Learn the craft of customer discovery

Free resources and frameworks to help you run better discovery calls, ask the right questions, and align your team on what you are learning.

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Building Your Assumptions Who to Talk To How to Find Interviewees Designing the Questions Running the Interview Recommended Reading

Building Your Assumptions

Building your assumptions will help you ask the most important questions and figure out what you actually want to learn.

👤 Customer & Problem

→Who is your primary target customer?
→What do they want / need / struggle with?
→What prevents them from solving this now?

💡 Solution & Value

→How will your product resolve their problem?
→What measurable change will make them love it?
→What makes you unique vs. competition?

🚀 Go-to-Market

→Who is your early adopter?
→How will you acquire customers?
→What is your primary channel?

💰 Business Model

→How will you make money?
→Who is your competition?

Who to Talk To

Do not stop talking to potential customers. Adjust what you are trying to learn as you go.

Consumer startups

Talk to a lot of people. Consumer behavior is noisy and diverse, so you need volume to see patterns. If you have not spoken to 70-100 users, you do not know enough yet.

B2B startups

Start with people in the middle. Mid-level managers and ICs feel the pain daily and respond more often than executives. Use LinkedIn to target specific roles and titles.

How to Find Interviewees

Practical strategies for finding the right people to interview.

Leverage Your Network

Ask friends, investors, and operators for introductions to people who match your customer profile. Friends-of-friends are usually honest and willing to help, without the bias of close personal relationships.

Meet Customers in Their Natural Environment

Look for places where your target customers already spend time. For B2C: forums, Reddit, Discord or Slack communities, and Facebook groups. For B2B: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, industry events, conferences, and professional communities.

Reaching Out on LinkedIn

Ask for advice and let them know you want to learn from them, not sell. Early in discovery, curiosity and respect for someone's experience are usually enough to get a conversation going.

Example message:

"I am researching how engineering managers run performance reviews and would love to learn from your experience. Can I ask you a few questions over a call?"

Use Referrals to Scale

End every interview by asking, "Is there anyone else you think I should talk to?" Warm introductions compound quickly and are one of the most reliable ways to find high-quality interviewees. Aim for 1-2 new introductions after each interview.

Talk to Enough People to See Patterns

Plan for volume. In early discovery, 20–30 interviews is the bare minimum. Be ready for people to cancel or say "no".

Keep Talking to Customers

Your questions will change as your product evolves, but direct conversations and real behavior will remain your most reliable source of insight.

Designing the Questions

Ask open-ended questions. Your goal is to talk as little as possible and get the other person talking freely.

Focus on what they do, why they do it, and what is hard. Not on ideas, opinions, or feature requests.

Avoid "magic wand" questions. Customers are constrained by their current reality and are bad at designing solutions. Their job is to explain behavior, goals, and challenges. Your job is to design the solution.

Prefer questions that start with who, what, why, and how.

Avoid questions that start with is, are, would, or do you.

A strong closing question: "What should I have asked you that I did not?"

Running the Interview

A practical guide to conducting effective discovery interviews.

Before

Prepare an outline, not a script.
Track everything. Use note takers or ask your colleagues to track notes manually. Always ask if you can record the call, use both video and audio recording as well as a transcript.
Block 30 minutes. No distractions.

During

Listen more than you talk.

Do not pitch your product. Focus on their world.
Ask them to tell stories: past behavior beats opinions. "Tell me about the last time you…"
Don't be afraid to push if something matters: ask why. Then why again.
Repeat back what they said and see if new information will surface.
Let them talk ~90% of the time. Watch for emotions and workarounds: frustration and hacks means there is real pain.
Avoid hypotheticals: ask what they do now (or did before), not what they would do.

After

Insights come from patterns.

Write down key takeaways immediately.
Send a thank-you and keep them updated on your progress: early interviewees often become early users.
Make notes available to the entire team. Include basic information at the start: name, date, time, interviewer, location type, photo, and descriptive information about the subject.
Look across interviews: what repeats? what does not? Pay attention to feedback that contradicts your idea.
Update your assumptions, decide what to test next.

⚠️ Mistakes to Avoid

×Pitching instead of learning

×Leading questions

×Yes or no questions without follow-ups

×Asking about future behavior

×Talking too much

×Ignoring negative reactions

×Interviewing the wrong people

×Group interviews

×Not synthesizing what you learned

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