*MAP Fellow, Raina Parikh (right) with her mentor Charu Singh, CEO of Just Value*

As a MAP Fellow with Just Value, Raina Parikh is conducting in-depth homeowner interviews to better understand the challenges people face when navigating home improvements, contractor selection, pricing, and financing. The insights she’s gathering will help feed AI models and shape future pilots to ensure the work is rooted in the experiences of the communities they aim to serve.

Halfway through the fellowship, she's reflecting on the relationships and real-world lessons that have helped shape her experience so far.

What are you learning from your mentor?

My mentor, Charu, has been wonderful, guiding me both professionally and personally. She's encouraged me to figure out what I value and build a career pathway from there, which has been especially helpful as I navigate a pivot into the social impact space. Her experience in the public and private sectors has also been invaluable in building relationships with our vendors and target audience. I've learned a lot observing her style of thoughtful communication and approach to problem-solving.

How has listening shaped your work?

One of the biggest lessons I've learned is the importance of involving your audience from the very beginning. Through conversations with potential customers and partners, we've been able to refine both our product and our understanding of who we can best serve.

Those interviews have helped us challenge our assumptions before launch, ultimately saving time and energy, ensuring we're building something that truly meets people's needs.

What challenge has taught you the most?

One of the biggest challenges was actually finding potential customers to interview. We considered several potential approaches before partnering with a research company, and we had to vet quite a few to find a good fit for our highly specific audience.

That process ended up being a valuable learning experience itself. It helped us better understand who we were trying to reach and hone in on the assumptions we wanted to test.

How has the Fellowship shaped you personally and professionally?

Through connecting with professionals from my mentor and the MAP network, I now have a better sense of both the type of projects I want to pursue and what I bring to the table. Working on such an impactful project has strengthened my project management skills and increased my confidence in my consulting abilities, and I've already begun applying them to personal and professional initiatives. I’m grateful to add this opportunity to my portfolio.

I also want to give a shout-out to the other MAP fellows! They are the most supportive group who have been a great help in connecting me with folks in their circles as I pursue this career pivot. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again at our Culmination Event in September!

Why are first-person stories so important?

Personal interviews provide a well-rounded view of a person's experiences that can't be learned through purely quantitative surveying. Conversations create space to explore experiences more deeply, which often leads to surprising insights and can better challenge assumptions.

However, you have to be careful not to overgeneralize themes from the usually limited number of interviews. Qualitative and quantitative methods must complement each other, using the qualitative insights to explore significant findings and the quantitative data to validate what you’ve learned. Research insights are only as good as the research method.

Read more here about the MAP Fellowship and how to apply to be a fellow.