Talking to users is the most important thing

In startups, everyone in the company should be talking with users, especially founders. Founders should keep a direct connection with their users throughout all the life of the company. In this article, we will go through the 3 main errors that occur while doing user interviews and 5 great questions to ask.

The 3 most common errors

  • Talk about your idea instead of their life

The aim of user interviews aka. talking to users is to extract data not to introduce your solution.

  • Talk hypotheticals instead of specifics

Ask questions about the path that made them encounter that problem, extract context, and discover their motivations.

  • Listen, don't talk

5 great questions

  •  What's the hardest part about _______(doing this thing that they are trying to solve)?

Work on something users really feel like a pain point and want to actively solve in their lives. An example of what Dropbox could have asked back in the day: what's the hardest part about working on a group project with school computers? (ask in the context of school students with an open question).

  • Tell me about the last time you encounter that problem...

Extract context around the circumstances. For instance Dropbox case: a week ago (time frame) which class working on computer science/English? What is the context? Reference real-life examples, and overlay your solution on top of that to see if it would have helped in that particular circumstance

  • Why was this hard?

What were the specific things that they have encountered. Now you market your problem. Customers buy the why not the what. These answers should inform your marketing and sales

  • What, if anything, have you done to solve this problem?

If customers are not already exploring potential solutions to this problem it is possible that the problem you want to solve is not a burning enough problem for them to be even interested in a better solution to this problem. Try to get the the root of the problem (see the 5 whys).

Eg. Dropbox case: What tools did you try to use/experiment with? Maybe they tried to work together or by email or they solved already with something.

Learn what will your product or service will be compared against as you end up rolling your solution with customers?

  • What don't you love about the solution that you've already tried?

This is how you begin understanding which features are for your better solution for the problem. Remember not to do hypothetical questions.

Credits: much of these learnings come from YC and the book "The mom test" by Rob Fitzpatrick