Lecture 16: How to Run a User Interview
startupclass.samaltman.com
startupclass.samaltman.com
Nowadays with things like Lean Startup Machine and Startup Weekend (which I do think serve a purpose and are valuable to building habits around customer development), I've seen prospective entrepreneurs get caught up in the MOTIONS of doing customer development and interviews thinking i.e. just getting out of the room and talking to anyone they can find on the street, instead of the real target customer that you've really thought about. I like Emmett's focus on really thinking this part through.
I've published the 31 top quotes that I picked up from the lecture here: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/31-quotes-from-emm...
"Um, so, uh - so that was Twitch. And I'm going - I want to give you guys a little bit of a, uh - uh, a little bit of an insight into, uh, with Twitch what that, what that meant going to go talk to users."
I know keeping it real is great and all but for the people who are reading and not watching, it would be awesome if some editing could be used to make the read more succinct.
"So that was Twitch. And I want to give you guys a little bit of an insight into what that meant (when) going to go talk to users."
Minor irk of course, really appreciate what you've done otherwise, thanks.
But what if it's one of those things (like TiVo and Uber) that people think, in advance, that they don't need -- but it turns out they'll be totally hooked once they try it?
Get out there and empathize with real people with real problems. You'll find that even the most boring, ho-hum, run of the mill person will be happy to lay down hard cash for your game changing idea if it fixes THEIR problem.
That being said, focus groups are a horrible way to get meaningful feedback. Customer interviews and other more in depth ethnographic techniques are going to deliver what you're looking for.
Shear mentions in the lecture that you should avoid directly asking about features or your product. "You want to learn about what's already in their heads. You want to avoid putting things there." That pretty much precludes doing things like describing your idea for TiVo/Uber to people and asking what they think. Instead, it would make more sense ask about pain points. If all of your interviews indicate that people absolutely adore the process of finding, hailing, riding in, and paying for taxis, then you'd be more justified in determining that there's a lack of interest in something like Uber.
Take your Uber example. If you'd done user interviews pre-Uber, it's uncertain whether anyone would have said "yes I want to call a black car on my phone" or not. But I can pretty much guarantee that people would have said "yes, sometimes I have trouble getting a taxi to come pick me up".
User interviews at this stage are about validating the problem, not the solution.
Coincidentally, my team is building a product that connects startup founders to user interviewees, specified by demographic. Looking for a few founders to test the platform for free before we launch. Let us know if any of you are interested! team@munocreative.com
So you can assign tasks then ask usability questions, or gear the interview more generally toward your business concept, how well users understand your site's value prop, etc. Love to hear more about wht you're working on!
I feel that almost all of the startup advice is usually more of an idea with a lot of missing details on how to apply it. And this talk showed how important the details are and how if you just take the typical high-level advice of "talk to users" there are a lot of things you can screw up.