Talking to Customers

When I work with early stage entrepreneurs,

they often ask me how many interviews they need to run.

They ask me how long it will take.

They really want to know how quickly

they can get back to the stuff they really love –

building product.

I hate to burst their bubble

but talking to customers should never end.

Even at scale when you have lots of analytics in place,

numbers can only tell you what’s going wrong,

not why.

Gathering numbers require that something be built first.

Talking to customers is much faster.

Especially at the earliest stages of an idea –

for a product or even a feature,

Talking to customers is much more actionable.

Building a continuous feedback loop with customers

one that you can call upon at any time

is a competitive advantage.

You can use this to test new feature concepts,

silently kill bad ideas and refine the good ones,

until they are ready to be rolled out,

first at small scale, then to everyone.

Make it a habit for everyone on your team

to talk to at least one customer everyday

Email and chat count as well.

You’ll be amazed what bringing the customers voice

into your workspace does to your product insights.