Armen Adjemian of DISQO
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Armen Adjemian (co-founder and CEO) of DISQO, which was honored in our:
Tell us the origin story of DISQO – what problem were you trying to solve and why?
Five years ago, we saw marketers’ acute need for ethically sourced and higher quality consumer insights to power decision-making. Consumer behavior and media consumption are changing rapidly as our lifestyles become more digital across technologies, applications, and e-commerce (this has accelerated dramatically in the pandemic). Marketers are struggling to assemble the data they need to engage appropriately with their consumers amid all of this fragmentation, and in many cases, across proliferating “walled gardens.”
Making decisions with bad data results in wasted marketing investment, failure to deliver against revenue-generating marketing objectives, and worst of all, undesirable experiences for consumers.
Believing that listening to consumers and collecting high-quality data shouldn’t be so hard, we (Armen Petrosian, Drew Kutcharian, and myself) decided to build a better solution: a first-party data platform that was consumer-centric from the start. DISQO’s panel is now one of the largest in the U.S., populated by people who want to share their opinions and behaviors with brands. We’ve improved data quality, speed, scale, and accessibility. As a result, we doubled in size in 2018 and have continued to be recognized as one of the fastest-growing startups in California and in the technology space generally.
What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?
Building a company from the ground up is extremely rewarding, but not for the faint of heart. You encounter many challenges when scaling a business, but to focus on one, there is often a paradox of choice in terms of where to invest for growth and when. Expanding from our core concept and building a robust panel of leaned-in consumers, we’ve identified numerous new business opportunities where we can truly be novel in helping marketers to improve. We’re expanding our solutions portfolio ambitiously, but judiciously, based on sound data-driven decision making, of course. That’s our DNA.
What does the future hold for DISQO?
With over 10 million DISQO audience members today, new offices, and new products being released, DISQO is going full speed ahead and doesn’t plan on slowing down. Our new ad measurement solution empowers marketers to understand and improve every ad dollar spent, measuring the entire consumer journey with precision and real-time accuracy. We’re the ones to watch in this space as we break down barriers in the marketing ecosystem without sacrificing quality.
What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Glendale?
Glendale has turned into an exciting tech hub, with lots of successful startups making waves in the industry and attracting top talent. This tech scene has created a space where like-minded problem solvers and agile thinkers can come together to create leading products and experiences for brands.
What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Build a data-driven model for evaluating new ideas. When you can confidently measure impact through testing, you can innovate faster and more effectively.
At DISQO, we’re constantly testing how even the smallest adjustments could affect our users’ experience, their engagement, and our audience retention. When a test proves promising, we dig deeper, verify the results, make a decision around implementation, and move quickly to the next test. Even failures provide learning and we celebrate that. Measure everything!