Attest

01The full story

Jeremy King trained as a scientist, spent nine years at McKinsey watching executives guess what consumers wanted, and founded Attest in 2015 to make consumer research easy for any B2C business, especially about customers it cannot reach through its own CRM or mailing list. Users can show or ask almost anything to over 125 million people in 58 countries, starting in about 90 seconds, with results usually complete within 24 hours. Before incorporating he interviewed 100 commuters each for two shops at London's Waterloo Station, for free, to test whether non-researchers had valuable questions. He then recruited 15 companies in three groups of five (close contacts, second-degree connections, cold prospects), used their input for prototypes, and had them call seed investors on Attest's behalf. Attest raised £650,000 in September 2015. Early customers paid as they went, 'ten thousand here, ten thousand there', until a subscription flip on 1 November 2017 forced everyone onto annual contracts. King says the first million in ARR took about seven and a half months, driven by that flip and referrals. Attest later crossed $10 million ARR, with 167 staff.

For a consumer research platform, the first customers are companies with an urgent decision and a reachable budget owner, not an abstract audience of “brands.” King started with 15 organizations divided across warm contacts, second-degree introductions, and cold prospects.