging and go-to-market strategies were facilitated with both small business and accountants – another core audience critical to the product’s success.Throughout the partnership we supported Xero in building a self-sustaining in-house research team, complete with research methodologies and research recruitment workflows, who now support the businesses research needs.