How Intention Labs De-Risks Product Decisions with Userbrain
Shawna Ruff is an anthropologist by degree, a UX and service designer by trade, and an academic at heart. She founded Intention Labs six years ago out of a specific frustration: watching people pay to build things nobody had ever tested.
The Research Everyone Skipped
Shawna had spent years in agencies, and she kept seeing the same pattern. Agencies skipped research because the paycheck was in the build. Women and minority founders got overlooked. And startups died for the most avoidable reason there is, having built something no one wanted.
The founders she most wanted to help were often the ones with the least budget for research, and the most time to do it. Research got cut anyway, in favor of development. So Intention Labs was built with a deliberately uneven pricing model: enterprise clients pay market rate, which subsidizes the startups paying less.
"You don't want to build the wrong thing and spend all the money that investors have given you or that you have saved for this project. What you want to build is something that people want, that is useful in the market. Do you know how many startups never speak to a customer?"
For Shawna, the company's "human first" approach is not a slogan about tone of voice.
"It means actually speaking to people and treating people like human beings. It seems like such a common sense thing, but it's very uncommon for people to understand that even in this digital age, you have to have a conversation with human beings."
The obstacle was never conviction: it was throughput. Research done the traditional way means roundtables, recruiting, scheduling, and curating sessions. For a small consultancy, and especially for the solo founders it serves, that overhead is exactly where good intentions go to die.
One Tool, Three Years, No Coordination Overhead
Userbrain replaced the coordination. Intention Labs has run unmoderated tests with Userbrain's tester panel for about three years now, across both client work and its own products.
"I feel like we're only using Userbrain. It is very intuitive and helpful for us."
One early project involved testing a single landing page for an early-stage client before committing to a full product direction. The volume and specificity of feedback that came back surprised the team, and it arrived without the client having to organize a single session. Intention Labs has since run multiple follow-on projects with that client.
"They're just happy that they have the feedback without the time consumption of having to hold roundtables, of having to invite people directly. The curation of these events is challenging for them as a solo founder."
A Test That Stopped a Product's Direction
One of the most valuable outcomes Shawna points to isn't something Intention Labs shipped. It's a direction they chose not to pursue.
The team had spent years developing one of its own internal platforms, with real ambition and real investment behind it. Testing with a small group of users through Userbrain surfaced feasibility and risk concerns the team had discussed in the abstract but never fully confronted. Hearing users articulate them directly prompted a hard reset.
"There have been several times where we've run a test through Userbrain and we've stopped dead in our tracks and said, okay, do you really want to go this direction?"
Rather than sinking another year of development into the original plan, the team scaled back to a minimal viable version and repositioned it, now demonstrating it to larger organizations better equipped to take on the remaining risk and feasibility work under a white label arrangement. Shawna estimates this course correction saved the company a significant sum by avoiding further investment in a direction that testing showed wasn't going to work, by her own rough estimate in the range of six figures to $1 million, though she notes this wasn't formally tracked.
What made it possible was testers who didn't hold back.
"Sometimes you get those fantastic users who come in and are just very candid and they will list out everything. There's always something that maybe you didn't think of that they are thinking of, and it's just so wonderful to have somebody come in and just be like, nope."
Practicing What You Sell
Shawna's whole business rests on the argument that you have to ask people. She notices when a company takes its own advice.
"You (Userbrain) were the first company to reach out and ask for user feedback from us. We have at least 25 different products that we are using or actively involved with, and you are the first company to reach out to me and ask. So good on you for keeping conversations going."
With new client contracts signed, Intention Labs is scaling its testing up again this year, on the same principle it started with six years ago. Test it before you build it, and talk to the humans.
Results at a Glance
| Before | With Userbrain | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting user feedback | Roundtables, recruiting, and event curation | Remote tests, no scheduling required |
| Research for early stage founders | Cut in favor of development | Affordable enough to run first |
| Effort required from a solo founder client | Days of coordination | A test they never have to run themselves |
| Prevented loss on one product decision | Not measured | Six figures to $1 million (not formally tracked) |
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