The method is broken.

We build research that listens before it asks.

They weren't silent. You weren't listening.

We replace satisficing with storytelling and the data proves it.

Pew Research Center tracked telephone survey response rates collapsing from 36% in 1997 to 6% by 2018. The people still responding are rushing through, picking whatever answer ends the interaction fastest. The research industry calls this satisficing. Aaron calls it a design failure, and a solvable one.

Nesolagus [neh-soh-LAY-gus] is a relationship intelligence company. We replace extractive surveys with consent-first conversations built on behavioral science and a 66-page methodology framework. Our platform, Warren, treats every participant like a person worth listening to — and it shows. 34% completion rates where the industry averages 10-20%. No incentives. No tricks. No dark patterns.

The legend of

the striped rabbit

The legend of

the striped rabbit

Our name comes from Nesolagus netscheri, the Sumatran striped rabbit thought extinct for most of a century, rediscovered in 1999 by a trail camera that looked where others hadn't. The rabbit was never gone. The instruments were insufficient.

Warren is named for the branching tunnel systems rabbits build underground; pathways that expand as the animal learns its environment. Our platform works the same way: a suite of research tools that grows new pathways in response to what it discovers. We help organizations build the tunnels where real stories surface and turn those stories into strategic intelligence.

In 1998, a motion-triggered camera in Sumatra's cloud forest captured what scientists thought was lost: Nesolagus netscheri, the striped rabbit. Shy, nocturnal, perfectly camouflaged—it survives by vanishing into a lattice of hidden tunnels called a warren, where every entrance connects to many others. That image guides our work. The voices that matter most—students, donors, residents, customers—often live below the noise. Warren, our conversational survey platform, builds those tunnels: safe spaces where people share what they usually keep hidden. From there, patterns emerge. Connections form. Understanding deepens. The stripes in our mark honor the rabbit's quiet resilience. The interwoven tunnels in our system reflect the refuge it builds—and the communities we help you create.

Research infrastructure, not another survey tool.

Discovery-first. Methodology-driven. Built for emergence.

Every engagement starts with listening; structured discovery workshops that surface the real questions before a single survey question is written. Warren then builds conversations from that listening, using AI guided by behavioral science, not templates.

The results speak for themselves. In our work with the Greater Hartford Arts Council: 260 narratives collected, 78% demographic opt-in (industry average: 40-50%), and insights that surprised the people who commissioned them, because the system is built to discover what you didn't know to ask about.

We work across education, arts and nonprofit, urban place management, and civic sectors. The rabbit was never extinct. We just hadn't learned to look. Let's burrow together.

We work across education, arts and nonprofit, urban place management, and civic sectors. The rabbit was never extinct. We just hadn't learned to look.

Let's burrow together.

A Focused Founder

Aaron Lyles has been asking people what they think since he was a teenager publishing a snowboard magazine in Connecticut. Back then, a local headline called him “chairman of the ‘board.’” The quotes were a joke. The instinct was not.

What followed was a sustained investigation into a simple problem: institutions ask questions and mishear the answers. Nesolagus is what he built in response, a consent-first, behaviorally grounded research practice built on the belief that how you ask matters as much as what you ask. He takes listening seriously.

Meet the founder →

Aaron Lyles has been asking people what they think since he was a teenager publishing a snowboard magazine in Connecticut. Back then the headline called him "chairman of the 'board.'" The quotes were a joke. The instinct was not.

What followed was a career-long investigation into why institutions keep asking the wrong questions and calling the answers data. Nesolagus is what he built in response: a consent-first, behaviorally grounded research practice that takes listening seriously enough to spend 66 pages on how to do it right.

Meet the founder →