Why I built CrucibleIQ.
From Ewan Williams, CEO and co-founder of CrucibleIQ:
I came to university late. Australian Defence Force first, then back to school in my mid-twenties.
My undergraduate ran from 2004 to 2008. Back then, course notes were a literal ream of photocopied and printed newspaper and journal articles. Research for your assignments? Another ream. A laser printer, a stapler, and a box of different coloured highlighters were your best friends.
By my first Master's, 2010 to 2014, you could do proper highlighting and comments in your PDF reader, but you had to be a master of keyboard shortcuts to make the work efficient. Alt+Tab, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V all had their place. And you were still working across tools that weren't designed to work together, let alone be integrated inside a research workflow.
My MBA ran from 2021 to 2025. By then, learning on the whole had become a digital affair. The research workflow was still disjointed.
That's why I started building CrucibleIQ: so you don't have to experience the same pain I did.
The belief that drives the product
The gap between research steps isn't a coincidence. Every tool that fixed a step left citations at the end of the workflow as a formatting problem you deal with once the real work is done. CrucibleIQ is built on the opposite belief: citations are the foundation everything else stands on. Every source you upload gets verified, and every annotation in your draft stays connected to the passage and source it came from. That's what makes the rest of the workflow possible.
Who's building this
Ewan Williams — CEO and co-founder. Designed CrucibleIQ's architecture, user experience, and feature set, drawing on twenty years of writing his own research papers across three degrees. Holds an MBA, a Master's in Criminology and Criminal Justice, and a B.Sc. in Psychology.
Melissa Podruzny — COO and co-founder. Handles business operations and finance, drawing on a leadership background in those functions. Studied Mechanical Engineering, holds a Diploma in Business Management and Certified Project Officer (CPO) certification, with formal education in accounting, data analytics, and sustainability.
The company
CrucibleIQ is built and operated by Refracted Aspect Collective Inc., based in Devon, Alberta, Canada.
What we believe
- •Your tools should work together. Research, reading, writing, and citations belong in one place.
- •AI should assist, not replace. We use AI to find sources and extract metadata, not to write your paper for you.
- •Your data is yours. You own everything you upload and create.
- •Citation accuracy matters. Citations should be traceable to a source, and your reference list should always match your in-text citations.
Get in touch
Questions, feedback, or just want to say hi? Reach us at hello@crucibleiq.com.
Ready to try it?
Free during beta. All features included.
Join the Free BetaFree during beta. All features included.