Talking to Humans

by Giff Constable

The art of being a great entrepreneur is finding the right balance between vision and reality.

your goal is not to compile statistically significant answers. Instead you want to look for patterns that will help you make better decisions.

“You need to understand your market. How does your customer buy? When do they buy? Why do they buy? Where do they buy?

Each of the three approaches is imperfect, but together you should see patterns.

you are in search of a scalable and repeatable business model.

seeing behavior that validates your customer’s willingness to buy is very useful

Take good notes, especially on your key risks,

Never stop asking hard questions about your business

Who do you want to learn from?

What do you want to learn?

by definition, the mainstream is waiting for proof from early adopters before they try something.

Early adopters are usually folks who feel a pain point acutely, or love to try new products and services.

In a classic enterprise sale, you will often have a strategic buyer (who is excited about the change you can bring), an economic buyer (who controls the purse), a technical buyer (who might have approval/blocker rights), and then the actual users of your product. Can you identify your champion? Can you identify who might be a saboteur?

For B2B companies, Steve Blank also recommends that you start by talking to mid-level managers rather than the C-suite. It can be easier to get their time, it is often easier to get repeat conversations, and, most importantly, it will allow you to get better educated before you go up the chain.

How do you know your most important questions? I like to begin by understanding my most important, and most risky, assumptions. Those tend to be the areas where you need to gather insights most urgently.

The problem my customer wants to solve is?

My customer’s need can be solved with?

Why can’t my customer solve ...

measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is?

My earliest adopter will be?

I will make money (revenue) by?

I will beat my competitors primarily because of?

My biggest risk to financial viability is?

What assumptions do we have that, if proven wrong, would cause this business to fail?

It is more effective to ask your interview subject to share a story about the past.

ask questions that start with words like who, what, why and how.

“What should I have asked you that I didn’t?”

Two of the hardest questions to answer through qualitative research are: will people pay? and how much will they pay?

much do you currently spend to address this problem?

budget do you have allocated to this, and who controls it?

How much would you pay to make this problem go away?

It is the customer’s job to explain their behavior, goals, and challenges. It is the product designer’s job to come up with the best solution.

Set a goal of walking out of every interview with 2 or 3 new candidates. When you end an interview, ask the person if they know others

don’t fish where the fish are not. If a method isn’t working, try something new.

Is it their #1 pain, or something too low in priority to warrant attention and budget?

For important topics, try repeating back what the person said. You can occasionally get one of two interesting results. They might correct you because you’ve misinterpreted what they said. Or, by hearing their own thoughts, they’ll actually realize that their true opinion is slightly different, and they will give you a second, more sophisticated answer.

if you feel like you have a firm understanding of your customer’s true need, you might move on to exploring how they learn about and purchase solutions in your product category today. And

You need to start with vision. You need to start with how you want to improve the world and add value to people’s lives.

Creating a new business is tremendously challenging. The ways you can fail are numerous. You have to get the customer and market right You have to get the revenue model right You have to get the cost structure right You have to get customer acquisition right You have to get the product right You have to get the team right You have to get your timing right Screw up any one of those and you are toast.