Podcast Summary: Insights Unlocked

Episode Title: Unlocking SaaS Growth with Fast, Focused Customer Research with Asia Orangio
Release Date: September 22, 2025
Host: Leah Hogan (UserTesting)
Guest: Asia Orangio (Founder & CEO of Demand Maven)
Producer: Nathan Isaacs

Episode Overview

This episode delves into how SaaS companies can fuel growth by conducting fast, focused customer research. Asia Orangio, CEO of Demand Maven, shares actionable strategies for identifying and addressing growth bottlenecks through qualitative research—without letting research slow down execution. The conversation explores the value of direct customer interviews, common misconceptions about research processes, strategies for overcoming internal resistance, and how to transform insights into tangible business outcomes.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

From Art to Analytics: Asia’s Path to Customer Research

• Asia’s background merges art and tech:
  • Studied oil painting and portraiture, which led to a fascination with studying people and how they operate ([02:22]).
  • Transitioned into SaaS, eventually focusing on demand generation and product-led growth.
  • Realized that scaling the top of the funnel in SaaS is only effective if retention and conversion are also strong.
  • "Even if I scaled the top of the funnel... we were actually only going to convert a very small percentage... and we were only going to retain an even smaller percentage after six months. And that was when I realized, oh, all this marketing work actually might not be the right work." – Asia ([03:39])

Why Talking to Customers Matters Across All Disciplines

• Every metric is connected to people:
  • Qualitative interviews are essential for product, UX, and marketing teams.
  • “Behind every KPI... there's a set of conversations I can have about that. I can make the number talk.” – Asia ([06:41])
• "Jobs to be Done" as a powerful framework:
  • Not the only approach, but a great entry point for understanding the reasons behind buying decisions.
  • "Jobs to be Done" is like an 'MLM' in the research world; it spreads rapidly because it works ([06:57]).

Turning Insights Into Action—Fast

• Founders’ biggest misconceptions:
  • Belief that their problem is unique.
  • Assumption there’s no existing process to solve growth issues.
  • Perception that research will take too long.
  • "The first is... the problem they're facing is unique and no one's ever fixed it before... The second is that there is no process to solve it... The third, that it will take forever." – Asia ([11:36])
• Research doesn't have to slow things down:
  • With focus and executive alignment, research can happen in as little as two weeks with actionable insights delivered quickly ([14:03]).

Research Design: Getting the Right Answers

• Start with the problem—who is most connected to it?
• Identify “controls” (success cases) and “variables” (e.g., churned customers).
• Keep sample sizes manageable:
  • For most SaaS, five interviews per segment (10–20 total) is enough to see clear patterns ([16:36]).
  • "For most SaaS companies... we can make so much progress just with that. And that doesn't have to take six months, that could take just two weeks, a week if that." – Asia ([17:44])

Pivots & Trade-Offs During Research

• Always design space to pivot in your research approach.
• "By the fifth interview we were like, oh shit. We've made this assumption that the best possible person to upsell these offers to are going to be these high, highly engaged customers. But what we're hearing is the opposite." – Asia ([19:36])
• Be ready to develop new hypotheses and adjust your participant segments mid-study.

Involving Executives in Interviews

• Historically, executives were kept out of interviews for fear of bias.
• Asia found that bringing them in creates buy-in and urgency:
  • “...having those people on those calls... there was a switch moment that happened for them where they could no longer be passive about what they were hearing. And I think that that was like the magic.” – Asia ([28:12])
  • “After like the third or fourth interview of... watching someone struggle through something, the person is already, like, coding fixes and implementing changes, like, on the spot.” ([29:11])
• Always debrief after interviews to translate what was heard into actionable tasks.

Churn Research: Embracing Discomfort

• Keep churn interviews short (about 30 minutes) and incentivize participation ([31:09]).
• Let customers vent; act as a “compassionate but dispassionate analyst.”
• Resist correcting the user or jumping to solutions in the moment.
  • “Usually what we find is it's never just one thing that makes someone churn. It's usually like five to ten things and they just stack. And your job is to make observations, but to never force that person ... to change who they are or their behavior...” – Asia ([33:10])
• Focus on learning rather than winning customers back immediately.

Prioritizing Fixes: From Insights to Execution

• Separate controllable and uncontrollable churn causes.
• Use interviews and surveys to quantify which issues have the biggest business impact.
• "Then it comes down to... tally those opportunities up, actually quantify them if you can... how many times did this come up over 30 churn interviews... and categorize them.” ([37:11])
• Split tasks into:
  • Value generators (new jobs to be done, product expansion).
  • Quality of life improvements (small, quick fixes).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of seeing customer pain firsthand:

  • “It's the level of cringe that you can't unsee and you can't just be passive about.” – Asia ([28:55])

• On moving with urgency:

  • “We can decide to move quickly. Research can happen extremely fast. I've proven that several times over. It can happen as little as two weeks.” – Asia ([14:03])

• On the human side of churn research:

  • “Your job is to almost be like an omniscient, enlightened being... a dispassionate analyst who is compassionate, which I think is different.” – Asia ([32:15])

• On surfacing the cost to drive action:

  • “Looking at the analytics, this is costing us x million dollars a day. And then they really get it.” – Leah ([29:46])

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Asia’s backstory and transition from art to SaaS: [02:22]
• Realizing the importance of retention over pure top-of-funnel growth: [03:39]
• The value of qualitative research for all disciplines: [06:22]–[08:22]
• Common misconceptions about research and pace: [11:36]
• Deciding who to interview, sample size, and research design: [15:10]–[18:38]
• Pivoting during research & managing trade-offs: [19:36]–[23:18]
• Bringing executives into customer interviews for buy-in and action: [25:24]–[29:11]
• Effective churn interviews and handling difficult feedback: [31:09]–[34:36]
• Prioritizing improvements using qualitative and quantitative data: [35:17]–[39:39]

Where to Find Asia Orangio

• Website: demandmaven.io
• LinkedIn: Frequent livestreams reviewing product onboarding and UX
• Newsletter: "The Work" (returns soon)
• Podcast: "In Demand"

This episode is a must-listen for SaaS founders, product and UX leaders, or any team looking to translate real customer insight into business results, fast. Asia gives clear, tactical advice on finding the true causes of growth friction and creating a culture of quick, actionable research.