If you are building a company, working through a business idea, or building product features, it is likely that you are talking to potential customers. A few weeks ago, I was seeking startup advice from Jonathan Anderson, who runs Candu.ai, and one of the things he asked me to do was to read ‘The Mom Test’ to become adept at talking to customers. Now, talking to customers may not be rocket science, but it can be considerable time and value sink. Asking insightful questions from potential customers can be the bedrock of a category-defining company and asking such questions as “would you ever buy a product with XYZ feature” can plunder millions of dollars and several months.
BAD customer conversations are probably more harmful than NO customer conversations
Having access to all the time in the world during my thirty-day vacation, I went through ‘The Mom Test’ and found it to be short, compelling, and actionable. It has numerous DOs and DONT’s on how to talk to potential customers and general nuggets of wisdom.
Notes
General advice
- We all build products people don’t want to buy. Those products are possibly predicated on people LYING to you about their propensity to buy. Our mothers will also lie to us if we ask her “would you buy” questions
- Frame questions in a way such that your mom can’t lie to you (she would if you ask her a future hypothetical question such as — would you download digital cookbooks on the iPad?)
- Every customer question is terrible by default; as an entrepreneur, it is your job to improve them
- Only the market (not a particular customer) can tell you whether your idea is good. Rest all is noise and opinion
- Obvious, but if you are speaking as much as the customer, something is wrong. Get back on track
- People are overly-optimistic about what would they do. Customers are overly optimistic of course
- People stop lying when you ask them for money. Till then, ask about their life
- At least ask one question which has the potential to destroy your business. Be terrified of one question in a conversation. These can be figured out by thought-experiments. For instance, if an answer around legality kills your company, that’s it. That is your scary or terrifying question.
- Entrepreneurs love bad news. And, bad news = single or multiple. Bad news stops being bad if you have multiple bad news. Besides, there is more valuable information in a MEH than in a WOW. Look (dig around) before you zoom (for important emotional issues) into a particular issue
- Startups = Product risk + Market Risk. Customer conversations are a way of minimizing customer risk.
The Mom Test framework? Discussion about the customer’s life + NO IDEA PITCHING + specifics about the past + Avoiding future hypotheticals (would you ever? Might you?)
Examples of good questions and bad questions
Not writing the laundry list here because you will get the trend
- How much would you pay for X? BAD
- Would you ever buy this ABC product? BAD
- What would your dream product do? (not helpful on its own but helpful when asked follow-ups
- Initial hypotheses + how they solve the current problem. GOOD
- Can you talk me through the last time it happened and how you tried to fix it? GOOD
- This problem seems hard; What are its implications? Why are you even bothering? GREAT QUESTION. The real reason why they bother might be different from what is in your head. Besides, watching someone perform a task and figuring out the problem is priceless (not always possible)
- Do you want THIS feature? What features do you want? NOT HELPFUL because customers’ feature requests are stupid and off the mark
- What are the problem’s implications? What happens if it never gets solved? GOOD questions and will get you an idea about possible pricing. Rule of thumb: Some issues don’t matter even if they exist. Customers just complain about them
- What else have you tried? GREAT question. How are you dealing with it now? Helps discover and sometimes increase pricing
- Where does the money come from to solve this problem? For B2B, this is very useful. If people don’t answer this well, then the problem might not be worthwhile solving
- Who else should I talk to? Did I miss anything important? USEFUL for early conversations till you start getting warm intros
- When was the last time things really went wrong? Look for EMOTION and note down the exact emotion
Bad Data: Compliments + Fluff/Hypotheticals + Ideas/Suggestions/Opinions/Features requests
Bad data gives false negatives and false positives. You need to deflect compliments, fluff, and ideas to get the conversation back on track. Facts and commitments are useful
- There is a difference between a complainer and a customer. Complainers are not interested in solving the problem, and they are stuck in la-la land. They will never pay for your product because they don’t want the problem solved
- World’s deadliest fluff?: I would DEFINITELY buy that. Never ask questions such as: “Would you ever?”; “Do you see yourself?”; “Would you?”; “Might you?”. The answers to these are low value and give us no credible information
- Acknowledge to the customer if you slip into pitch mode (this is where the compliment comes in). Tell potential customers that:
I am sorry that I slipped into pitch mode. So, we were discussing about how you are currently solving the problem currently. Ignore ALL the compliments. Compliment means that you asked a stupid question and they are warning signs. Also, compliments are the fool’s gold of customer learning.
Digging beneath the ideas/feature requests:
- Write down the ideas and feature requests but don’t obey and execute on them yet
- Dig around the ideas or feature requests. If customers get emotional around a particular request, THIS IS YOUR CUE. Do not move on from there
- Don’t slip into pitch mode. AGAIN. DO NOT SLIP INTO PITCH MODE. Anyone will say your idea is great if you are annoying enough. The more you are talking, the worse you are doing
How to find great customers?
Option 1: You go to customers (cold outreach). Option 2: Customers come to you (landing pages, etc.)
- Organize meetups? Fastest and unfair networking trick
- Speaking in small groups and teaching others
- Blogging about an industry
- Throw parties/tell customers that other customers will attend and that we will all knowledge share
- WARM INTROS are golden and sustainable. OF course, THIS IS the ultimate goal
- Industry advisors. Build an advisory board for your company? This can be a potential offering to the most helpful folks
- Professors are an absolute gold mine for introductions
- Investors are very credible for introductions to industry experts
A great way to ask for a customer meeting
Meeting framing format: (VFWPA — Vision Framing Weakness Pedestal Ask)
- Establish that you are an entrepreneur solving a huge problem. Don’t pitch the idea. Keep it high level, E.G., I am XYZ attempting to improve education
- Frame expectations by telling about your company stage, idea stage. E.G., I am in the process of building a product since ABC number of months
- Reveal a weakness that customers can help you with. It shows that you don’t have all the answers. E.G., I have approached the problem from the perspective of students but from that of teachers
- Put them on a pedestal and tell them that they can help you.
- Ask them to help you.
What to offer customers/prospects/industry experts? If they are good, they will realize that they have a chance to be on your rocket ship
Keep talking till the point of diminishing returns
How to prepare for a customer conversation?
Startups don’t starve; they drown (too many ideas)
Preparation is key to push the conversation in the direction you want
- Step 1: List the THREE BIG questions (not obvious because you have to be reflective about your business) you have for the customer. These are your learning goals. SUPER IMPORTANT
- Step 2: Customer segmentation. Sit down with the whole founding team and also the most skeptical people (they can humor you at the least). Write best guesses about the customer segment. Don’t ask about demographic info
- Step 3: Find the right customers. Right customers are the WHO and WHERE pair. If you can not answer where your customer hangs out, you have not segmented well. Birds of the same feather usually flock together and in a commonplace at a typical time. Start with a broad customer segment and then keep narrowing down
- Step 4: Keep the conversation casual. Do not be formal and set up a calendar meeting. E.G., Thank you for agreeing to this meeting? BLEH and FORMAL and ANNOYING
- Step 5: Document learnings. Learnings need to be shared with the entire founding team. It is SO easy to misinterpret customer interviews
- Step 6: Take good notes and review. This step is the removal of the raw data and feeding into the team’s brain. Do this once per week. Full transcripts do not work. Excerpts of crucial quotes + emotions are instrumental
How to take good notes?
- Write exact quotes. Important words + Emoticons. Symbols about: emotional state, background information, data, follow-up tasks
- Emotions such as excitement, anger, embarrassed, sad, happy, expensive
Pain, problem, or frustration = Lightning bolt
Aspiration, job to be done = Football goal
Obstacle = Box
Workaround for the current problem = Bendy arrow
Background information = Upward sloping arrow-like a mountain
Feature-request = Checkbox
Need to go through procurement? — boom; write it down
The specific person Johnny or Jill mentioned? Draw Johnny or Jill stick figure. Ask the customer, “When do you think is the right time to reach Johnny?
Star sign for follow-up requests. In order to return the favour, keep up promises. Basics
Cheatsheet
- Don’t fish for compliments
- Don’t expose your ego or pathos problem. If you say stuff such as “Be honest,” “NO-NO tell me how bad is the idea,” that’s you exposing your ego
- Commitment from customer: time, advice, money
- Advancement: MVP, sale, meeting
- Ultimate preparation question is, “What do I want to learn from these people?”
PS: Many folks also say that speaking to customers is useless
Rohan Manchanda 