Dana Kim

Dana Kim did not set out to build a technology company. She set out to answer a simpler question that had followed her around for years: why did understanding what people think of a physical product have to be so slow?

For roughly five years she worked as a qualitative and mixed-method researcher, the person brands sent into the field to find out how real people used real products. She ran studies for names most households recognize, including Coca-Cola, Nike and Starbucks. The work taught her how much a good insight is worth. It also taught her how painfully it was gathered.

One image stuck with her. Standing in Florida grocery stores, paper surveys in hand, collecting maybe 35 responses in a week. Weeks of standing. A trickle of data. There had to be a better way, and she decided she was going to build it.

Kim is a first-generation American, born in New York to Korean immigrant parents and raised as the middle of three daughters. She credits that household with her work ethic: her mother built a career as a pediatrician while her father worked to support the family's ambitions.

She describes herself, honestly, as Type A and a recovering perfectionist, traits she says once held her back before she learned to take intelligent risks and operate outside her comfort zone. An early mentor at the agency Kelton, founded by journalists, taught her to lead research with humanity, empathy and storytelling rather than numbers alone. It is a philosophy she carried straight into a data company.

She wants market research to be something people choose on purpose. To that end she joined the Young ESOMAR society, arguing that the field needs real career pathways instead of accidental entrances.