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In this edition of The Founder Loop, we talk to Ryan about Unwrap’s proof of concept process—our structured trial designed to help prospects evaluate the platform with their own data.
This conversation focuses on how we tailor each POC to specific use cases, what success looks like, and why this approach helps both sides move forward with confidence.
Why does Unwrap offer a 30-day proof of concept (POC)?
Ryan Millner: “Well it’s twofold. First, we view customers of Unwrap as long-term partnerships and we understand that finding the right solution in this space is a big decision.
It's going to affect your roadmap for, hopefully, years to come. It's going to dictate how you spend engineering resources to address certain product problems. We understand the impact of the decision and we want our customers to feel totally comfortable when deciding to purchase Unwrap.
Secondly, it's easier than ever to build a shiny demo with a lot of the AI tools currently in market. But we know the real proof, and understanding of value, comes from the certainty that this tool you’re evaluating works every single week—every single day—for years to come. And you can't get that assurance from a surface-level demo.
It’s really important for both parties, our prospects and us, to feel sure that it’s the right decision. That confidence lays the foundation for a great partnership.”
What does the POC process look like at Unwrap from start to finish?
Millner: “As a first step, we walk through a demo of the platform and align on the core value propositions for your use case. We then discuss financial terms and the data sources you want to integrate. In the event we move forward, from the get-go, we want to know what sources you care about and that you’re aware of the cost. We like to be as transparent as possible.
Then it’s about loading the data in. We work 1:1 with you to integrate Unwrap directly with feedback sources (or sometimes via an export of the data), and then create an instance of Unwrap for you. Once your data is in, we backfill it 3-6 months. It takes about 2-3 weeks to create the entire instance.
Then, you have unmitigated access for 30 days. There are no features that are disabled—it’s the full experience and it's all grounded in your data. At the end of 30 days, you decide: is this something you want to move forward with or not?”
On the customer’s side, what is required to kick off the POC?
Millner: “The customer needs to provide us with the data sources they want to integrate into Unwrap. But we’re also going to ask for information around success metrics—what are 2-3 goals you're hoping to achieve from this POC?
Additionally, we’ll aim to understand how you think about patterns of customer feedback. We want to align with your business structure, and that context helps create your Unwrap instance.
As far as effort required, it simply comes down to authenticating Unwrap with the feedback source. For example, if you use Zendesk, Salesforce, or Qualtrics, you’ll need to authenticate with that provider and grant access to Unwrap. That’s it—there's no engineering work required, there's nothing to install.”
How quickly can a customer start seeing tangible outcomes from their POC?
Millner: “Within the first 30 seconds of getting access. You're going to see new patterns in your feedback that you hadn't seen before. You’ll find new trends, that perhaps are growing, that you weren't aware of.
And that's my favorite part. When we have our trial kickoff calls, we’re able to see the eyes of prospects light up because they’re seeing real value almost instantly.”
What kind of business questions or problems are customers trying to explore in the POC process?
Millner: “Well, number one is, people want to see problems they didn’t know existed. So they ask, ‘Show me things that customers/users are having friction with in our product that we didn't even know we needed to address’.
The second thing is, a lot of folks want help prioritizing what they’re already aware of. For example, a team may have a general sense of what their customers complain about, but need to figure out what’s most important on that list. They often want to know, is something important because it affects their most important customer cohort or because it’s growing and actually snowballing into a larger issue.
Or, on the flip side, is something that they thought was a big issue, actually only making up a small percentage of customer feedback.”
What’s an example of a surprising insight that a customer uncovered during a POC?
Millner: “There's two that come to mind. One, we were helping a health company cover the launch of a new hardware product. They were relying on us during the POC to give them accurate, fast insights into how the launch was going—so they could monitor it and make quick improvements where necessary.
They were able to identify a couple of friction points with the upgrade process from an existing product. Unwrap identified that pain point, and they resolved it pretty quickly to make the launch smoother.
For a separate customer, they started their trial and we identified an outage (that had happened a couple of days before the kickoff) that they weren't aware of. Turns out, when we showed them the insight, the outage was still occurring. And so they went and fixed it. That was all within the first 24 hours of getting access to Unwrap.”
At the end of the 30 days, what does success look like for both a customer and Unwrap?
Millner: “Success is something we’ve aligned on beforehand. So at the end of a POC, it comes down to how well we delivered against those goals.
A big part of that answer is wrapped up in how well a prospect trusts the system—and our team. Are the insights our models produced valid? Were they accurate? Was the platform easy to use? Did they enjoy working with us? Were we transparent? Were we responsive to any support questions they may have had? Are we good partners?
In the end, it’s an evaluation on both the product and partnership side. And fortunately, we do very well in both.”
