My friend Clarissa asked this awesome question today on Facebook. And there were some really good suggestions (See below)
I have run into this situation many times. – “What to ask while doing customer development interviews for a new product or market ?” and here are few things that I have learned…
If you are not sure about the market for your product, your first goal should be to understand these basics
- Do people really want to solve this problem?
- Is the pain big enough?
- How are people solving this problem today? (ideas about potential competitors)
So here are some questions that are NOT so good. Mainly because we won’t learn much from the answers.
- Would you use my product ABC?
- How much would you pay for my product ABC?
- What would you do with my product ABC?
And here are some questions that can potentially provide us some data & insights.
- How do you solve problem XYZ today?
- What do you like the most about the CURRENT SOLUTION?
- What do you hate about the CURRENT SOLUTION?
- What would make it (CURRENT SOLUTION) better for you?
I believe Questions #1 is the most important one. Let them tell you a story and just listen. You may hear things like
“Yeah I have this problem but its OK, I have a work around”
“I know there are few solutions in the market but honestly its not a huge problem for me”
Or you may hear things like this
“Yeah I have this problem and we use XYZ to solve it today but I really wish they had A and B in their solution” ……BINGO!!!!!!!!!!
So now over to you, what questions would you add (or ask instead) ?