The Cost of Skipping This Step
Winning government work takes more than the right price and the right plan. Agencies increasingly want proof you understand the people your work actually affects, and that the input behind your bid is real, not assumed.
Some Primes don't have that capability built out yet. Others have it, but not the bandwidth to run it well on top of everything else a bid demands. And for some, it's simply about making a strong bid stronger. Whatever the reason, the gap tends to show up the same way in scoring: firms lose bids on "firm experience" and "personnel qualifications," not on price.
That's a fixable gap.
Why RGLR?
We Know How to Earn Trust Fast
We've run contextual research with small business owners, service professionals, and underserved communities. People open up to us quickly, and what they tell us is what they actually do, not just what they think we want to hear.
We're Certified, Local, & Connected
City of Austin MBE certified, honored by Travis County and other regional entities. Based in Austin, working across Texas. Faculty and Leadership at the Austin Center for Design, which means access to a wider talent pool of trained researchers when a project scales for each project.
We Stay Engaged Past the Handoff
A lot of firms deliver a flat report and disappear, leaving you stuck defending follow-up question you can't answer alone. We build what we hand over so your team can actually use it, and we stay close enough afterward that you're never starting from scratch to get an answer.
Why Public Sector,
Why Now?
We've done this work in the private sector for over a decade. Public sector is newer for us, but it's not a stretch, it's the reason we started.
We live here, in Travis County. Through Austin Center for Design, where Maryanne leads a school built around social impact, where we see the effects of local decisions firsthand in education, food insecurity, and support for unhoused neighbors.
At some point, the question became obvious: why not do this work ourselves, here, where it matters most to us?
THREE STEPS, EVERY TIME.
How We Work Together
1
Understand Your Contract
No pitch first. We start by understanding the specific bid or deliverable you're working on and where the gap actually is.
2
Go into the Field for Evidence
We design and run the engagement itself: interviews, workshops, on-the-ground conversations with the residents and stakeholders who matter to this contract.
3
Hand You Proof That Holds Up
You walk away with something you can bring to the agency, to residents, or to your own leadership, and defend under real scrutiny.
Proof This Works
LegalEASE needed to understand the real, often invisible barriers keeping underserved employees from asking for legal help. We ran in-depth interviews and turned what we heard into a behavioral framework their client could actually use, one that reshaped how a legal benefits program talks to the people it's meant to serve. It's the same kind of work: go find out what's true for people who are hard to reach, then turn it into something an institution can act on.
What's at Stake
Every bid ends up on one side of this line or the other. What happens next depends on whether the community was actually part of the process, or just assumed.
If you bring real evidence
You strengthen the bid itself, and you walk into delivery already knowing what the community actually needs, not guessing at it after the contract's signed.
If you don't
You risk losing on qualifications before price ever matters, or winning the contract and struggling to defend your approach when the agency or residents push back.