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# Lessons from Behzod Sirjani
- URL: https://www.antoinebuteau.com/lessons-from-behzod-sirjani/
- Published: 2026-08-10T03:05:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-10T03:24:22.000Z
- Description: Behzod Sirjani is an advisor, researcher, and founder of Yet Another Studio who previously led research operations at Slack and Facebook.
- Author: Antoine Buteau
- Tags: Profile, Product Management Profiles

Behzod Sirjani is an advisor, researcher, and founder of Yet Another Studio who previously led research operations at Slack and Facebook. He is known for reframing user research from a specialized silo into a company-wide capability that helps teams make confident, rigorous decisions. The lessons below outline his frameworks for understanding customers, democratizing insights, and operating effectively within organizations.

![Visual summary of operating lessons from Behzod Sirjani.](https://www.antoinebuteau.com/content/images/2026/08/lessons-from-behzod-sirjani-profile-infographic.webp)

### Part 1: Defining the Purpose of Research

1. **On the definition of research:** User research is fundamentally about gathering and synthesizing evidence to help an organization make better decisions, rather than just talking to customers for the sake of learning. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
2. **On measuring impact:** The success of a research team shouldn't be measured by the number of surveys sent or interviews conducted. Instead, it should be evaluated by whether the rest of the company is more confident in their decisions, whether product launches succeed, or if sales teams close deals faster. — *Reference:* [*UserTesting*](https://www.usertesting.com/resources/podcast/research-across-your-organization?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. **On the core skill of researchers:** The unique value researchers bring is their rigorous curiosity and critical thinking, not simply the act of executing research tasks. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/yet-another-year-in-review-year-035?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. **On recognizing the research practice already in motion:** A research practice begins as soon as someone has an idea for a company; it is the sum of everyone gathering evidence, not something that appears only after a formal research team is hired. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/yet-another-year-in-review-year-035?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. **On avoiding the product police trap:** The mandate of a research team should not be to act as gatekeepers or product police, but rather to identify where research is already happening within the company and find ways to improve those activities. — *Reference:* [*dscout*](https://dscout.com/people-nerds/interview-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On the timing of research:** Research only feels inconvenient when it is deployed too late in a project's timeline, acting as an unexpected intervention rather than an integrated part of the building cycle. — *Reference:* [*UserTesting*](https://www.usertesting.com/resources/podcast/research-across-your-organization?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
7. **On organizational anthropology:** To successfully scale research, practitioners must understand the fabric of their teams and internal culture, essentially studying their own organizations to design better internal systems. — *Reference:* [*Research That Scales*](https://katetowsey.substack.com/p/episode-6-behzod-sirjani)

### Part 2: The Decision-First Framework

1. **On the Wheel of Fortune analogy:** Organizational decision-making is like solving a puzzle with missing letters. Research is simply a method to uncover a few more letters on the board so the team feels confident enough to guess the solution. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
2. **On starting with intent:** Before seeking customer feedback, teams must ask themselves why they are collecting the information and what specific actions they will take once they receive it. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. **On framing research needs:** Founders can clarify their research goals by explicitly defining the project in question, the specific type of person they need to observe or hear from, and the exact action or statement that would increase their confidence. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
4. **On filtering research methods:** Once a research goal is established, evaluate it against three constraints: Is it feasible to execute? Is the request reasonable for the participant? And is the expected insight worth the time and effort required? — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
5. **On shipping vs. researching:** If gaining confidence through research will take weeks, but shipping the feature and reverting it if it fails can be done immediately, it is often better to just ship it and spend resources elsewhere. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
6. **On alternatives to research:** Confidence in a decision doesn't always require formal user studies; sometimes talking to an internal expert, building a prototype, or running an experiment provides the necessary evidence. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)

### Part 3: Asking the Right Questions

1. **On asking what users want:** Instead of asking customers what features they want built, find the people experiencing the problem and ask them what alternative solutions they have already tried and how well those solutions worked. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
2. **On evaluating customer feedback:** When processing user feedback, weigh it on two dimensions: how significant or helpful the insight is, and how saturated or consistent the feedback is across your user base. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
3. **On avoiding yes/no questions:** Close-ended questions like "would this help you?" rarely reveal the underlying reasons why a solution works. Adding "how" or "why" to the beginning of the question yields far better insights. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
4. **On building for everyone:** A common startup mistake is failing to define the target audience. If you listen to everyone who gives feedback without filtering for your ideal customer, you risk building a disjointed, Frankenstein product. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
5. **On shaping the roadmap:** Researchers should go beyond just analyzing existing data; they should actively identify outliers and unique customer behaviors to help shape the product roadmap. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On proactive learning:** "I think about this as the difference between trying to cook with what’s in the kitchen versus actually contributing to the shopping list." — *Source:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)

### Part 4: Democratizing Research

1. **On sharing responsibility:** As companies scale, highly-qualified researchers should avoid hoarding tasks out of protectiveness. Democratizing research allows specialists to focus on the complex work they are uniquely qualified for. — *Reference:* [*Maze*](https://maze.co/blog/democratizing-research-with-behzod-sirjani/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
2. **On growing talent beyond credential filters:** Instead of treating advanced degrees or years in industry as the only markers of research potential, organizations can build apprenticeship paths that turn rigorous curiosity and strong potential into independent practice. — *Reference:* [*dscout*](https://dscout.com/people-nerds/interview-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. **On giving away responsibility as the company grows:** Scaling changes which responsibilities belong to you, so continuing to add value requires deliberately handing pieces of your role to others and finding the next contribution only you can make. — *Reference:* [*dscout*](https://dscout.com/people-nerds/interview-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. **On collective proximity:** "As researchers, we can’t talk to every customer. If I help my teammates have similar conversations, we collectively get closer to that actual lived experience." — *Source:* [*Maze*](https://maze.co/blog/democratizing-research-with-behzod-sirjani/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. **On scaling through others:** Rather than relying solely on a small research team, treat the entire company as junior researchers. Build programs that improve how they interact with customers at every existing touchpoint. — *Reference:* [*dscout*](https://dscout.com/people-nerds/interview-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On mitigating risks:** When opening research up to non-specialists, the first step is to anticipate what could go wrong. Maintain control over participant recruiting to ensure inexperienced interviewers don't contact the wrong customers. — *Reference:* [*Maze*](https://maze.co/blog/democratizing-research-with-behzod-sirjani/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
7. **On educating the organization:** Be transparent with the broader team about the high costs associated with storing, analyzing, and synthesizing data. This encourages people to think critically about whether their proposed research is actually worth doing. — *Reference:* [*Maze*](https://maze.co/blog/democratizing-research-with-behzod-sirjani/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
8. **On cross-functional training:** Democratization includes teaching salespeople how to conduct better discovery calls or helping customer success teams design better post-training surveys, aligning research skills with organizational outcomes. — *Reference:* [*UserTesting*](https://www.usertesting.com/resources/podcast/research-across-your-organization?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
9. **On guiding inquiries:** Before teammates conduct their own research, have them outline the decision they need to make, the evidence required, and what data they might already possess. — *Reference:* [*Maze*](https://maze.co/blog/democratizing-research-with-behzod-sirjani/?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
10. **On using office hours as research infrastructure:** Regular office hours give non-researchers a low-friction way to get guidance, improve their plans, and build capability without requiring the research team to execute every study itself. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)

### Part 5: Socializing Insights

1. **On audience-centric reporting:** Many people share research in formats that are easy for them to create, rather than formats that are easy for their audience to consume. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
2. **On bridging the context gap:** The further an audience is from a problem, the more work the researcher must do to explain not just what was learned, but why it matters and what actions should be taken. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. **On using highlight reels:** Short video clips paired with brief write-ups are highly effective in remote environments, but you must clearly explain how representative the clip is to prevent teams from over-indexing on a single customer's struggle. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. **On internal wikis:** To avoid the trap of unusable research repositories, create concise, one-page documents answering fundamental questions about the customer base, so anyone in the company can consume them without digging through slide decks. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. **On joint share-outs:** Coordinate with support and customer success teams to present unified themes across the user journey, ensuring the company doesn't artificially divide the customer experience to match internal org charts. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On providing roadmaps:** Include customer quotes and supporting evidence in standard monthly or quarterly roadmap updates to consistently reinforce why specific priorities were chosen. — *Reference:* [*Reforge*](https://www.reforge.com/blog/your-user-research-questions-answered-a-recap-of-our-ama-with-behzod-sirjani?ref=antoinebuteau.com)

### Part 6: Startups and Scaling

1. **On early-stage feedback:** Even technical founders building tools for themselves benefit from observing how others approach the same problem, as it provides a baseline for how broader audiences will interact with the product. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
2. **On timing research in startups:** Instead of researching every upcoming feature chronologically, identify the two or three most critical bets on your 6-12 month roadmap and focus your research efforts solely on increasing confidence in those areas. — *Reference:* [*Calyx Consulting*](https://calyx.substack.com/p/how-to-make-better-decisions-through)
3. **On learning inside an unfamiliar market:** When a strategically important user segment is poorly understood, invest in being physically present with different customer groups; in-market observation can reveal context that is difficult to recover from behind a screen. — *Reference:* [*UserTesting*](https://www.usertesting.com/resources/podcast/research-across-your-organization?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. **On when to hire:** Companies should consider hiring a dedicated researcher when the burden of conducting customer research begins to significantly detract from the team's other essential responsibilities. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. **On the first research hire:** Ideally, a dedicated researcher should be brought on before there is a full-time workload of execution tasks, giving them the necessary time to set up foundational infrastructure and processes. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On integrating new researchers:** When joining a company, researchers should map out the organization's current practices and find a balance between executing direct research, partnering with other teams, and enabling self-service research. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
7. **On raising the floor:** Scaling research effectively requires focusing on high-leverage activities, like standardizing survey templates and question banks, to improve the baseline quality of research across all teams. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
8. **On research operations as protection:** Research operations should do more than create efficiency; its processes must protect customers and the business while making higher-quality research easier to conduct across teams. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
9. **On research driving growth:** Research should directly tie into core business mechanics, contributing to customer acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies. — *Reference:* [*Growthmates*](https://www.growthmates.news/p/making-decisions-with-user-research?ref=antoinebuteau.com)

### Part 7: Advising and "Being Hired to Care"

1. **On the role of an advisor:** When brought on as an advisor, the primary objective is not to produce specific deliverables, but rather to genuinely care about the success of the entire company without being constrained to a single lane. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
2. **On navigating the mess:** Successful advising means leaning into ambiguity; the more freedom an advisor is given to operate outside predefined scopes and interact with various teams, the more impactful the engagement will be. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
3. **On optimizing for effectiveness:** Because deliverables and strict deadlines are often designed for organizational legibility rather than impact, advisors must prioritize effectiveness as their north star. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
4. **On requesting deep access:** To rapidly diagnose problems and operate autonomously, it is critical to secure full access to a company's internal tools like Slack and Notion right from the start. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
5. **On transcending the org chart:** An advisor's value diminishes the moment they let an organizational chart dictate their boundaries. If a path to a crucial department doesn't exist, it is their job to build that bridge. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On applying past experience:** The iceberg problem occurs when clients only see an advisor's exposed surface area. Advisors must balance applying their deep historical knowledge without exhausting clients by over-explaining the theory behind it. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/being-hired-to-care?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
7. **On creating leverage:** Unlike traditional consultants incentivized to secure ongoing dependency, an advisor acting as leverage aims to develop the client's competence and confidence, effectively working to make themselves obsolete. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/yet-another-year-in-review-year-035?ref=antoinebuteau.com)

### Part 8: Career Philosophy and Rules

1. **On bending vs. breaking rules:** The distinction between bending rules and breaking them comes down to ego. Bending rules is done to serve the work and the company, whereas breaking rules is usually done to serve oneself. — *Reference:* [*Off Menu*](https://offmenu.substack.com/p/behzodsirjani)
2. **On looking beyond the job description:** You can create immense value by identifying communication gaps and solving them, even if it means volunteering for tasks—like writing executive summaries—that aren't technically your responsibility. — *Reference:* [*Off Menu*](https://offmenu.substack.com/p/behzodsirjani)
3. **On playing the game on the field:** Relying strictly on theoretical best practices is often ineffective. You have to adapt to the specific reality and constraints of the situation in front of you. — *Reference:* [*Off Menu*](https://offmenu.substack.com/p/behzodsirjani)
4. **On reframing work as play:** By viewing complex, non-linear work challenges as a game where you constantly evaluate your strategic moves, the process becomes more like creative problem-solving than a chore. — *Reference:* [*Off Menu*](https://offmenu.substack.com/p/behzodsirjani)
5. **On letting evidence revise your professional identity:** Periodic reviews of what actually consumed your time can reveal that your real practice differs from the label you have been using; treat that mismatch as useful evidence about where to focus next. — *Reference:* [*Behzod.com*](https://behzod.com/blog/yet-another-year-in-review-year-035?ref=antoinebuteau.com)
6. **On shifting economic eras:** The era of companies casually buying nice-to-have products is largely over; today's operators must ruthlessly prioritize and say no to good ideas that aren't absolutely essential to their survival. — *Reference:* [*Off Menu*](https://offmenu.substack.com/p/behzodsirjani)