Matt has been involved in researching and designing software for nearly 20 years. He began his career at Harris Interactive (now Nielsen) as a Qualitative Research Consultant, where he conducted over 1,000 usability and user research interviews for product, UX and design teams at companies like Dell, Hyatt, USAA and Mercedes Benz.
He left Harris to co-found a usability and user experience consultancy called Customer Relevance, where he conducted hundreds more user/customer interviews while providing recommendations to improve the user experience and boost conversion rates.
Matt sold his stake in Customer Relevance in 2006 to co-found a startup called PluggedIN, which built and managed private online communities to help brands “co-create” products and services alongside their users/customers. PluggedIN was acquired in 2011 by Edelman (a large global independent PR firm) where Matt stayed on for 2 years as a Senior Vice President.
After leaving Edelman in 2013, Matt has gone on to design, develop and launch three SaaS products for capturing user/customer feedback online, including FocusGroupIt, QualNow and Advise.Us. At Advise.Us, Matt oversees the launch and management of User Advisory Groups using the software that he custom-designed based on his years of user research experience.
Matt is very active in his local (Rochester, NY) startup community. He serves in a part-time capacity as Director of Incubation at NextCorps (one of the largest incubators in NY), where he advises over 30 software startups on how to do great user/customer discovery as they build their products. He also runs the 2,000+ member Rochester Tech Startups Group.
When he’s not working in and around software companies, Matt can be found spending time with his wife and three year old son, mountain biking or snowboarding (depending on the season), reading, writing music and hanging out with fellow startup folks in Rochester.
You can connect with Matt on LinkedIN here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mafoley/