Episode highlights
00:00:36 – UX Research Geeks news
00:01:22 – Meeting Petra
00:02:15 – Petra’s experience in the UXR field
00:05:25 – Petra’s mission for UXR Geeks
00:07:08 – Petra’s first guest on the podcast
00:10:00 – Summarizing Tina’s 4 years with UXR Geeks
00:12:40 – Saying a heartfelt goodbye to Tina
About our guest
Petra Rajkov is a senior UX researcher and product thinker. With a background spanning startups, scale-ups, and large corporations, she’s worked on a wide range of projects, but her main goal is always keeping real human experiences at the center of the company. Driven by curiosity and her experience at Slido, Cisco, and UXtweak, she is now bringing her passion for UX and empowering others to the UX Research Geeks Podcast.
I believe that research should be in the center of every company, of creating strategies, when we are coming up with new features, new products... I notice that this is not happening and that drives me crazy. So I want to talk with people, understand where they are coming from and what they're doing to fight this. 
Podcast summary
In this milestone episode of UXR Geeks, long-time host Tina Ličková passes the microphone to Petra Rajkov, Senior UX Researcher at UXtweak, marking the beginning of a new chapter for the show after 4 years and over 70 episodes.
Tina reflects on the evolution of the podcast, sharing how staying authentic, bringing a critical mindset to the industry, and creating digestible, highly focused episodes helped shape UXR Geeks into what it is today. She also shares her reasons for stepping down, including her transition into product management and navigating the evolving role of AI in product development.
Petra introduces her journey through the UX research field, detailing her growth at Slido from a 10-person startup to a scale-up acquired by Cisco, and her current role at UXtweak. She discusses the power of building a deeply user-centric culture where research is integrated into every department – from sales and marketing to executive strategy.
The conversation explores navigating industry shifts, including recent tech layoffs, budget constraints, and the rise of AI. Petra shares her core mission as the new host: bringing curiosity, encouraging healthy debate, picking the brains of top industry experts, and empowering researchers to defend the strategic value of their work.
Finally, Petra previews what’s next for the show, including her upcoming episode with Joel Barr, reaffirming that despite market changes, human-centered research remains essential for building products that truly solve user needs.
Podcast transcript
[00:00:33] Tina Ličková: This is UXR Geeks and you are listening, to my final episode. this is also why we don’t have a typical intro because this final episode is joined by a new host, Petra, who is going to take over from the next episode. And we decided to do a short thing on explaining what is happening and that the new age of UXR Geeks is coming. So hi Petra.
[00:01:01] Petra Rajkov: Hey Tina. Hello everyone.
[00:01:03] Tina Ličková: So, these are the news and before we explain what is happening and why, I decided after four years to quit the show. I wanna introduce Petra. So Petra, who are you?
What are you doing? What are you going through? Tell us everything because we wanna know everything about you and what are you bringing to the table?
[00:01:20] Petra Rajkov: Hi everyone and thank you Tina, for this short introduction. My name is Petra and I work as a user researcher; I’m super passionate about research. believe that research should be in the center of every company of creating strategies when we are coming up with new features, new products, and so on, in some companies.
I notice that this is not happening that drives me crazy. So I want to talk with people, understand where they are coming from and what they’re doing to fight this, to make sure that people are listening to the research, they are deciding based on the research and they are thinking about the user’s needs.
[00:02:06] Tina Ličková: Let’s go to your experiences. Let’s go to what you did, because I think your journey is quite interesting. So why not to talk about that a little bit.
[00:02:15] Petra Rajkov: Yeah, of course. So I started my journey in Slido, and back then when I joined Slido, I think it was. like 14 years ago or something like that. It was a small startup. like 10 people and we were figuring out what to do, how to develop features, but what we had, there was a really strong team and it was super user-centric. So that’s where I learned values. That’s what I try to apply everywhere I go. And in our Slido journey, we went from startup to scale up.
There was more and more people being hired. The culture was still staying the same, even though the, growth was super fast, And then. at the end we were acquired by Cisco and then there was like around almost 300 people in the company and still our CEO was coming to our research calls. Everyone was listening to what the users were saying And one thing that was special. Was that we were connecting with other teams.
So we were talking with sales, we were talking with marketing, we were talking with guys in technology. So really research was at the heart in the company, I was like, this is amazing. This is how it should be. Right. We were building these relationships and these conversations, and it was so powerful we also had a platform where we were sharing findings, not only from the research team but from all the other teams.
Then I learned that this is not everywhere like this. And actually I was impacted by layoffs, happening in Cisco. So maybe some of you can relate to it. but that didn’t bring me down because I still saw the journey of Slido. I saw what part, did the research play. So even though I left Cisco and I left on good terms. I wanted to bring my expertise, my journey coming from startup to scale-up, and then to the huge corporation else.
And then I talked with, UXtweak founder Eduard Kuric, and we shared this belief that research should be conducted right, with a high quality and intent, and. It is a powerful tool that the company should use. So I joined UXtweak and now I have the opportunity to talk with many inspiring, people. So that’s why I’m here.
[00:04:51] Tina Ličková: Great. Great. And sorry to hear that you are impacted by the layoffs, but that’s maybe great for having the empathy, what is happening in the business? Right. While talking about the empathy, I think you have a really good framing when it comes to what you wanna bring to the podcast when we were also aligning on?
Okay. I am leaving. you are jumping in. I really love the enthusiasm that you have and also that you have already when you decided to take it over mission. So what is the mission for you in the podcast?
[00:05:25] Petra Rajkov: When we started discussing whether I would be able,to join the podcast and we will be talking about why this change is happening, first I was super excited because as I said, I love talking to people. I love learning from them, and. Everywhere I go, I bring my curiosity. That’s what I do on the research calls no matter what project we are, conducting I bring my curiosity, but then I started listening to more and more episodes and I read about. All the amazing guests that were on the show, I read about, you in more detail and I was like, how can I fill these big shoes? Because you have such rich experience. I have completely different experience compared to you. So got worried and I was like, can I do it? then I took a step back. sat down and I was thinking, what am I bringing to the podcast?
What is my mission? then I was like, I’m a user researcher. I want to treat it that way, so I want to get inspired. were amazing guests and I would love to talk to them. I would like to pick their brains. I would like to. Get their knowledge across. I want to enable people that are listening to us
And I’m not scared of discussion. I’m not scared about maybe disagreeing even because that can lead to more powerful learning. yeah, that’s my mission.
[00:06:58] Tina Ličková: Great. So looking forward to it and the first episode with you is coming in a few weeks. do you already know who is coming to the podcast?
[00:07:08] Petra Rajkov: My first guest should be Joel Barr.
and I am very excited for it. when when I was talking to Joel, I think we shared this positive outlook on research and the role of research I realized that the times are changing. We have the AI hype, the budget cuts, the layoffs happening, and I’ve been through that. But I still think that we are here to stay. The researchers will have a role in the company. There is a desire for research from stakeholders. it is changing. The way we will be conducting research and the expectations from researchers, but I do think that research is here to stay and researchers have so much expertise that they can use to enhance the experience of the users.
[00:08:03] Tina Ličková: Okay, good. So maybe now to explain from my side, say what is happening. I mean, it’s super simple. After four years, I decided it’s time to move forward and to leave the podcast as it is. It’s coming from different places. I think I grew a little bit tired talking about research, which sounds weird, but it’s not meant badly.
It’s just like you, basically talk with people about one topic. I felt like I want to talk about more topics, you know, go really wild and talk to scientists from other, spaces. the second point was, in order to let the podcast grow, we were talking about some social media strategies.
I am not really big into social media. I’m not really big into promoting myself anymore. And, I am kind of a, what some people call a business bank, and I am kind of like neglecting all that at, this point of life. It might change, in few years But I felt like, okay, this is not something that is natural to me.
I also felt that somebody, a new blood coming to the podcast would really refresh it after the four years we were building it up. So I’m really happy that you joined and that we have this chance to continue with this because, I mean, it’s one of my babies and I feel like it shouldn’t be, you know, just stopped by me not being able or not being so enthusiastic anymore about it.
[00:09:35] Petra Rajkov: Well, thank you for giving me this opportunity, I will try to do as a good of a job as you were doing, but think, you have done over 70 episodes. You had over 70 guests, right? So how would you describe your journey? To bring a bit of a closure to this part of the UXR Geeks podcast.
[00:10:00] Tina Ličková: How would I summarize it? It’s four years of my life, right? So it’s really hard to summarize it. But I remember, talking to the first producer when I did my first episode with Nick, who am I sending greetings to and she was like, oh, you are way more cheeky in real life.
Just be yourself. That was the first moment where I realized, okay, I have to bring myself to the table. I’m not just a researcher in this, podcast, but I have to be also the kind of like the entertainer, not in the bad meaning of the world.
So that was the first point. And then playing with the format. I mean, we started, where we talked with an hour and a half with our guests because I was so excited. But, of course people sometimes get tired to talk about one specific topic.
So we shortened that to, way shorter episodes that the people can listen to us when they are, you know, doing the laundry or driving in cars, also in Europe where everything is way closer than in the US.
and then we also started to, Go even more specifically in the topics. And when we were talking with our guests, it was, okay, what exactly are we going to talk about? Not to bring really, like big topics or meta-level topics, to the table. So I would say that’s the. Development or evolution on the podcast and my evolution in it, trying to find who am I in the podcast and also bringing my skepticism into it.
And this is something that UXtweak completely allowed me, which I really felt lucky because not in every podcast of a company, you can be critical, you can be skeptical. And I am a critic of research as a business. I’m a critic of mostly everything I would say I’m a critical mind and I also was allowed to swear, which is also great because not every podcast allows that.
So I would say, Becoming more and more myself in the podcast was something that I very much cherish and celebrate. And also finding through the podcast that research is my love. It will stay my love. but I need. To kind of go somewhere else to try new things, to bring all my experience, which is like from every corner of our business into the PM role.
and I felt it should be happening right now when the AI is coming and we are trying to figure out how to bring it to product, not because of the technology, but how to make normal. Helpful products with it, and I felt like, okay, this is the time where I should be doing it. So, the podcast helped me to shape what I really want, where I want to be in the next couple of months or years.
[00:12:40] Petra Rajkov: We can wish you only luck on the journey and maybe in the future we’ll come to the podcast as a guest!
[00:12:47] Tina Ličková: Could be, yeah.
[00:12:48] Petra Rajkov: What you were doing, what projects you are working on, and uh, see how you feel about what we do here as well.
[00:12:57] Tina Ličková: Great. Petra, looking forward to all the episodes, that you are going to record. Wishing you all the best and yeah, have fun with our audience and the audience with you.
[00:13:07] Petra Rajkov: Yeah. Thank you so much Tina, and for everyone else, I’m super excited to be here and hopefully I will also connect with you on our next episode.
[00:13:22] Petra Rajkov: Thank you for listening to UXR Geeks. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow our podcast and share it with your friends and colleagues. Your support is really what keeps us going.
If you have any tips on fantastic speakers from across the globe, feedback, or any questions, we would love to hear from you, so reach out to geekspodcast@uxtweak.com.
Special thanks goes to my colleagues, to our podcast producer, Ekaterina Novikova, our social media specialist, Daria Krasovskaya, and our audio specialist, Melissa Danisova.
And to all of you, thank you for tuning in.
💡 This podcast was brought to you by UXtweak, an all-in-one UX research tool.
