The customer development interview offers a powerful tool for validating elements of the Design Thinking exercise (which you did in Stage 1) such as defining the customer problem, arriving at potential solutions, and developing a pricing and revenue model.

This module covers:

• Conducting the customer development interview
• Developing interview questions
• Understanding the customers’ problems
• Validating that this is a problem the customers care about solving

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Recall elements of the customer interview process
• Develop customer interview questions

Section A: Setting up Interviews with Customers

Finding Customers

Pulling from your work in module 2.2 – Building Customer Profiles, you should have an understanding of who your potential customers are, where they spend their time, and what they pay attention to. Essentially you are trying to answer: what do you need to do or where do you need to go to get in front of them?

Asking for an Interview

Introductions and referrals are always more effective than reaching out cold. Either way, you need to explain to the interviewee who you are and why you want to talk to them. Here are some tips:

• Explain that you are doing user research related to [X] and you want to understand their perspective.
• Do not talk about your idea or solution. You want to hear about the interviewee’s challenges. You will learn much more by listening than by explaining the virtues of your solution.
• Ask for a 20 minute interview via phone or in person.

Section B: Structure of the Interview

Now that the interview is taking place here are some tips on how to get the most of the 20 minute interview:

• Schedule the interview with only one interviewee (potential customer). This keeps the conversation authentic and flexible.
• It’s best to have two people conduct the interview: one to talk and one to take notes during the conversation.
• From module 2.2 – have 8 to 10 talking points built on assumptions you want to validate. Use your questions and assumptions to guide the conversation.
• Have a conversation; don’t simply fire off questions. Imagine you are interviewing a colleague, professor or teacher.
• See where the conversation goes. Maybe the customer says something unexpected into which you want to dive deeper.
• Ask open ended questions and let the customer talk freely. Closed ended questions are “yes” or “no” questions and can result in confirmation bias. Ask “Why?” a lot; it may help you dig into the root of the problem and not just produce surface-level symptoms.
• Ask about the customer, their problems, and needs. Don’t talk about your proposed product, service, or solution.

Experienced entrepreneurs Hanna Haponenko, Sarah Butts, and Martin Magill provide advice on how to conduct effective customer interviews.

Section C: Tips and further reading

As you go through several customer development interviews, you may start to notice that common answers and themes emerge from the conversations. You should aim to conduct 20 to 30 interviews per round of validation. You’ll know you’re coming to the end of the validation round when you hear repetitive answers and discover fewer bits of new information.

Quiz