Growing Arch Insights with Megan O'Brien

Prateek Mathur
September 9, 2024

In this episode, of How I'm Building This, Prateek interviews Megan O'Brien, the founder of Arch Insights who shares her journey from working in market research at Bain and Harry's Inc to starting her own business. She discusses the importance of understanding consumer pain points and using consumer insights to create products and brands that connect with customers. Megan also talks about being a solo founder and the highs and lows of the entrepreneurial journey. She emphasizes the importance of having a supportive team and taking care of mental health. Megan introduces Arch AI, a new platform she has built to assist qualitative market researchers in analyzing and extracting insights from their data.

Takeaways:

  • Understanding consumer pain points is crucial for creating products and brands that resonate with customers.
  • Having a supportive team and network is essential for managing the highs and lows of being a founder.
  • Taking care of mental health and maintaining a work-life balance is important for long-term success.
  • Arch AI, a new platform developed by Arch Insights, aims to assist qualitative market researchers in analyzing and extracting insights from their data.

Sound Bites: 

  • "Uncover what consumers truly think and create products and brands that connect with them."
  • "Understanding the person better and their pain points allows for intercepting and building a fix for them."
  • "Referrals and inbound leads have been the primary source of customers for Arch Insights."
  • "Arch AI is a new platform that assists qualitative market researchers in analyzing and extracting insights from their data."

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 Introduction and Background

06:01 Understanding Consumer Pain Points

07:41 Winning first few customers

09:57 Doing work that adds true value in the early days

11:40 How do customers find Arch Insights

14:11 Current Growth Tactics

17:59 What it takes to get a referral

20:04 Inbound tactics

22.27 Introducing Arch AI

26:15  Why Arch AI

30:56 Future of Arch Insights

32:28 Hiring and Learning from Mistakes

36:01 Avoiding hiring mistakes

39:43 Managing Mental Health as a Founder

Where to find Megan:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmobrien

Arch Insights: https://www.archinsights.com

Where to find Prateek:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateekmathur

Activated Scale: https://www.activatedscale.com

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email prateek@activatedscale.com

Prateek Mathur

Before founding Activated Scale, Prateek spent the last 20 years selling for and building sales teams at startups and public companies. He has won numerous awards and recognitions over his sales career. Over the last 5 years, he has advised a number of startups on their GTM, sales hiring etc. Prateek has intricately seen the pitfalls that startups face when scaling their business and hiring sales talent. With Activated Scale, he aims to make sales hiring easier by connecting companies with experienced US-based sales talent fractionally. Prateek is fascinated by the drive of a startup founder and loves their passion, vision and mission to reimagine our world.