September 2, 2026 · 53 min · Episode 776
Rethinking Consumer Insights: Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich on Creative Methodology
About this episode
Anika sat down with Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich to explore how Good Ques transformed the traditionally rigid world of market research by embracing creativity, humor, and psychological safety. The conversation revealed a counterintuitive truth: to get to real human insights, you cannot ask robotic questions; you have to shift the perspective and design an experience that makes people comfortable telling the absolute truth. Holland and Maria's unique journey—from working side by side at Grey in New York and navigating the unexpected hurdles of launching a business right before a global pandemic to earning recognition from Inc. Magazine and working with giants like P&G, PepsiCo, Adobe, TikTok, and Meta—offered a practical look at how two co-founders with contrasting working styles ("waffle brain" and "spaghetti brain") built an anti-research research company on mutual respect, clear communication, and purposeful creativity.
In This Episode
- The Waffle and the Spaghetti: How balancing statistical rigor with big-picture creative strategy builds an indestructible co-founder partnership.
- The Spark in the Cream: Turning a New Year's Eve conversation about stale corporate jargon into a mission to reinvent consumer insights.
- Surviving the Pivot: How an early client backing out right before COVID unexpectedly forced them into the research boom.
- The TikTok Validation: Landing early major enterprise accounts by showing up with a genuinely different point of view.
- Rewiring the Factory: Why using AI to innovate the ultimate output rather than just speeding up the assembly line matters.
- The Power of Memes in Healthcare: How a viral internet joke helped a healthcare client accurately double their anticipated market size.
- The Empathy Deficit: Why modern brands get lost in best-practice perfection and forget to design human experiences for respondents.
- Co-Founder Dynamics: The importance of clear role separation, shared values, and leaving ego at the door.
Timestamps
- 00:00 Intro: The anti-research research company
- 02:05 Waffle brain vs. spaghetti brain
- 03:54 The origin story at Grey
- 06:20 Taking off corporate guardrails
- 09:30 Carving a distinct agency path
- 11:42 Good Ques: Asking better questions
- 13:35 The 2020 pandemic pivot and TikTok
- 15:58 AI integration and industry innovation
- 20:53 Pitching enterprise clients
- 23:55 Creative research tweaks
- 25:10 The condom meme case study
- 29:26 Comfort with creative boundaries
- 31:32 Co-founder rules and motherhood
- 37:35 Remote culture and global teams
- 43:07 The respondent experience
- 46:26 What's next for Good Ques
- 47:24 Advice for new founders
- 49:32 Favorite quotes and business mantras
Key Insights & Takeaways
Insight 1: Invisibility Isn't a Content Problem—It's a Strategy Problem
Traditional market research is bogged down by rigid, robotic phrasing that invites equally robotic, surface-level responses. When researchers focus entirely on extraction rather than the respondent's experience, they miss the underlying truth. Asking better questions requires designing an environment of psychological safety where people feel comfortable revealing their real behaviors.
Insight 2: Creativity Belongs in Methodology, Not Just Execution
Many corporate brands assume creativity only applies to advertising copy or visual design. True innovation happens when creativity is applied to the research methodology itself—using tools like creative drawing, changing the frame of reference to bypass social desirability bias, or even incorporating internet culture like memes to capture authentic consumer sentiment.
Insight 3: AI Should Innovate the Output, Not Just the Assembly Line
While many companies use generative AI simply to streamline traditional processes and speed up data collection, true market leaders use it to reimagine the final product. Technology should be leveraged to push beyond industry averages and discover entirely new frontiers of understanding rather than just producing faster mediocrity.
Insight 4: Counterbalance Is the Anchor of a Strong Co-Founder Partnership
A successful co-founder relationship relies on having complementary skill sets rather than duplicate visions. Pairing a structured, analytical mindset with a fluid, big-picture creative approach creates a resilient leadership team, provided there is absolute clarity in roles, deep mutual respect, and zero ego.
Insight 5: Embrace Discomfort as a Metric for Growth
Building a disruptive company requires a constant willingness to step outside the boundaries of convention. Whether it is pitching unconventional methodologies to skeptical executives, riding a bicycle across a bridge in freezing weather during a crisis, or pivoting business models overnight, treating discomfort as a sign of progress is essential for long-term survival.
Resources & Links Mentioned
GoodQues.com
Good Ques LinkedIn
Columbia University (guest lecturing)
About Holland Martini & Maria Vorovich
Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich are the co-founders of Good Ques, widely known as the anti-research research company. Having met while working in strategy and data at Grey New York, they bonded over a shared frustration with stale industry jargon and rigid methodologies. Together, they built an award-winning agency recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., delivering breakthrough consumer insights for global brands like Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Adobe, TikTok, and Meta. Holland serves as Chief Insights Officer, bringing statistical rigor and data precision, while Maria serves as Chief Strategy Officer, driving creative vision and disruptive positioning.
Connect with Holland & Maria
Website: https://www.goodques.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/goodques
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Article
Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich of Good Ques on Rethinking Market Research and Asking Better Questions
Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich are the co-founders of Good Ques, which they call an "anti-research research company," built on the idea that better questions produce better consumer insight. In their conversation with Anika Jackson, Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich explain how they left Grey, the New York creative agency, to treat research as a creative medium, how a single meme nearly doubled a client's projected market size, and how they use generative AI to build new outputs rather than speed up old methods.
Why did Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich start Good Ques?
Frustration with how research was done. At Grey, they found market research stuck in rigid, mechanical conventions that had not changed in decades. They saw research as a creative medium trapped in outdated frameworks, and they built Good Ques to work differently.
Their partnership depends on how they think. Holland Martini describes a "waffle brain" that brings methodological rigor and statistical precision, enough to hold up with C-suite executives at companies like P&G, Adobe and Unilever. Maria Vorovich has a "spaghetti brain" that connects unrelated insights into outputs traditional researchers would not consider. They learned to work this way through years of respectful disagreement at Grey.
How can creative research methods change business results?
By getting more honest answers. Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich found that respondents answer more truthfully when shown memes than when given conventional survey language. For a healthcare client launching an at-home STD test, a meme that resonated with respondents nearly doubled the anticipated market size. That translated into doubled shelf space and significantly more investment interest. Their underlying view is that empathy and humanity matter more than methodological perfection.
The early years were not smooth. Their first major client backed out in January 2020, and they had to, in their words, "move their legs or drown." COVID-19 then created a market need that suited their approach. Mentors and industry contacts introduced them to early clients such as TikTok, whose leadership team took to the method, and that success opened doors to the largest consumer brands in the world.
How is Good Ques using generative AI?
To build something new rather than make old methods faster. Maria Vorovich describes most of the industry as using AI to build a faster Model T, while Good Ques wants to build a Tesla. Their belief is that innovation in outputs matters more than efficiency in process. They have invested in AI expertise to support human insight, not replace it, and lead workshops for Adobe, P&G and Unilever on applying AI to research.
Their distributed team spans India, London, Chicago and Denver, held together by deliberate communication. Maria Vorovich carries a Jonathan Safran Foer quote about feeling her bones crushed by all the lives she isn't living; Holland Martini carries her grandmother's advice that if a change isn't scary, it's not big enough. Many firms now repeat their open-ended questioning techniques word for word at conferences, and the pair have pushed the category to ask why research is done the way it is at all.
Key takeaways
- Research is a creative medium; better questions produce more honest answers.
- Respondents answered more truthfully to memes than to conventional survey language.
- One meme nearly doubled a client's projected market size, leading to doubled shelf space.
- Pairing a rigorous thinker with a lateral thinker works when there is mutual respect.
- Use AI to create new kinds of output, not only to speed up old processes.
Listen to Anika Jackson's full conversation with Holland Martini and Maria Vorovich on Your Brand Amplified.
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