How to really understand what to build as a start-up.

And why the story of into.care serves as a prime example.

Successful startups build products that solve their users’ problems. But for that to happen, a thorough understanding of your users’ problems is critical. Makes sense right? Well, you’d be surprised how easy it is to mistake those problems for the actual ones.

When you build products that are not in tune with the people who use them, you’ve wasted your time and money. So you either really understand what your customers need, or you’ll end up on that same pile of failures, next to the other 90% of start-ups.

So how can you thoroughly understand what to build?

Well, the founders of into.care understood how to understand.

A bit of background

When Jeroen’s father was admitted to the hospital for a minor procedure, the nurse entered the room with a computer on wheels to perform some data entry. But the moment she came in, the battery died. Apart from unreliable, the thing was bulky, unpractical and not at all user-friendly. But it was the status quo for when hospital personnel had to work mobile.

While working at Blackberry at the time, Jeroen understood the power of working mobile. He never even set foot in the London office he was working for.

But he didn’t understand why hospitals weren’t embracing mobile technology, when the added value seemed crystal clear.

So he started asking questions.

Not just to the nurse that entered the room, but to a whole suite of different people at different hospitals throughout the country.

Yet, these hospitals were stubborn, and weren’t exactly interested in questioning the status quo. But when Jeroen talked to residential care centers about the same problem, he felt the dynamics of the conversations changing.

And so the story of into.care begins.

How (not) to talk to your users

There is no point in creating a solution without talking to your users, because your products won’t be used inside the office you’re creating it in. In fact, if you don’t go outside of your office, your products probably won’t be used at all.

So that’s exactly what the into.care team did.

But when they initially scripted their interviews, it went horribly wrong. None of it felt natural. So instead of running interviews, they started focusing on comfortable and informal conversations with a simple cup of coffee. Not face to face, but shoulder to shoulder.

Now, having informal conversations doesn’t mean you should come unprepared.

“It’s not about finding the right answers because you have no clue what they are. It’s about asking the right questions, so that the answers are naturally right.”

That means you’ll have to ask the right questions.

So don’t..

• ask leading questions. Leave room for people to tell you what they think, without constraining them.
• be too specific. You never know what people will say.
• prime people: Don’t imply to people that they should answer in a specific way.
• generalize. Discuss specific instances and past behavior, because people are too biased when they generalize. Instead of asking “what do you usually do when..”, ask “can you tell me about the last time you did X?”
• ask for solutions. People are experts in giving you their problems, but they’re terrible in giving you the best solutions for everyone experiencing that problem. So don’t just ask people what they would like, because today it’s X and tomorrow it’s Y.

Patrick Van Der Pijl et al. said the following: “teams who fall in love with their product only validate what they want to validate. They jump through hoops to confirm their thoughts”. Please don’t be that team.

So instead..

• ask open-ended questions to evoke stories. Don’t waste time asking yes/no questions, because you’ll learn nothing.
• ask your user to summarize their thoughts. Try asking “can you help me summarize that in one sentence?” or “So I’m hearing you say X, is that accurate? Did I miss anything?”
• use silence. People are compelled to fill up awkward silences, and you may wind up with a fascinating story or an unexpected discovery.
• make your questions simple and clear. Don’t make things too complicated, simple questions result in straightforward answers.
• ask “why” more often: Get to the heart of the matter by asking questions such as “can you tell me more about that?”, or “why do you think that is?”

It’s not just about talking

Based on all the conversations with different people at residential care centers, the into.care team started to understand the problem: personnel struggled with increasingly tight schedules, a lack of patient data and ever-growing piles of administration, which took too much time away from caring for their residents.

It’s a multifaceted issue, but Jeroen saw an opportunity to build a solution that was rooted in his software expertise at Blackberry. A digital platform that improves workflow and collaboration amongst personnel would let them regain control over their daily routines, with less administration and more patient care as a result.

“But often there is a disconnect between what people say they need and what they actually need. And there is only one way to figure out what that is: digging deeper into the problem.”

So instead of building a fully-fledged product from the start, the into.care team built a minimum viable product to quickly validate whether such a solution made sense.

To do so, they had set out to understand every stakeholder in the care process. From management and administrative, all the way to care and IT personnel.

And what better way is there to do so then literally living in their habitat?

“When we asked whether we could live in their facilities, they were pretty stunned. These people had never received a question like that. But they were very excited to let us stay in their facilities, because they knew we were there to make their jobs easier, while enabling them to devote more time to caring for their residents instead of doing administrative work.”

For several weeks, together with the most lightweight version of a product that was based on their initial conversations, the into.care team lived in different residential care facilities in different regions in Belgium, both for day care as well as during night shifts. All with one goal in mind: measure, evaluate and adjust.

They constantly gathered insights during the day, debriefed with several stakeholders during after hours, and iterated their product at night based on everything they would learn.

“You’re continuously testing usability. You’re continuously observing what works and what doesn’t. And you’re continuously iterating on those learnings to better their experience.”

So what should you focus on?

It’s crucial to not mistake the voice of the customer with real customer insights. The first one is the list of items your customer demands, whereas the latter is a set of information nuggets you’ve extracted from constantly evaluating how your customer behaves and interacts with your product.

Yes, observation is critical. Because the difference between the voice of the customer and customer insights can be significant.

That’s why into.care used video to really understand what their product meant to the residential care personnel. When they let their users use their product, they placed one camera to focus on the face of the individual and one to focus on the hands.

“People’s eyes will reveal the truth, so when you compare both videos, you get an interesting view of where your users are struggling.”

When you capture the raw truth, you’re in a prime position to deliver the highest value. And by living in your user’s habitat, you’re essentially shortening your learning cycles so greatly, that you’re able to deliver that value in a matter of days or weeks, not months or years.

So what’s the real secret to success in all of this?

When you’re fully commited to building a product that enables each of your users to do their jobs better, you’re fostering a relationship that’s difficult to break.

That’s it. The secret to success, in just one word: relationships.

“You build the right relationships by simply co-creating it all together. Invest time in listening to your users, so you can build real value.”

The fact that you’ve shortened your feedback cycles by creating these two-way relationships, allows you to quickly iterate and move on if something doesn’t stick. If you don’t have that solid relationship in place, you run the risk of building something to which you keep adding functionalities, but all of which is based on the wrong foundation.

“Constantly validating your products with your users is a mindset, not a skill.”

By the way, it’s true that not all customers have the same needs. So instead of constantly adding new features based on the needs of all these different customers, it’s about figuring out the greatest common denominator to ensure that you’re offering a value proposition that works for your entire market.

So yes, sometimes you’ll even have to take a step back. Ask yourself, is this next feature really needed for the majority of our customer base? Or is it a cool nice-to-have for just one of them?

“Distill that common denominator into your value proposition. For into.care, it’s less paper, more care.”

The 5 key takeaways

1. If you ask for feedback, keep in mind that people give you feedback based on what they know. So don’t make the mistake of asking what people want, because they usually don’t know.
2. Always aim for open and unbiased questions, but remember that you’re not trying to sell your product. Listen more than you talk and don’t look for instructions but look for insights. Speak their language, not yours. Look for the meaning behind what your user is telling you.
3. Understand everyone who is critical to your solution’s success, not just the end user. You want to create buy-in at every level. And to do so, you have to be a journalist, an anthropologist, a detective, a facilitator and an investigator, all at once. Observations aren’t optional, they’re essential.
4. You’ll want to build a scalable solution instead of doing custom work for each individual customer. So find that greatest common denominator and prepare to say no more than you’ll say yes.
5. If you let your potential users/customers be part of your development process, you’re building relationships that enable you to leverage the right amount of involvement. That’s what creates engagement.

Now ask yourself the following questions:

• When was the last time you spoke with your customers/users?
• Where do you go to learn about them?
• How are you focusing on improving your user’s experience?

There is no point staying behind your desk. The real insights lurk in your users’ habitat.

Thanks to Jeroen for the insightful story. 👌