Interpreting IQ Data (as hex) from an RTL-SDR/Hack-RF
I ended up answering my own question essentially...for other newbs out there, I suggest watching this GNU Radio video with Michael Ossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQkBDMeODHc

Thinking strictly about IQ data is too low level (for me, anyway), and GNU Radio is a great tool (along with Inspectrum https://github.com/miek/inspectrum) for picking apart signals and getting the bits.