Days 4–5 — Customer Development/ Interviews Done Right

You should at this point have a mapped out a few different ideas of potential customer personas, along with guesses regarding customer pains, gains and goals related to your idea.

In addition you will have completed the riskiest business assumption exercise.

This is where the journey gets interesting! You are now testing these ‘guesses’ you have made by going out and talking to real people to get feedback from the real world. Do expect be really wrong with these initial ‘guesses’, as you will never fully understand the customer problem initially. You overarching goal is to disapprove every guess you wrote down and add new ones based on the feedback.

Your 3 Main Goals in the steps below are:

A.) Understand the real customer pain/problem.

B.) Test if the customer who you mapped out and ‘imagined’ loving your product, actually are interested or care at all!

C.) Learn if, why and what your ‘imagined’ customers would like to buy. Discover what similar items they spend their money on today. If so, how much do they spend on these similar items? In what quantity? How often do they buy? Where do they buy these items from?

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Step 1- Identify ‘Watering Holes’ where IMAGINED customers hang out

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At this point you have no clue, whether any of your guesses (assumptions about who your customer is, the problems/pains you imagine these ‘customers’ have, the gains/value adds you expect them to lust after and the goals you imagine they want to accomplish) actually hold true in the real world.

‘Watering Holes’ are therefore places where you can find your IMAGINED customers in ‘the wild’ and test your assumptions, with the aim of disproving them!

What would be a potential ‘watering hole’ for your customer in the real world?

To give you an example; if I think my customer is a health conscious consumer, between the age of 20–35, I might try talking to people outside a Wholefoods! You want to GET CREATIVE here.

There is an elephant in the room I would also like to address…

One popular suggestion, is that the best way to validate an idea early on is identify ONLINE ‘watering holes’.

Then post Typeform surveys on Reddit Forums, Facebook Groups, or use Facebook/Google ads to drive traffic to Mock Landing Pages.

I would suggest ignoring this advice starting out, unless you intend to capture emails and follow up by scheduling in person interviews to actually talk to customers.

Why?

Because for your first pass, you honestly have no idea what your customer could say and you don’t fully understand their problem yet. Writing a survey presumes that you have a full understanding of the customer problem and all their possible responses!

Bad survey questions then result in bad answers, resulting in you believing you were completely right from the get go, resulting in a bad product that no one wants and lots of money wasted! Yes, later on this can be beneficial. But it is crucial to actually talk to real people starting out to understand the real customer problem in the ‘raw’ form.

Most entrepreneurs use Reddit/Facebook Group surveys as a crutch because talking to random people in person can be really weird.

Design your survey and use this approach only then once you have truly understood the customer problem from talking in-person to potential customers.

Finding in-person watering holes should therefore always be your first step.

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Step 2 — How to GAIN the ‘Chutzpa’ to approach people on the street

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OK. So by now you’ve realized that to be successful in business you actually need to bother people in the real world.

SHIT!

Everyone has anxiety about this. You are not alone.

Even the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve talked to still found this unnatural and strange starting out. Approaching random people can be really weird at first. The funny thing is that every time you follow through, talking to random people becomes less weird! It is it like pushing any comfort zone. The more you do what you fear, the more comfortable it feels — until the fear begins to fade and your comfort zone expands.

The best way I have found to motivate yourself to approach random people starting out is; Fear the consequences of not talking to people more than you fear talking to them! Every-time you are afraid to go up to someone and ask their opinion, use this motivator and say to yourself;

“I can choose to meet real potential customers and understand their needs, pains and wants so that I build a product they want and make lots of money…

or

I can choose to meet with failure in my business because if I do not talk to people I will build a product that no one wants. “

Choose what you fear more…

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Step 3— I will give you the full list of interview rules and key questions

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3A) Interview Rules to consider:

Here are the basic customer interview rules …and here…and here

3B) Full Customer Development Interview Question list…

Below is a full question list of possible things you can ask in a customer interview. I have segmented them by key topics…

Base Demographics:

Name/Profession/(Single or Married)/Age/Gender Education Level Income

Products Used Now/Spending Behaviour

Tell me about the products you use right now to do ‘x’? (or last product you bought)

Where did you buy it from? (channel used)

How much did you spend on them the last time you purchased? (budget allocated to)

What is the most you have spent on such a product? Why?

What is the least you have spent?

When is the last time you purchased? How often do you purchase? Why? (buying frequency)

When do you currently use it? How long does it last you? (buying context/frequency)

Buyer Motivations/Triggers/Customer Goals/Expected Gains:

(You can ask the customer questions about similar existing products you are positioning your products relative to)

What motivated you to choose this product? Tell me about WHY you were inspired you to want to buy this? (follow up with How come? Why? at least 5 times to get to heart/emotion that motivated )

What do you want the product to do for you? What do you use it for? WHAT are the goals (customer jobs) you want to achieve with this? (Customer goals in terms of jobs want to get done: Functional, Social, Emotional)

What must this do for you to buy it? (Required Gains)

What do you expect this product to do? If goal is achieved, what happens? (Expected Gains)

What do you like about it?

What would you like it to do, that it doesn’t do now (to make things easier)? (Desired Gains)

How do you measure achieving your goal? What would make you feel that the product did what you wanted it to do?

Problems/Pains

What annoys you about it?

What are the biggest problems/challenges you have with it? (Problems)

What does having these problems mean for you? (pains)

What keeps you up at night related to *general industry you are entering/product*? Why? (may or may not be relevant)

Buyer Concerns

What are the key things you look for that are important to you when making a purchase?

What are your purchase criteria for deciding what to buy? (required gains)

What holds you back/concerns you/stops you from buying this product?

Additional Shopping Preferences

How do you prefer to interact with vendors? [Social Media, Email, Phone, In-Person]

Did you come here today knowing what you wanted? How come?

How do you research vendors or products on the internet? (before you by)

Who recommended this product to you?

Identify Future Watering Holes/Sources of Feedback

Do any of your friends by similar items?

Where do you hang out with them online/offline?

Are you part of any related clubs or associations?

What is your favorite *App*?

Do you have any friends that I could speak to regarding this?

This should give you a comprehensive working knowledge of customer development. The journey continues next week…Have a good weekend!