The concept of eStyle started at a Starbucks on 17th Ave Calgary 8 years ago. We were a group of University students, studying for final exams and enjoying the antics that the red mile offers! A professional looking lady approached us and began explaining how paid focus groups worked. After indicating that we were interested (starving students, $75 dollars to give our opinion... enough said) she asked if we were smokers. When we indicated we were not, she asked if we would be for 75 bucks. Bad form!
What we realized that day was that there was a void that needed to be filled in Calgary's fieldwork realm. That night, one of our Computer Science buddies built us a basic website with a form that respondents could fill out and a logo/name that communicated our mandate: Research with Flair!
As University students, we had access to the entire campus. After passing out some flyers, advertising in the Gauntlet and creating some hype, we had accumulated the names of 3000 students, their parents, teachers, friends and relatives, all who had opted in to participate in focus groups.
Soon after, an opportunity presented itself involving the acquisition of a major Calgary player's qualitative division. The rest is history.
Over the next seven years, we've built three outstanding facilities in Calgary, a nation-wide panel using a community based tool with FULL social media integration (http://www.canadasurvey.ca), launched a pharmaceutical division, opened offices in Toronto and continue to deliver cutting edge recruitment at budget friendly rates.
Over the next five years, our goal is to become the DeFacto gateway to fieldwork across Canada. Although our core operation is based in the west, our infrastructure, relationships, technology and in depth knowledge, allow for us to provide a nation-wide service in line with any large scale qualitative field house in Canada.
