Understanding the Gig Economy
Conducting foundational research on Side Hustlers and Gig workers for the QuickBooks organization.
Side Gig Audience Research
Overview
My responsibility was to design and scope a generative research project aimed at gathering insights on this audience to understand how the QuickBooks organization might solve for an untapped customer group.
Company
Intuit (QuickBooks)
Role
UX Researcher
Skills
UX Research | Longitudinal Research | Diary Study
Duration
8 weeks
Research Goal
Research objective
Compile an in-depth, qualitative overview of side hustlers by understanding their journey, needs, goals and behaviors.
Methodology
To deeply understand this audience in the time frame I had, I decided to conduct a 4-week long diary study via Dscout with 40 side hustlers across the U.S.
Participants submitted multimedia entries (photo, video, text) over the course of a month to help us understand what it is like to be in their shoes and how they think about and run their side hustle.
Kicking Off
Prior to launching the research, I designed the team kick-off to accomplish the following tasks:
Bring the cross-functional team together to understand each other’s working styles and communication preferences.
Collaborate on the learning objectives of the research study
Decide on the research methodology and time frame as well as final deliverables.
Although there is a broad range of SG’s with different levels of investment into the side hustle, commonly they share the following needs:
To increase their overall income (to pay off debt, to have more fun money, to explore a life outside 9to5).
To market themselves better because it feels like the most direct path to increase income.
To focus on highest ROI
With such little time available to invest towards the side hustle, they just want to focus on which jobs give highest ROI.
All SG’s can benefit from automation & time-saving tools, but not all SG’s will seek them out
From insight to opportunity 💡
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HMW increase awareness of our SP-focused products and subdue the accounting/’big business’ connotation?
HMW bring a personal feel to our products and expand beyond solving merely for business needs but for their holistic/personal finance jobs too? -
HMW think about or refine our marketing strategy to approach the SG audience, knowing that they’re fearful of complexity and don’t have the time to learn new tools?
HMW solve for automation of important sub-jobs like scheduling, setting goals, tracking time? -
HMW make it easy for SG’s to understand the tax filing implications of having a side hustle?
HMW provide SG’s with accurate estimates of taxes owed so they can appropriately set aside money.
Business Outcomes
This initial deep dive on the Side Hustler/Gig Worker audience was influential in several key ways.
It influenced X product team to formulate and refine an acquisition strategy for this audience.
It influenced the X product marketing team to test out and launch messaging geared towards side hustlers.
It helped X product & marketing team understand the inflection points at which side hustlers grow beyond side businesses to full-time business ownership.
It will continue to influence the long term strategy for designing products and winning with emerging audiences of business owners.