Episode 3: Stop Looking for the Right Answer. Ask the Right Question First.

A research study can be flawless and still be useless. You can recruit the right people, run the analysis cleanly, and hit statistical significance, and none of it matters if you asked the wrong question to begin with.

Vivek Paymode has watched this happen for six years. He leads market research at 360iResearch, where he runs engagements across industries from healthcare to energy to automotive. On the third episode of Research Secrets, he named the failure he sees more than any other, and it has nothing to do with method.

A precise answer to the wrong question

This trap is hard to spot because it looks like success. The report is thorough, the numbers are tight, everyone nods. But if the question underneath it was wrong, all that rigor just carries you to the wrong place faster.

"When your definition of the market is wrong at the beginning, even a very sophisticated research study can give you a very precise answer to a very wrong question."

Hear Vivek unpack this in the episode → watch the full conversation.

Sometimes, Vivek says, teams get so focused on collecting data and finishing the study that they never step back to ask whether they're researching the right problem at all.

Most teams research the wrong market

The wrong question usually traces back to one specific mistake: defining the market too narrowly. Vivek calls it strategic myopia. A team looks at the customers it already sells to, the products it already makes, and the competitors it already knows, then assumes that's the whole market. The real opportunity is often much bigger, sitting in adjacent segments, substitute products, or geographies nobody thought to look at.

His example is a battery company. Say you make car batteries for petrol and diesel vehicles. The narrow view is obvious: your market is car batteries, and your competitors are other car battery makers. Step back, though, and the market includes EV batteries, battery recycling, energy storage, battery management software, and second-life batteries. Study only the traditional car battery, and you can miss the entire growth curve of EVs while congratulating yourself on a rigorous report.

Challenge your market definition before you collect data

So the first move is an argument with your own assumptions. Vivek challenges the market definition itself before any data gets collected, looking at the problem from both the demand side and the supply side, then triangulating with customer interviews and independent sources to see whether the boundary he drew actually holds.

The questions that open this up are simple and a little uncomfortable. What decision are we actually trying to make? What do we already believe to be true? And the one most teams never ask: what evidence would prove us wrong? Starting there tends to break a narrow market definition before it can distort everything that follows.

The best research changes how you see the problem

This reframes what a good study even is. Vivek is blunt that the project with the most data isn't the one that wins.

"A good research project isn't necessarily the one with the most data. It's the one that changes how you look at the problem."

Early in his career, he optimized for the wrong thing: getting the numbers right and making the research comprehensive. Comprehensive feels safe. It's also how you end up with an exhaustive answer to a question that didn't matter. The studies that earn their keep shift how the team understands the problem. Slide count has nothing to do with it.

Question the data, especially when it agrees with you

Asking the right question doesn't stop once the data arrives. Vivek keeps questioning it, particularly when it confirms what he expected. If something doesn't make sense, he won't accept it just because the data says so. He goes back to other sources, talks to someone in the industry, and works out why.

He points to a gap that trips up a lot of research: the space between what customers say and what they do. A customer might tell you price is the deciding factor while their actual behavior shows service matters more. Surveys capture the stated preference and miss the real one. His answer is to pair what people say with behavioral and transactional signals, and to run experiments that test a message or a price instead of only asking people which they'd prefer.

How to ask the right question first

None of this needs new tools, only slowing down at the one moment everyone rushes: the start.

Before the next study, challenge the market boundary you've drawn and ask whether the real problem sits outside it. Write down the decision the research is meant to serve, and the belief you're quietly hoping it will confirm. Then go looking for the evidence that would break that belief. Watch the weak signals too: the offhand comment in an interview, a shift in how people buy, a new substitute entering the category. Those rarely show up in a survey, but they often matter more than what does.

Get that part right, and the rest of the process finally has something worth being precise about.

"Don't focus on finding the right answer. Focus on asking the right question first."

About the guest

Vivek Paymode leads market research at 360iResearch. He was the third guest on Research Secrets, BlockSurvey's podcast about uncovering real user insights to build better products.