GreenBook 2022 Future List Spotlight: Sascha Eder

Editor’s Note: The following interview features a GreenBook Future List honoree, Sascha Eder. The GreenBook Future List recognizes leadership, professional growth, personal integrity, passion, and excellence in the next generation of consumer insights and marketing professionals within the first 10 years of their careers.

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Introducing Sascha Eder

Sascha leads NewtonX and co-founded the company in 2017 with the vision of leveraging automation and AI to create the world’s leading B2B research company. Prior to co-founding NewtonX, Sascha was a management consultant spending time at both McKinsey & Company and the Boston Consulting Group, and worked at P&G as a financial analyst. Sascha holds a Master’s in Management from MIT and HEC Paris. Originally from Germany, Sascha was a member of the German national track and field team and is still a passionate runner.

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Since starting your career in market research, what would you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?

It’s been deeply rewarding to build a company that’s transforming the market research industry – and moreover, one that’s been validated by industry leaders across the board. In less than five years, NewtonX has partnered with organizations spanning Fortune 500 enterprises, top consulting firms, financial institutions, and leading market research firms. We’ve leveraged automation in research technology to solve for previously unfeasible B2B projects and empower confident business decisions through unpredictable situations.

 

What do you consider to be key characteristics or qualities of a leader? How does this play into market research?

It’s important for a leader to stay empathetic and open-minded, which are both key principles for conducting successful market research. I listen to our team, customers, and competitors. I’m always open to new ideas – the mindset that started NewtonX – to keep up forward momentum rather than falling into inertia.

At the same time, a leader also needs to be able to empower the team in a shared vision and lead by example in the process. I wouldn’t ask anything from my team that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.

 

If you could change one thing about the insights industry, what would it be?

There needs to be more democratized access to B2B market research that yields high-quality outcomes. The insights industry has historically operated on methods that are now outdated, and we’re working to change that by:

• Eliminating fraud in B2B research
• Increasing sample quality drastically
• Increasing reach and feasibility for B2B projects through automation and technology

 

What are your market research predictions for the near future?

On a high level, adaptation and technological innovation have proven to be the common denominator of continued success. Companies are looking more closely than ever at their market research providers’ reputation and ability to innovate, rather than considering just price and relationship. Research firms must demonstrate that they bring something new and quantifiable to the table if they want to thrive in the new tomorrow.

Specific to our mission, we envision a self-serve insights marketplace where clients can interact with the knowledge network themselves. They’ll get access to highly specific and segmented B2B audiences and be able to choose any type of study, from a single question to a three-year tracking study.

 

How did you get your start in insights? Did you know that this is what you wanted to do, or did you fall into it?

I started my career in management consulting, which is deeply connected with insights. While at McKinsey, my co-founder and I were systematically frustrated by the lack of quality, overall speed, and cost from third-party vendors for sourcing insights for our clients. After conducting hundreds of consultations and surveys for Fortune 100 companies without finding the right solution, we decided to create NewtonX to tackle the pain point of B2B market research.

We saw that while business and insights leaders needed reliable data from highly specific populations, we often had no way of accessing this data at scale. Most B2B market research relies primarily on consumer-oriented panels where fraud can be rampant. Vetting for experience and verifying people are who they say they become nearly impossible to do at scale. It was an opportunity to leverage AI and automation for insights in a new way.

I always had an entrepreneurial mindset, and my experiences paved a natural path to starting a company that would shape B2B research for the better.

 

What is something you’ve built or launched that you’re proud of?

I’ll start with a client testimonial: “NewtonX’s platform provides unprecedented access to hard-to-find B2B audiences that truly understand the intricacies of an industry. This access combined with our analysis capabilities has proven an invaluable product to our clients who were able to gain insights they previously could not get.”

I’m proud of our proprietary technology and platform, which starts with the NewtonX Graph. It’s unique in that it allows NewtonX to reach 1.1 billion professionals across industry, geography, and seniority. As a result, we’ve been able to source hard-to-find audiences that surpass our clients’ expectations and field B2B projects that previously were not possible.

With our technology, we’re also able to verify these professionals in a two-step ID verification process, which has provided our clients with high-quality data they’ve never before seen.

 

What sets you apart from your peers? Is there a specific trait that you attribute much of your success to? (For example, resiliency, grit, capacity for risk, etc.)

Resiliency. It’s a trait we’ve embedded into the culture at NewtonX. We’re a growing organization that sits side by side with organizations that have been around for 25+ years with over 10,000 employees.

Our resiliency has empowered us to not give up and press onwards in building the technological capabilities that many industry peers never imagined were possible. It’s helped us navigate challenging times – like Covid – and emerge stronger than before.

 

What’s next on the horizon for you? Are there areas where you’re looking to level up? A company you want to launch? A new milestone you want to reach?

Exciting progress is ahead. We just raised $32M in our Series B and are continuing to strengthen NewtonX’s position as the go-to partner for B2B research. We’re immediately looking to expand engineering, further develop our product suite, and build out the sales and marketing teams to increase NewtonX’s brand awareness among business leaders.

With an expanded team across engineering and product, we will be bringing a new SaaS platform to market in the near future. In an effort to further democratize access to NewtonX’s high-quality B2B insights, clients will soon be able to receive answers to their business questions faster than ever before at a fraction of the cost of traditional B2B market research.

The best is yet to come.