A magnifying glass. Searching for customers and understanding your product is critical.

Expert Tips and Questions for Customer Discovery

Uncover the Path to a Successful Business Launch

Angel Rutledge

Co-founder, Meetify

It's easy to get ahead of ourselves as entrepreneurs, particularly when starting a business. After all, we’re visionaries. We’re leaders. We have a dream and we’re confident we can accomplish it. There’s a problem that needs to be solved for a lot of people, and we know just the solution.

Except maybe we don’t. At least not yet.

This is what customer discovery is for. It’s for taking our hypothesis and doing some research to tweak it before we put a bunch of resources into trying to prove it. It’s for listening to what potential customers really need before we go and build it. This way we launch a product people want, which is a much faster path to success than launching what we think they want.

Customer Discovery Defined

At its essence, customer discovery involves asking questions of the people who struggle with the problem we want to solve. By listening carefully to their answers, we can get much closer to understanding the problem they face. Then we can work with our team to develop a product they will be willing to pay for. In essence, when customer discovery is done well, it wisely guides development of the product solution.

Curious to learn about Meetify’s customer discovery process?

Customer Discovery Questions

Choose from this list of questions to gather information from at least 20 potential customers. The bigger the group in the total addressable market, the greater the number of potential clients who should be interviewed. Keep in mind that this isn’t the time for selling. It’s a time for listening and learning.

1. What roles or responsibilities do you have that require you to (perform the action the solution addresses)?

2. Tell me about the last time you (took the action your hypothesized solution will fix).

3. What was hard about doing that?

4. Why was it difficult? (Repeat questions #3 and #4.)

5. How do you currently deal with or work around these challenges?

6. If you could magically fix it, what would you do to improve the process?

7. If you had this solution, how would it affect your life?

8. What types of (software, services, products that are in some way related to your hypothesized solution) could you not live without?

9. How much do you spend per month on each of these?

10. Who can you think of or what types of professions might also experience this problem?

11. Would you like to hear an update about the product we’re creating by email when we next share one?

Important Tips for Customer Discovery

Pay attention to emotion

Take note of any emotions those you interview express. Strong emotions communicated during customer discovery often indicate important information about your hypothesis.

Take off your sales hat

Resist the urge to pitch your solution during the customer discovery interview. There will be time for that in the future. Now is the time for you to gather information, and it’s likely to be inaccurate information if you try to sell potential customers on your idea at this point.

Listen to all feedback

Don’t discount information that isn’t what you hoped to hear. Collect all the data and then look for patterns, even if the data ends up proving your hypothesis wrong. It will save you from going down a costly path and should help guide your business to create the best solution faster.

Expand the feedback pool

Expand your list of interviewees as you collect data and recognize new potential customer segments.

Choose the method(s) that work for you

In addition to in person one-on-one interviews, you can also try focus groups, virtual interviews and survey forms, which each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Keep the input coming

Continue the process of customer discovery through all stages of your product development, adding in opportunities for those you interview to test the product and provide feedback.

The highest priority for a business to be successful is to solve a problem for a significant group of people in a way that will earn resources to keep growing. When customer discovery is done well, it guides a business closer to a path that leads to this success.