Victoria Sakal is a growth and go-to-market expert who loves to turn customer, market and competitor insight in product, brand and business growth strategies.

Her hot take? That companies are either paying the "research tax" - spending too much time and money on research and never making a move - or the "stupid tax" - making decisions based purely on gut feel and no evidence. Both of these taxes can get your organisation in trouble, and the best path is to strike the right balance of speed and quality.

Find Victoria on LinkedIn.

If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time!

• Standing up for User Research... and User Researchers (Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")
• Getting into the Habit of Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres, Author "Continuous Discovery Habits")
• Making Sure You Make an Impact through User Research (Steve Portigal, User Research Consultant & Author "Interviewing Users")
• Product Leadership Principles for Tumultuous Times (Giff Constable, Author "Talking with Humans" & "Testing with Humans")
• How to Deploy Empathy to Truly Understand User Needs (Michele Hansen, Author "Deploy Empathy")
• Chinese Startup Culture & Putting the Minimum into MVP (Carlos Lastres, Creative & Marketing Director @ Kaiyan Medical)
• Reducing Waste by Only Spending Time on Really Good Ideas (Julia Shalet, Author "The Really Good Idea Test")
• Retail Product Management in a Global Pandemic (Rhiana Matthew, Senior Product Manager @ Publicis Sapient)