Develop the Right Product with Confidence Using These Five Steps
How to prepare for a customer discovery
I once had an idea for a useful HR product. As I had worked in HR for several years, I faced particular obstacles that would be solved with the help of this product. I was absolutely certain that it would become extremely popular as soon as it was released. I had resources and project requirements — it was time to move forward.
“Wait a sec,” my mentor said. “Are you sure the market really needs your product?”
“Sure,” I answered. “I need it and several of my colleagues think it’s a really cool idea.”
There was one nuance connected with my prospective clients’ geographical location that significantly differed from me and my local colleagues.
“Are you sure that your target market also has this pain?” he calmly repeated.
“I have no idea what my target audience really thinks,” I answered honestly.
“Find out then.”
So I began preparing for a customer discovery, the main goal of which was to check my hypothesis with my target audience.
1. I clearly articulated my target audience
Since I had to find a particular group of people that I personally didn’t know, I had to seek them out. LinkedIn helped a lot. I outlined my search criteria:
- Client’s Job Title
- Business domain
- Number of employees working at the client’s company
- Geography
The more accurate the criteria, the more objective your customer discovery data will be.
2. I composed an email
People usually don’t like direct selling. At this stage of checking the hypothesis, you have a major advantage: you’re not actually selling anything. You want to ask several questions to find out what exactly the “pain” is that you want to fix…and what it isn’t?
Compose a brief, interesting email where you offer a 15 minute call (or meeting) during which you will ask a series of questions to prove your hypothesis.
Here are examples of my emails (my conversion rate was 10%):
LinkedIn invite:
Hi, {Name}!
I’m Kate, a Product Owner of People Partner Platform. My team works on a product that is going to help companies automate HR processes. We are at the customer discovery stage, so I’m asking you for a 15-min interview to discuss general product functionality. This is not a sales pitch, I promise :).
After they become a connection:
Hi again, {Name}!
Thanks for adding me as a contact!I’m Kate, a Product Owner of People Partner Platform.
As I said above, my team works on a product that is going to help companies automate HR processes. We are creating a kind of virtual people manager that will help companies like yours to work with employee on-boarding.
I want to ask you for a 15-min interview to discuss general product functionality, as we figure out what is most important for people in our target audience. I promise not to sell you anything :). In return for our talk, you will get free access for your company to the beta version of the product for 3 months.
Is there a good time to talk?
3. I prepared questions for the interview
The main goals of my research were to prove my hypothesis and to find out the real tensions for my target audience. Therefore, during our conversations I had to puzzle over what pain the client was feeling and get insights about up-to-date products in case my hypothesis was declined.
Several rules for the “right” questions:
- Discovery: facts about previous experience
- Digging: “why” and “give me more details”
- Getting into details: “as I understand, you…”
Examples of my questions:
Tell me how the process of performance management works in your company?
Do you set company goals (quarterly, yearly)? How do you track the progress?
What kind of issues do you have with this process?
How do you check employee’s performance?
Whose performance you are not checking? Why?
What are the 5 things you would like to improve in performance management?
What cost you are ready to pay for the system that solves all these tensions? Why?
4. I created a table with the answers
During the conversation, you must either write down all that is said by the interviewee or record it. At the very least, make some notes in a notebook. Otherwise you will forget before you’re able to record the answers in your table. All this data will be useful, both to conclude your research and to give you a notion of who your future potential client is, according to the problems you’ve identified.
I recommend that you get in touch with people who were your first connections. They probably won’t buy anything from you, but talking to them will lead to interesting opportunities.
5. I held 50 interviews and wrote a summary
I have a table with 50 answers from my potential clients. And what do I see? They absolutely don’t have the problems I thought they’d have. Instead I see three options for useful products. Three strongly marked needs which can be solved for.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have funding for three products. That’s why I chose the one I had the maximum expertise in, so that I can design the product that will bring the greatest benefit to my clients.
You can’t even imagine how grateful I was to my mentor, who made me come down from my dream and advised me to do this research. It’s one thing to hear that your idea sucks and you need to change your focus when you haven’t spent a penny. It’s quite another to spend thousands of dollars on a product you will be unable to sell because the market doesn’t need it.
