Lean Customer

Development
Build Product Your Customer Need
What Should I Be
Learning?
Basic Customer Development
Question
Customers Dont Know What They
Want!
Customers Dont Know What They
Want!
Customers know which cultural, time, and resource constraints affect
them, but they dont mention them unprompted.
Customers know what theyve tried in the past that hasnt worked, but
they wont remember to tell you about it.
Customers are (at least somewhat) aware of their capabilities and
limitations, but probably wont volunteer them.
Customers are proficient in the tools and processes they use, but it
doesnt mean they understand how they work.
Customers may not know what they want, but they cant hide what
they need.
Ingredien
t?

Flavor?

Texture?

Nutrition?

Price?
What You Should Be Listening For
How your customers are behaving today (which predicts how theyll
behave tomorrow)
The constraints that affect the choices and actions that your customers
take
What frustrates or motivates your customers

How your customers make decisions, spend money, and determine

value
Whats the Customer Already Doing?
Abstract up one level

Focus on procedure, not outcomes

By asking procedural questions, you prompt the customer to tell her

story,

step by step.
Focus on the present, not the future
What Constraints Are Holding
Customers Back?
Problem is not perceived as a problem

Lack of awareness of whats possible technologically

Limited resources (environment, time, budget)

Cultural or social expectations that limit behaviors

What Frustrates (or Motivates) Your
Customer?
How Your Customers Make
Decisions, Spend Money, and
Determine Value
Get Out of the
Building
 How to prepare before the interview

The surprising trick that gets people to open up and talk freely

How to give people permission to be experts

Why you should embrace tangents

The value of thanking people using the foot-in-the-door method

FIRST INTERVIEW = FIRST DATING

Control The Tone Of The

Conversation
Confidently, Set Expectations
Appropriately
Express Genuine Curiosity, People
Talk
Build A Relationship And People
Are Happy To Talk With You Again
In The Future
 The Practice Interview Intervie
To Record or Not to Record?*
w Step
Taking great notes*

Invite a note taker

Immediately Before the Interview

The First Minute*

The Next Minute

 Tangent Happen Intervie
Avoiding the Wish List
w Step
Away from Features Back to the Problem

The Magic Wand Question

Avoiding Product Specifics

Going Long

The Last Few Minute

After Interview
To Record or Not to Record?
PROS:
Youll capture everything your
interviewee says.
You wont inadvertently bias your notes
(writing down a milder or summarized
version of what the interviewee said).
You can focus on body language and
facial expressions.
Playing back audio from a real person
speaking, with pauses and intonation, is
more powerful than sharing a verbatim
quote.
CONS
Asking if you may record the conversation is an
awkward beginning tothe interview.
Recording interviews effectively doubles the
amount of time per interview since you need to
go back and listen to the interview a second
time to capture notes or excerpts.
Interviewees may be more cautious when they
know they are being recorded. (And no,
recording without their permission is not an
acceptable workaround.)
Employees may be subject to their employers
legal restrictions, even if theyre not talking
about their own products or processes.
Taking notes manually (by hand or typing) is a
valuable hack to keep you from talking,
encouraging interviewees to talk more.
Taking great notes
You need the most detail when the interviewee says:
Something that validates your hypothesis

Something that invalidates your hypothesis

Anything that takes you by surprise

Anything full of emotion

The First Minutes

Keeping the tone conversational

Make the interviewee feel confident
that she will be helpful
Explicitly say that you want her to do
Being Human
the talking
Get the interviewee talking (Ill
explain how)
Emphasizing The Personal