I help teams make better decisions by designing and facilitating the conversations that matter.

Important decisions in complex B2B markets rarely come with simple answers

Product, positioning, roadmap, messaging, adoption, and go-to-market decisions often depend on understanding people with different priorities, constraints, experiences, and definitions of value.

HowSo helps B2B technology companies and the consultants who serve them develop the customer and market understanding they need to decide what to build, how to position it, and where to go next.

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More input doesn’t automatically produce more understanding

Most companies already hear constantly from buyers, users, prospects, customers, sales teams, account teams, and others close to the market. The challenge is figuring out what those perspectives add up to: what people need, what shapes their choices, where experiences and priorities diverge, and what those differences mean for the business.

Our approach is built around creating the conditions for candid, nuanced conversations and connecting what we learn back to the key business questions. It comes from years of learning from B2B technology decision-makers through qualitative research, executive briefings, and Customer Advisory Boards.

Research that supports your most important decisions

We design and conduct qualitative research when a team needs a deeper understanding of the people, needs, and dynamics shaping an important decision, whether that involves product roadmap, positioning, messaging, adoption barriers, or a go-to-market question.

We start with what the business needs to understand to move forward with confidence. From there, we determine who we need to learn from, what we need to explore, and how to get beyond easy answers to the needs, motivations, constraints, tradeoffs, and context that will shape the decisions ahead. The research is rigorous without being rigid.

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Research that strengthens consulting work

Boutique consulting firms often need primary evidence to support recommendations, test assumptions, or deepen their understanding of a client’s market. We conduct specialized B2B technology research that can fit inside a broader engagement while staying closely connected to the questions the consulting team is trying to answer.

We can take responsibility for the research workstream or contribute as part of the team. Either way, our goal is to give the consultancy stronger evidence behind the recommendations and decisions it brings to the client.

Strengthen your client work with customer and market evidence

Get more strategic value from CABs and executive briefings

Customer Advisory Boards and executive briefing programs offer valuable access to senior customers, but learning is only one of the jobs they need to do. They also strengthen relationships, help executives learn from one another, support strategic accounts, and create an experience participants want to return to.

We help companies get more insight from these programs through stronger questions, purposeful discussion design, careful facilitation, and disciplined synthesis. The goal is not to turn a CAB or briefing into a research study, but to make learning a more valuable part of an already important customer program.

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Research support for B2B technology studies

We also work with qualitative research firms that need experienced help on complex B2B technology work, particularly when the study benefits from subject-matter familiarity or someone who can step into a demanding assignment quickly.

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Experience behind our approach

HowSo is led by Andy Garlikov, whose background spans qualitative research, executive briefings, Customer Advisory Boards, and other structured conversations with executives, technical experts, buyers, users, and other decision-makers.

Across those settings, Andy has learned how much the quality of a conversation affects what people are willing and able to share. That experience informs every engagement, with a practical goal: learn more, understand it better, and make what we learn more useful to the decisions our clients need to make.

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Have a decision that would benefit from better market evidence?

You do not need a finished research plan before reaching out. If an important decision would benefit from better evidence, or if you want to get more insight from a CAB or executive briefing program, that is enough to start.

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