Ovidiu Podariu's Key Ideas from Talking to Humans
by Giff Constable, Frank Rimalovski, Tom Fishburne

• Our target customer will be _
• The problem our customer wants to solve is _
• Our customer's need can be solved with _
• Our customer can't solve this problem today because _
• We will primarily make money by _
• We will beat competitors primarily because _
• Our biggest risk to financial viability is _
• Our biggest technical risk is _

It's important to clarify what kind of people you are creating a product for. Creating a product for "everyone" is not an actionable description.

There are three categories that you need to define:

1. Early adopters - The first people who take the risk of using your product. They either are badly affected by the problem you are solving or they simply like trying out new things.
2. Mainstream customers - People which will use your product once it gets traction.
3. Critical partners - Partners you depend on for distribution, fulfillment or other parts of your business.

For each category, find their commonalities that are relevant to you. These might include: their age range, the kinds of jobs they have, the lifestyle they prefer or the areas in which they live.

Your priority is to focus on the assumptions that, if proven wrong, would cause your business to fail.

Identify these assumptions and prepare a list of questions based on them. This list is meant as a guide and not as a script that you must follow.

• Use open-ended questions that invite people to share stories from their past.
• Use questions that start with What/Who/Why/How/Where.
• Follow up yes/no questions with an open-ended question that gets the other person to elaborate.
• Put questions about behavior and challenges at the top of your list, so the discussion about product features doesn't take over the conversation.

• How much do you currently spend to solve this problem?
• What budget have you allocated for this?
• How much would you pay to make this problem go away? (Treat answers to this one with skepticism)

• What made you search for a solution?
• How and where did you search for a solution?
• What did you think the solution would do, before you tried it?
• How did that solution work out for you?

• Moment of pain - Interact with people when they are facing the problem you are trying to solve.
• Referrals - At the end of every interview ask them if they know someone else who is having the same problem. You are likely to get a referral if they felt comfortable and you respected their time.
• Conferences and meetups - They are great for finding candidates because they bring together people with common interests. You need to briefly talk to people, get their contact details and send them a short e-mail the next day to ask for a conversation.
• Online forms - Create a survey about the problem you are solving, without mentioning your product. Based on their responses, e-mail the people that best match your problem.
• Landing page - Create a landing page for your product or the problem you are solving. Include a call to action, a price choice if applicable, and a request for an e-mail address so you can schedule interviews with them.

• Talk to one person at a time. If necessary bring someone else to take notes while you focus on the conversation and on reading the customer.
• Start the conversation by introducing yourself, thanking them for their time and asking them a few warm-up questions.
• Listen more and talk less. Avoid rushing to fill the silence because the customer might be thinking of saying something else.
• Keep in mind that it's easy for people to lie and tell you they like your product. Ask them at the beginning to be honest because this is the only way they can help you. Otherwise, you will end up building a product people don't want.

Prefer communication methods in this order:

1. In person - It's easier to build rapport and to read the other person's body language.
2. Video call - You can read their facial expressions.
3. Phone call - You can rely only on their tone of voice and intonation.
4. E-mail or chat - They are rarely effective.

• Write your notes as soon as you finish the interview as this will enforce what you have learned and it will make it easier to share the feedback with your team.
• If more team members are doing customer interviews, then you should meet up regularly to compare notes and discuss your findings.
• Look for patterns in your interviews. Be careful though because you need to talk to many people to identify real patterns in their needs, desires and problems. For B2C teams it's recommended to talk to 50 to 100 customers.