The ResTech Conference? It’s About Time!

Episode Summary

You know that feeling when you are with a close friend, talking about the things you are passionate about? If it sounds familiar, you will sense it by listening to the latest episode of the Through Your Looking Glass podcast. Our Host, Patrick Comer, introduces Brett Schnittlich, a co-founder of Lucid, LLC, and, as Patrick says, his partner in crime on many projects in the industry.

It is a special episode on so many levels. It is a chat between two close friends. Even though Patrick is the host of the podcast, it seems like they changed roles. They both asked questions and gave insight equally valuable for understanding ResTech.

Besides talking about the beginnings of ResTech, its origin, its impact on the research market, and plans, interlocutors have spoken about the upcoming ResTech conference.

So, open your calendars and mark the date: 24th March 2021. Patrick Comer and Brett Schnittlich are hosting a conference to launch ResTech to the larger world. The event’s motto should be in the feedback they’ve got: ‘it’s about time!’ For more information, visit the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week official website.

Interlocutors are looking forward to the event. Brett says it will be a blast, while Patrick admits he’s excited about showing off what Lucid and ResTech have done so far. To explain how big, how brassy and elbowed all this is. To show what they’ve accomplished because it’s still not visible as it should be.

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Brett Schnittlich

What he does: Brett is a board member of Lucid.

Key Quote: ”The thing I’m finding rather enlightening is watching the penny drop, watching the moment when people start to understand. It’s the reflection by these communities, looking at the ResTech landscape and realizing what it does impact everything from the advertising world to the product development world.”

Key Insights

• We need our tech. Talking about the development of ResTech, Patrick says they have done the hard work; they’ve built as a group of companies, very successful fast-growing technology, first SAAS businesses, but they weren’t getting the attention. ”We didn’t have a definition of the industry. The reality is none of the options were what I call super glorious, super sexy. Any brand manager in the right mind may not go after them, but we took this idea to the SampleCon membership just before COVID shut everything down and worked with our marketing team. We listed several texts inside tech, DataTech, ResTech, and maybe a couple more and asked the audience to digest this concept. As I’ve said, ResTech only won by a hair, but I didn’t care about what it was. I just needed an answer so that we could start building a story around an industry.”

• The hardest part was convincing ourselves to release it. Many people have had ideas related to the industry, but no one went public or released any of them. On the other hand, Patrick and Brett were willing to fight obstacles. ”The first real challenge was putting a draft out as it were. There’s always that risk that people will hate it. And the response has been phenomenal. We’ve got over 500 different bits of feedback. We’ve had a number of people respond because they believe that needs to be reconfigured as it, all their buckets in the right place.”
• The goal is to bring people together. When the SampleCon conference was launched back in 2013, it was just for the sample providers. Patrick noticed the tremendous amount of professionalism when you could bring your competitors, your peers together in the same place and talk about topics that impacted them. ”I learned a lesson of how that can work years ago. I wanted a moment in time where investors and companies could have a conversation about growth in the context of what investors would normally like to see revenue growth, potential market sizing, and the rest.”

Episode Highlights

It Was Challenging to Describe ResTech

Brett says it was hard to explain the business. It was very abstract. They’ve invested a considerable amount of effort explaining ResTech, especially to early investors. ”One of the things that you (Patrick) in particular did so well was, not only did we see the fact that there were similarities in the transition of industries that we were both going through but the way that you also took the nomenclature out of the AdTech industry which, by the way, not only were customers understanding that the investment community was understanding, they understood very quickly.”

The Beginning of the Flywheel

One of the things Brett sees as the beginning of the flywheel was when investors “went deep. ” They started asking questions about buyers and sellers, the whole marketplace. ”I reflect on five, six years ago. It was very simplistic. All the suppliers look the same. All the buyers look like the same people, working the affiliate world, finding access to traffic, getting them to double opt-in, and turning that into respondent traffic.

On the other side, it was companies that called themselves market research companies. It’s been joyful for me, and I’m sure it has been for you as well to watch these organizations on both sides pop up that no one would have called sample companies or research companies if platforms like ours didn’t exist.”

A Treasure Map Concept

Incredible responses from everyone in the industry and their willingness to understand ResTech led Patrick to believe that everything they do is valuable. These positive reactions even inspired him to think about the concept he calls a treasure map. ”For those of you who are not in our industry, if you want to know what our industry looks like, here is a map.  It will show you how it fits together, who the individual companies are, but the categories of companies and what they do; it provides an entry point of explanation. And what I like is it can close that gap.

How many times you and I, Brett, met with potential partners outside the space, maybe in media or advertising, trying to explain what we do, even the context of their world. And there’s this time of explanation of convincing of trying to help them understand. If we can shorten that through this kind of workaround, a ResTech scape, and other types of content, we will do a tremendous service to the industry and ourselves. It will provide what I’ll call a speed to trust speed, to believe that this sector of the industry is valuable.”

The Moment When People Start to Understand

Talking about the upcoming conference, Brett says he is amazed by the number of people and companies involved. He also emphasizes the importance of the participants and states those are significant players wanting to be part of the conference. ”The other thing I’m finding rather enlightening is watching the penny drop, watching the moment when people start to understand. It’s the reflection by these communities, looking at the ResTech landscape and realizing what it does impact everything from the advertising world to the product development world. The places that it touches are very different from what people normally think about.”

It’s Going to Be a Blast

The ResTech conference is such a significant event. Big names from the industry will take part in it, making both Brett and Patrick incredibly proud. ”A dozen or so folks I call friends at this point. I’ve spent so much time with some of these folks. We have become more than just business colleagues. We’ve broken bread together, had a cocktail or two too many together at the occasional time, but to be able to bring them all into the same virtual environment to have this conversation, I’m beyond excited.”

The ResTech Conference: An Entry Point for Anyone Curious About the Field

Patrick says the ResTech conference is a really good entry point for those curious about what’s happening in market research and what’s happening with technology. ”I think this is an entry point for someone who wants to have a greater understanding of why and how this is coming about. I think it’s also important for those who are in the space to see the difference, making that naming, identifying it as ResTech.