Understand the basics of market research and gain practical and cost effective ways to execute effective research tests from two pros! Peter and Stephanie combine for over 40 years of experience doing marketing and research for consumer product companies. They’ve done research for companies as large as Fortune 100 all the way to solo founder start-ups. Their know-how will become yours!

About the Leaders:

Stephanie Connaughton is an innovation expert grounded in classical marketing principles. Naturally curious about customer problems, and adept at putting frameworks into practice, she helps companies navigate through early stage ambiguity or architect a path to market. Her areas of expertise include product/market fit, consumer-centric design, go to market strategy, business model development, branding, messaging and idea validation. After a start in strategic consulting at Bain & Company, Stephanie had a long, successful career at the Gillette Company (later P&G), where she learned the full spectrum of marketing & new product development best practices. Stephanie’s teams pioneered some of Gillette’s most innovative breakthroughs including Venus, M3Power and a disruptive technology: a home laser hair removal device. Stephanie has practical experience as an entrepreneur. In 2009, she started a venture and launched an inventive yoga mat in 2012 anchored by four patents for layered grip technology. Beginning in 2016, she joined TechStars, MassChallenge and the Harvard Innovation Lab as a mentor and as a judge at MassChallenge. In addition to the consumer sector, Stephanie has worked with startups in tech, media, retail, social services and B2B.

Peter Gladstone is the Assistant Director of Consumer Goods and Services. He leads programming and mentoring for all consumer-facing ventures at the Harvard Innovation Labs. Peter has over 20 years of consumer marketing experience having held marketing jobs of varying responsibilities for Gillette, P&G and The Boston Beer Company. Peter will be working in a part-time capacity. When not working at the Harvard Innovation Labs he can be found shipping blue socks all over the world for his two sons (ask him about it), training his family’s new puppy or mentoring consumer start-ups outside of the Harvard community.