Talking to Humans

by Giff Constable

Many entrepreneurs “get out” and get in front of customers, but take a simplistic view and ask their customers what they want, or if they would buy their startup’s (half-baked) product.

There are two effective ways to do this: 1. talk directly to your customers and partners, and observe their behavior; 2. run experiments in which you put people through an experience and track what happens.

Here’s what customer discovery is not: It is not asking people to design your product for you. It is not about abdicating your vision. It is also not about pitching. A natural tendency is to try to sell other people on your idea, but your job in customer discovery is to learn.

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

you are in search of a scalable and repeatable business model. Run these experiments and keep in mind that your mission at this point is to learn before you scale.

The first step in trying to learn from the market is having an opinion about who your market actually is. I recommend thinking about a few categories: The typical customer you envision if you get traction with your idea Your early adopter, i.e. the people who will take a chance on your product before anyone else

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.

Humans are spectacularly bad at predicting their future behavior. It is tempting to say, “Would you like this idea?” or “Would you buy this product?” Unfortunately, you really have to treat those answers with a great deal of skepticism. It is more effective to ask your interview subject to share a story about the past.

An interesting open-ended question, which Steve Blank likes to use to conclude his interviews, is: “What should I have asked you that I didn’t?”

My recommendation is to set up a situation where the subject thinks they are actually buying something, even if they know the thing doesn’t exist yet.

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.

If you can connect with people at the moment of their theoretical pain, it can be very illuminating.

You should use referrals as much as possible. Set a goal of walking out of every interview with 2 or 3 new candidates.

I have found that it is extremely effective to ask people for their time, but for later, after the conference or meetup.

Finding interviewees can be harder when you are focused on an enterprise customer. You need laser-like targeting.

You can either ask for advice (where you make it clear that you are not selling anything), or you can go in as if you were selling something specific.

Asking for advice should be your default method early in your customer discovery process. You will have better luck gaining access. People like being asked (it makes them feel important). Steve Blank used to call people up and say something like, “My name is Steve and [dropped name] told me you were one of the smartest people in the industry and you had really valuable advice to offer. I’m not trying to sell you anything, but was hoping to get 20 minutes of your time.”

(Note: finding bored people stuck in line is a common recruiting hack.)

Talking in person is by far the best approach.

I highly recommend that you play back the audio and write up your notes soon after the session,

Some entrepreneurs even take the mindset that they are trying to kill their idea, rather than support it, just to set the bar high and prevent themselves from leading the witness.

Your goal is not to learn for learning’s sake. Your goal is to make better decisions that increase the odds of success.

Get into the market early and begin testing your assumptions right away, starting with conversations and proceeding from there. It will dramatically increase the odds that you will create a product that customers actually want. As you build confidence, test with increasing levels of fidelity. I think of it like peeling an onion in reverse.

A consumer business should talk to an order of magnitude more people than a business that sells to enterprise. If you are in the consumer space and haven’t spoken to at least 50 to 100 people, you probably have not done enough research. In his I-Corps course, Steve Blank requires his teams, many of which are B2B, to talk to at least 100 people over 7 weeks.