Dear enterprise product teams; you don’t need a script for your first 10 problem interviews

I have had the pleasure of pushing 1000s of founders and intra-preneurs to do problem interviews. I have learned almost as much as they have over the years. One of the most obvious, and easiest for me to say out loud is…

You do not need a script! Pay close attention I only mean at FIRST… your first 10 interviews

1. ever (as a human)
2. as a team
3. for this specific project

If you are past that level. Speak to your coach.

Here’s what you do need!

1. A common understanding of the micro segment you are interviewing
2. Permission from sales (or better yet, 100% agreement on your team that it is ok to ask for forgiveness AS LONG AS YOU ARE RUNNING THE INTERVIEWS ON NEW, NOT EXISTING CUSTOMERS)
3. The ability to ask WHY, and to say “tell me more about that”
4. The ability to listen to what they actually say, and not fall victim to confirmation bias.
5. The ability to NOT PITCH YOUR SOLUTION or worse, ask them “would you pay for this”
6. Some way, even if rudimentary — to take the learnings and synthesize into another round of interviews, where the team is interviewing the EXACT SAME SEGMENT, and using the EXACT SAME CHANNEL

A script might be useful at some point before you do solution interviews, but for your first 10 interviews I believe they are a waste… and that is what we are trying to avoid right?:)

This post was inspired by my friends at http://www.afce.co/ and my new friend from the https://newyork.leanstartup.co/ he’s at whole foods right now:) I will add some photos and make some edits after feedback from Boris Grinkot and Thor Ernstsson. Images here (and from most posts courtesy of https://unsplash.com/)

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I coach teams from the biggest (and sometimes oldest) companies on earth at www.myspinnaker.co with Jonathan and Sonja Kresojevic

I coach and invest in the smallest (and usually youngest) companies on earth at Liberty Ventures. I am raising $100,000 to give away to founders around the world that Silicon Valley is ignoring (but they must do problem interviews to get the funding)