GetWhys with Philippe Boutros

In this conversation, Stacey Epstein and Philippe Boutros, CEO and founder of GetWhys discuss the innovative use of AI in marketing, particularly through the lens of GetWhys, a company focused on enhancing market research. Philippe shares his unique journey from a marketing consultant to the founder of GetWhys, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer insights and decision-making processes. The discussion covers the transformative impact of AI on market research methodologies, the practical applications for product marketers, and the competitive advantages that can be gained through effective use of customer data. Philippe also shares his vision for the future of AI in marketing, highlighting the importance of connecting people to people through technology.

Transcript

Stacey Epstein:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another session of AI, I’ve Got Questions. I’m excited to dive into another conversation about real-world AI use cases in marketing. Today, I’ve got Philippe Boutros from GetWhys with me. I was recently introduced to Philippe through an investor—there's some potential interest in GetWhys. They're still pretty early, but that’s more the norm than the exception these days. I'm excited for you all to get to know him.

So Philippe, let’s start with you. Tell us your story—how did you come up with the idea for GetWhys, and what are you building?

Philippe Boutros:
Thanks, Stacey. Yeah, I’d say I have a pretty non-traditional founder story. I’ve always been fascinated by people—and GetWhys is all about understanding people. I grew up in the Middle East—half Lebanese, half American—and went to a French school. Summers, I’d be in the States. Later, I moved here for college.

I actually studied philosophy—probably not the most practical major in 2010, in the middle of a financial crisis. But it was all about understanding how people think, which ended up being a perfect foundation for what I do now.

Right after college, I joined a B2B tech-focused market research firm. We didn’t do consumer surveys—we did in-depth interviews with hard-to-reach people like CMOs and CIOs. It was all about figuring out how people make decisions. And now, at GetWhys, we’re doing the same thing—just packaged as software instead of consulting.

Stacey Epstein:
So your first job out of college, you were doing live interviews?

Philippe Boutros:
Exactly. One of my first projects was with Dell EMC—I interviewed 10 CIOs from 20 of the biggest US banks. The topic was backup and recovery, which was a huge issue at the time since cloud adoption wasn’t where it is today.

Stacey Epstein:
That actually ties nicely to your philosophy background—even though it might not be obvious at first. You were trying to understand what made people tick. What drives decisions, what influences them to buy.

Philippe Boutros:
Totally. One of the heuristics in market research is the "Five Whys" technique—keep asking why until you get to the real root cause. That’s where our name, GetWhys, comes from. The goal is to truly understand the “why” behind decisions, so marketers know what to say and when.

Stacey Epstein:
Exactly! As a former CMO, I’ve always said empathy is a marketer’s superpower. Not just emotional empathy, but cognitive—getting inside your buyer’s head. If I understand the pain they’re feeling, I know exactly what to highlight. It’s not just research for the sake of research—it’s to uncover that “why” that shapes messaging, campaigns, everything.

Philippe Boutros:
A hundred percent. And today, with content so cheap to create, buyers are bombarded. The bar is sky-high to actually say something meaningful—and not just churn out more “save time, reduce costs” fluff.

Stacey Epstein:
Okay, so you did a ton of interviews—and at some point thought, “There’s got to be a better way,” right?

Philippe Boutros:
Pretty much. I got laid off—definitely a turning point—and had been consulting for over eight years. I’d done everything: focus groups, competitive intel, messaging for startups and massive enterprises alike. Then I joined a startup called Transform Data as their first product marketer, and a few months later, we got acquired by dbt Labs.

It was the perfect moment to ask myself: do I join another startup? Or build something of my own?

We realized that while AI might not be the best at creating poetry or music, it is incredibly good at reading massive amounts of text. And the most valuable text in B2B? In-depth interviews with decision makers.

So we flipped the model. Instead of “pay first, get data later,” we said: build the dataset first, let people access it via a large language model, and allow them to keep expanding it by simply asking for more.

Stacey Epstein:
Fascinating. So it’s like—"just ask" and real insights come back. Do people interact with it like they would ChatGPT?

Philippe Boutros:
Exactly. But everything we tell you is grounded in real quotes from real humans. We show citations inline. So when a product marketer presents to sales and gets pushback, they can say, “Well, actually, 500 potential customers said this.” It’s not opinion—it’s validated insight.

Stacey Epstein:
Yes! That’s such a game changer. Now talk more about your second big innovation—bringing research into the actual workflow.

Philippe Boutros:
Right. So we’ve got two products: Compass, which does a bunch of things, and Echo, which is focused purely on messaging refinement.

Across both, users fall into three buckets: research, create, validate.

So, say you're a product marketer at MongoDB, launching a gov-defense database. You start by researching competitors—AWS GovCloud, Microsoft, Palantir—figure out pain points, then sketch positioning. You plug that into GetWhys, and we show what real buyers are saying about those concepts. Once validated, you move on to content—web pages, pitch decks, ads—all enriched by actual customer voice.

And it’s not just about what your internal tools are picking up from your CRM or Gong calls. We surface the conversations happening outside your four walls. That’s your blind spot—and we shine a light on it.

Stacey Epstein:
So smart. But what happens when everyone’s using GetWhys? How do I maintain a competitive edge?

Philippe Boutros:
Great question. Think of it like this: lots of artists can look at the same landscape—but none of them will paint the same picture. Your insights are only as powerful as how you apply them. We don’t give everyone a giant shared dataset—we give them tools to explore it from their unique perspective.

Stacey Epstein:
I love that. I was just telling my daughter, who’s applying for internships, it’s fine to use AI tools—but you still have to shape the input. The tools don’t replace creativity or point of view—they enhance it.

Philippe Boutros:
Exactly. And I’m glad she’s using it! This generation will need to learn how to combine their own creativity with these tools to thrive.

Stacey Epstein:
Totally agree. I’m a messaging and positioning nerd—I live for this stuff. But instead of needing to schedule five customer calls every time, if I can tap into hundreds of real reactions instantly, that’s a game-changer.

Philippe Boutros:
Yeah—and people are still doing interviews. Our best customers use GetWhys as a complement, not a replacement. It just raises the bar for what’s possible.

Stacey Epstein:
It’s amazing. All right—last question. Looking ahead, what’s your long-term vision?

Philippe Boutros:
Great one. We’re still early—eight full-time people and a few dozen interviewers. But we’re already working with companies like DocuSign, Docker, and Commvault. We’re coming up on our first renewals, which is exciting.

For me, success isn’t about yachts or flashy exits. It’s when a marketer’s first instinct is to ask, “What would GetWhys say about this?” If we become that embedded in the flow of work, we’ve done our job.

And personally, I’m just excited to be building a tool that uses AI to connect people—not replace them. We’re letting AI do the hard, boring stuff—like reading transcripts—so humans can do what they’re best at.

Stacey Epstein:
Couldn’t agree more. Tools like this help us be better at what we already do best. Thanks so much for joining, Philippe—super insightful conversation. We’ll link to GetWhys in the show notes, and maybe we’ll check back in a year to see how far you’ve come!