Zollos Set Up MR Crowdfunding and Collaboration Platform

In Chicago, father and son Peter and Jimmy Zollo have set up an online MR crowdfunding and collaboration platform called Collaborata, to help clients connect with each other to shape projects, and share research insights and costs.

Peter previously founded youth research agency TRU (which was acquired by Research International in 2007), and his son Jimmy worked for tech start-up GrubHub. Their new initiative Collaborata aims to bring together clients who have similar research needs to collaborate on projects. Clients post details of their projects on the site, then other clients help shape the projects through their comments. Research suppliers, who are rated on the site by clients, bid on those projects using a specially designed 'wizard', and once a vendor is selected, a funding goal is established together with a timeline, and co-funding begins.

Jimmy Zollo explains that money only changes hands once a project is fully funded, and that research suppliers can also team directly with a client to pitch a study to other clients, or use Collaborata to market their own multi-client project. Peter adds: 'I look at Collaborata as a timely solution to getting more out of research budgets, by enabling the funding of those macro-level projects that are often the ones whose insights can be truly transformational. Whereas the market research industry continues to innovate in how it collects and analyzes data, the business of how research is transacted lacks innovation and collaboration. That's what Collaborata aims to change.'

Web site: www.collaborata.com .