Why Startups Fail at Discovery
Let’s be honest: most startups skip user research. Not because they don’t believe in it. But because the clock is ticking, cash is tight, and talking to 10 users sounds like a luxury when you’re still fixing bugs and pitching investors.
The discovery phase—meant to validate your assumptions and uncover real user problems—often becomes a checkbox, rushed or skipped entirely. And that’s a big reason why so many products miss the mark.
But what if you could compress weeks of user discovery into 48 hours? What if you could hear unfiltered truths from your audience—without recruiting, scheduling, moderating, and transcribing interviews? That’s where value-driven research, powered by AI copilots like Glimma, is changing the game.
The Research Gap: Why Startups Skip It
User discovery is where great products are born. But in practice, it’s often where startups cut corners.
Here’s why:
Time: Traditional interviews take weeks to plan and execute.
Cost: Agencies charge thousands. Internal teams burn hours.
Bias: Founders run interviews and hear what they want to hear.
Noise: Responses get lost in recordings, post-its, and Notion docs.
So instead, founders move straight to building—and hope they’ve guessed right.
Spoiler: most don’t.
The Shift to Value-Driven Research
Value-driven research isn’t about big decks and polished reports. It’s about uncovering what actually matters to users—fast.
It answers:
What job are users really hiring your product to do?
What friction points are costing them time, money, or peace of mind?
What language do they actually use when describing their pain?
And now, thanks to AI, this kind of insight isn’t just fast. It’s continuous.
Choose AI Research Copilot to help you
Glimma is an AI-powered user research tool that helps you go from idea to insight in a matter of hours.
Here’s how it works:
You write a research goal (e.g. “Understand how founders choose legal help”).
Glimma recruits participants (targeted by age, role, geography, etc.).
AI-moderated interviews run automatically—no scheduling, no judgment bias.
Structured insights are delivered to your inbox: themes, quotes, pain points, even solution suggestions.
Instead of reading transcripts, you’re reading what matters—summarized, sorted, and actionable. No more guesswork. Just truth from the people who will make or break your product
Why This Matters
Speed: Get clarity in days—not weeks.
Access: Talk to real users while you sleep.
Scale: Run 10 interviews overnight. Or 100.
Honesty: Participants open up more to AI than to humans, studies show.
For early-stage startups, this isn’t just efficient. It’s survival.
From Idea to Product-Market Fit—Faster
We’re entering a new era of product discovery. One where research isn’t a bottleneck—it’s your unfair advantage.
With tools like Glimma, startups can finally make user insight part of the build process—not a luxury after the launch. Don’t guess. Don’t delay.
Let your users tell you the truth—before it’s too late.
