our end-clients
More about us
Our Approach
We base our approach on the teachings of IIT Institute of Design, Chicago, a holistic approach to product development and Human-Centered Innovation that includes defining the problem, conducting research to reframe the problem, creating design options, and finally making a strategic choice.
Background
We are a Bangkok-based market research company founded in Bangkok over ten years ago in 2013 by Adisorn Supawatanakul, a seasoned Thai Design Researcher and Sawyer J. Lahr, a serial entrepreneur, in partnership with Conifer Research, our shareholders in the Chicago, USA.
origin of our Name
Our name was chosen in the style of our USA partner, Conifer Research, which named itself after a native evergreen tree. We chose Teak because it is a hardwood tree native to the Southeast Asian region. It is practical, durable, and beautiful and is known for its longevity.
Our team
Adisorn “Glar” Supawatanakul, Co-Founder
Adisorn is an art and design enthusiast with decades of experience in design research who oversees our consulting projects from planning to deliverables and ensures all recommendations are actionable. He is our resident authority on all things about design research and design thinking. If you want to know how to apply social research and design to product development, he’s the person to consult. He loves teaching design research as much as he loves doing it himself, giving his time to teaching as a guest lecturer or adjunct professor.
Sawyer Jordan Lahr, Company Director
Sawyer is a filmmaker turned entrepreneur turned applied researcher with a love for storytelling who oversees consulting projects, operations, marketing, communications, and strategy for the company. He is dedicated to developing the quality of work as well as the capabilities of our team and is always ushering in new ways of working. He also guides his team to elicit stories from the field and bring those stories to life on the pages of our presentations with emotionally powerful insights, rich media, and visualizations.
Kanatip "Tip" Marks, Design Research Director
Kanatip is a researcher and designer with a passion for plants and pets who facilitates both research and design activities across projects including creating engaging and effective stimulus materials and research tools for fieldwork and ideation workshops. Her ability to understand how designers think and how organizations work enables her to work in close collaboration with clients across business units to implement research findings. She is also an incredibly skilled moderator of customer co-creation sessions and UX interviews as well as a master facilitator of ideation workshops, both in-person and remote interviews.
Supattra "Gift" Bunnuan, Design Research Consultant
Supattra is a curious and fearless applied anthropologist who helps her team dive deep into the lives of our research participants to see insight into what others may see as mundane. She is a people person who quickly establishes rapport with research participants in any context and is a keen observer during on-the-ground fieldwork. She is always willing and eager to volunteer. She is also a highly skilled moderator and facilitator whether it be immersions, participatory research, in-depth interviews, intercept interviews, co-creation or ideation sessions, both in-person or remote.
Piyathep "Drink" Tanmahasmut, Design Research Consultant
Piyathep is a down-to-earth, sports-loving applied anthropologist who easily builds rapport with research participants when immersing in cultural contexts and interviewing key informants in the field. His easy-going and straightforward personality makes him easy to get along with. There isn’t much that makes him uncomfortable, which makes him a versatile researcher. He’s actively continuing his education and developing a strong interest in Applied Anthropology, Anthropology of the Future and Design Research.
Phutiset "Mu" Cherchuponglam, Design Research Consultant
Phutiset is football and manga fan who brings his knowledge of industrial design, user-centered design, and user research to inform the design direction of client’s projects during and after the research is finished. He has been involved in various design projects such as packaging design using agriculture waste, design of home appliances, board game design, and luggage design. He is also well equipped to handle issues related to innovation and product or service value.
Nongnaphat "Ploy" Ninarun, Research Operations
Nongnaphat is a Korean pop music fan who brings her knowledge of market research project management from the traditional market research industry in Thailand for local offices of global market research firms. She has been involved in various market research projects in different industries such as energy, automotive, online shopping, FMCG, and luxury goods and is capable of coordinating with clients, researchers, and external vendors from different backgrounds to deliver a project to completion.