Included Health 4x’d Research Output Without Expanding their Team or Budget

Included Health created a supercharged research tool stack by combining Marvin and Rally’s strengths.

Customer Outcomes

• Quadrupled research so it could be keyed into more business decisions
• Maximized research budget by reducing cost per study to $400
• Equipped PMs and designers with tools and coaching to independently set up studies
• Boosted efficiency by leveraging AI to extract insights in minutes instead of hours
• Integrated research into developer workflow by adding reports to Jira tickets
• Enhanced the ROI of research and quantified it for stakeholders across the company

Included Health aims to raise the standard of healthcare for everyone. A virtual healthcare provider to ~84 million Americans, it always keeps a pulse on what customers need. Staff UX Researcher Mahad Bullo explained how Marvin and Rally’s integration lets the company stay keyed in.

In the past few years, Mahad has observed a change in approach to research:

“The dream of researchers that have been working in the field for the past decade is starting to come to life — more and more people really want research. People are seeing the value of it, and people across the organization are demanding more — more insights and more learnings.”

To meet this need, Mahad has helped the company quadruple its research output in a year. They achieved this without bringing on more researchers or increasing the budget.

Instead of scaling through headcount, Mahad focused on something smarter: building a research tech stack that removes roadblocks. He empowers non-researchers to conduct their own studies. At the same time, he also brings insights directly into the product development process.

At the center of this transformation are tools like Marvin and Rally. Since it’s easy to integrate the two, Included Health has formed a seamless system for discovery, analysis, and decision-making.

From Centralized Gatekeeping to a Team Sport

Traditionally, research lives in silos: conducted by researchers, delivered in presentations, and rarely touched again. Mahad flipped that model.

With Marvin, he empowers product managers and designers to conduct “right-sized” research themselves. He coaches them on best practices to use the repository, while also giving them guardrails and vetted templates. Non-researchers use Marvin's AI-enhanced features to quickly put this training into practice. As a result, Mahad’s coaching model ensures quality while massively scaling impact.

“Marvin has really helped us with being able to make research accessible to everybody. Now, I get clinical people coming into Marvin to look at research, people jumping on live streams. It’s really made it more accessible.”

Mahad’s team has not just democratized research, it has made it a company-wide habit. Research is now embedded in the daily work of product, clinical, and engineering teams.

Reducing Time, Cost, and Friction

Speed was once a barrier to research — but not anymore.

By automating participant sourcing with Rally and centralizing insights with Marvin, Included Health has dramatically reduced turnaround times. The combination allows for quick, iterative research cycles. The research team can even complete studies in a single week. While they keep costs low, they keep quality high with Marvin’s researcher-centric features.

“The ability to analyze data in Marvin was earth-shattering… We're doing studies at less than $400 a study now. Every person that we talk to, that is from our own customer base [recruited via Rally] versus a participant from a recruitment study, saves about $70 or $80."

Creating a Feedback Loop that Never Stops

Marvin’s AI-enabled analysis makes it possible to go from raw data to insights in minutes instead of hours. With Ask AI, Mahad and his team query past research directly. They generate summaries, themes, and highlights on demand, or identify gaps that require new studies.

This creates a continuous discovery loop:

Identify a question → check what you already know → launch a new study if needed → feed new insights into the system

Research is now a living, breathing system that everyone benefits from.

Putting the ROI of Research Front and Center

Historically, one of the hardest parts of research has been proving its value. Mahad recognizes that, and he uses Marvin to overcome the challenge.

By tracking metrics like cost per study, number of studies completed, and time-to-insight, he can clearly articulate the business impact of his team’s work. More importantly, he’s framed research as what it truly is:

“At its core, research is mitigating risk. If we're not doing research, we are not mitigating risk. That's the core business value of research.”

Build the Stack that Works for You

Included Health’s success didn’t come from chasing a “do-it-all” tool. It came from combining best-in-class platforms. Marvin for synthesis and insight sharing; Rally for recruitment and study management. The team then layered the tools with smart processes and a coaching mindset.

“Research tools have evolved enough that it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. It matters how you combine different tools, processes and workflows to make the best of it for your organization.”

With over 20 integrations, Marvin offers users a range of combinations to build tech stacks that work for them.

Research that Moves at the Speed of Product

Included Health didn’t 4x research output by doing more of the same. They did it by doing research faster and more cost-effectively.

They also promoted a culture where everyone in the organization can discuss insights and apply them continuously. Mahad ensures research doesn’t sit in isolated reports. Instead, the team drops insights directly into Jira tickets, ensuring they inform implementation and not just strategy.

“My fellow researcher puts Insight reports into JIRA tickets right away so the engineering team can have it.”

Included Health did all this with the help of tools like Marvin and Rally. It used them to remove roadblocks at every stage of the process. Mahad’s approach shows what’s possible when you stop treating research as a bottleneck and start treating it as a shared capability.

Ready to transform your research practice into a powerhouse of strategic insight and business value?

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