User research, the not-so-secret weapon for startups
Once Mr. Henry Ford (allegedly) said “If I had asked the users what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” and that answer I think it would be a very good insight to develop what we know today as the car.
Probably, what Mr. Ford did not know when he said so, is that qualitative research helps to understand what is in the user’s mind, or what are the uncovered needs. Is not going to tell you the answer on what to build, but is going to tell you where the shoes hurt.
Just imagine a canyon, you are standing on one side of it, and your user is on the other, you want to be as close as possible to serve him better. That gap between both of you is the undiscovered way to accomplish this. User research is not going to tell you what kind of bridge build, what is the best material or design. User research is going to tell you where the separation between both sides is smaller, therefore is the best place to build the bridge. That makes your work thousand times easier. However, easier doesn’t mean easy, to find the right design, the right materials, the right solution, the product team (or the whole company) will have to find out the answer, with a trial and error approach.
On the early stages of a company, conducting this sort of research beats the more “traditional” quantitative research concerning the value of the data obtained. This is because helps to understand the underlying “Whys” that are the foundation for any product or service that truly want to create value. When we focus in the “Whys” to build something we are focusing on the needs of a group of users and here is when the magic happens, because this is where most of the startups fall short. Just copying something that works in another market, for example, is not the best way to succeed because of the cultural difference for instance.
No matter how important I believe in qualitative research, now a day the dominant trend at startups is to be data-driven, I think it happens because the background of most founders is in engineering or something related. I know to hear about the 40 different shades of blue that Google tested to improve the search button is eye-catching, and most of the times useless (More of that story here). But the hidden problem for the startups, when they want to be data-driven, is the absence of statistical confidence from the numbers they get due to a small user base making the conclusions useless.
Moreover, qualitative research unlike, quantitative studies, is something almost everybody can do. Sure you are not going to be good in the beginning, as almost everything in life requires practice and willingness to learn, but even not being good at it, you can start getting valuable insights from your users since the first interview. Don’t be afraid, embrace the challenge and start talking with your users! And If you are, like me, those who like to read before a deep dive, I recommend you to read “Don’t make me think — From Steve Krug” and “Interviewing users — From Steve Portigal” and start following these blogs, “UX Matters” and “Inside intercom.”
Now, in the fast-paced environment of the startups, this approach could seem to be slow because of the one to one nature of the strategy. However, first, you do not have to interview 100 users to have valuable information, you can start with something between 5 to 10, get useful insights and decide if you need to dive deeper into any particular subject. Second, because what you learn from your users is about the problems they have, you are not tied to a complex implementation and an unknown problem; instead, you are tied to a problem that worth be solved with the freedom to try a not-so-complex and fast-to-develop solution to start delivering value. Last, among the different insights you get from the users you are going to find things that are more valuable to act on them right now and others that can wait for future iterations of your product.
If one of your stakeholders come and try to convince you to implement any “Quick win,” you can answer them with appropriate data about what the user needs are, and to relieve the stakeholder anxiety, how quick you are going to add real value solving the right things.
Last but not least, the value of user research, when everybody participates in the sessions, is the generation of empathy with the user, and this is not just a kind and trendy word, this is something that has real business impact. You may think, how? Because all the team members make decisions that affect the product all the time, and when the product changes the user is affected, so, making your team knowing the user is the best way to empower them to make the best decisions every time. For me, this is one of the principal benefits that you can obtain from being in contact with your users, but, paradoxically is not so many times considered in the literature or, in the everyday conversation between peers.
Conclusion
Even if user research is not able to give you the exact path to success solving a user problem, it is definitely helping you in finding the right direction. This is notoriously relevant at early stage companies, but in my experience, any business at any stage can find value in talking with users.
Finally, the importance of internal alignment should not be undermined, especially, when the company headcount starts growing, and the everybody-in-the-same-page begins to be every time more challenging.