Why does Customer Discovery Interview matter?
It is the cheapest way to be wrong in private rather than in public, and most founders squander it by pitching. The discipline is simple to state and hard to hold: ask about their past behavior, not their future intentions. What someone did last month is evidence. What someone says they would do is a guess, delivered by a person trying to be encouraging to a founder they just met.
What does Customer Discovery Interview look like in practice?
A weak interview: "We're building a scheduling tool for dental practices, would you use something like that?" You will hear yes, and it will mean nothing. A strong one: "Walk me through what happened the last time a patient called while you were with someone." Now you get a story with real details, who answered, what was written down, what got lost, and whether anyone was upset enough to do something about it.
What are the common mistakes with Customer Discovery Interview?
- Pitching. The moment you describe your solution, you stop learning anything reliable.
- Asking about hypothetical futures rather than actual past behavior.
- Counting the interview as validation because the person was enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is free.
- Talking to whoever will meet you rather than to your ICP.
- Not asking the hardest question, what they have already tried, and why it did not stick.
Where the term comes from
Customer discovery is the first of the four steps in Steve Blank's 2005 book The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which argued that a startup's largest risk is not building the wrong product but building a product nobody wants, and that the two require different work. His rule for it is the one that stuck: there are no facts inside your building, so get outside.
Steve Blank, the Customer Development Manifesto ↗Related concepts
- Leading QuestionsQuestions phrased so that the answer you hoped for is the easiest one to give, which makes the answer worthless as evidence.
- Problem Validation vs. Solution ValidationTwo separate tests: whether the problem is real and painful enough that people already do something about it, and whether your particular solution is one they would use and pay for.
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)A description of the specific kind of customer your product serves best, precise enough that you can tell whether any given company or person qualifies.