NEW
1-Day Intensive | In-Person in Space Beach
Engineering
human value.
Partner with Holloway R&D to transform invention into impact.
The Human Value Gap
In this era of innovation, human adoption is struggling to keep pace with technical capability.
Your team has defied the technically impossible, but the hardest challenge remains: market friction.
It’s stalling your traction, costing you valuable time, market share, and investor confidence.
How do you get people to understand, trust, and adopt your solution?
Why Holloway R&D
Invention is only as powerful as the human value it unlocks.
Holloway R&D is a venture practice bridging the human value gap between invention and impact. We partner with leaders to provide human factors engineering and executive guidance for 0-to-1 ventures.
Headquartered in Long Beach, CA, we serve the Space Beach community with in-person engagements across Southern California.
Where generalists falter, we offer differentiated expertise:
Elite Ex-FAANG Performance
: We collaborate with top-tier teams on high-stakes innovation at scale.Human Factors Rigor
: We de-risk strategic choices in mission-critical environments.0-to-1 Venture Expertise
: We navigate ambiguity to bring breakthrough offerings to market.Frontier Full-Stack Design
: We optimize human-machine teaming across AI-enabled software, hardware, and services.Dual-Use Alignment
: We bridge strict requirements for commercial enterprise and defense customers.SoCal Region Resilience
: We actively mentor and partner within Southern California's deep tech ecosystem.Certified Diverse Supplier
: We are a certified MBE, WBE, VSBE, LSBE, and Green Business.
Our Approach
With over a decade at the frontier of emerging technology, we specialize in de-risking high-stakes innovation through human-centered design. Our practice is committed to building an abundant future that is as inclusive and sustainable as it is disruptive.
We engineer human value across the three business layers where high-stakes innovations get stuck:
STRATEGIES: De-risk Investment Decisions. Identify human value gaps to avoid over-engineering and maximize investment defensibility.
EXPERIENCES: Win Market Share. Translate technical breakthroughs into category-defining commercial velocity.
SYSTEMS: Build Operational Resilience. Optimize human-system workflows to ensure mission-critical performance.
Our Services
We partner with you at your venture’s defining moments.
1-DAY INTENSIVE
Align your venture with market needs through an expert-facilitated whiteboard intensive.
1
Day
Gain clarity on a definitive path forward
Best for roadmap ambiguity and urgent milestones
ADVISORY
Launch your venture with high-stakes decision support.
3
Months
Mitigate product-market fit risk
Best for incubating ventures (Pre-Seed/Seed/Grant-Funded)
FRACTIONAL
Grow your venture with a fractional Chief Experience Officer (CXO).
6
Months
Build a human-centric organization
Best for scaling ventures (Series A+)
BESPOKE
Solve your venture's novel problems by designing from first principles.
Project-Based
Apply R&D where best practices fail
Best for complex edge cases
Our Impact
Hear from founders who have navigated their journey with Holloway R&D.
Meet Shannon Holloway
Shannon Holloway, MS, CHFP is the Founder and Principal of Holloway R&D, where she partners with leaders to bridge the human value gap between technical brilliance and human impact.
With a 20-year career spanning the rigorous constraints of healthcare information systems to the frontiers of human-machine teaming, Shannon specializes in translating technical audacity into commercial impact. Her track record includes incubating early-stage ideas at Google that reached $1B+ valuations and billions of users, establishing user experience (UX) infrastructure for stealth startups, and launching the venture arm of Steadfast Financial. Currently, she mentors deep tech founders building category-defining moats at Techstars Space Accelerator and Braid Theory.
As a Board-Certified Human Factors Professional (CHFP), Shannon brings engineering discipline to the human side of innovation. Her pioneering work has earned a Red Dot Design Award and has been published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, and the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA).
Shannon's unique lens is informed by her background in multimedia storytelling - featured by the Discovery Channel and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG) - enabling her to translate complex technical narratives into compelling market positions. She holds an MS from NYU Tandon School of Engineering and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Contact Us
Get started by booking an introductory Alignment Call.