5 basic rules for conducting problem interviews to identify consumer needs
In this article, I talk about the most basic principles of clarifying the truth in an environment where the interlocutor is not inclined to be completely honest. More often than not, you are being deceived not by malicious intent, but for many other reasons. For example, because of personal delusions, bad memory, or so that you do not upset. Often, when it comes to our ideas, we are prone to self-deception. The method of problem interviews allows to reveal the facts with a high degree of reliability.
The vast majority of businesses die because they offer a product that consumers do not need. This is a famous statement by Eric Rees, author of the Lean Startup technique.
How not to fall into this trap with your project? The decision has long been known - before creating a product, you need to investigate the needs of potential consumers using the methodology of problem interviews. A comprehensive guide to conducting problematic interviews is contained in Rob Fitzpatrick’s book “Ask Mother: How to communicate with customers and confirm the correctness of your business idea if everyone is lying around?”. In this book, only 150 pages, in Russian it was published in 2015, but nevertheless, most startups still do not know how to conduct problem interviews.
My name is Igor Sheludko.
I have been an entrepreneur in software development and sales since 2000. I have a higher technical education. I began my work activity as a programmer, also led small teams, was engaged in both product and custom development.
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For 3 years I have been cooperating with the Accelerator of the Southern IT Park (Rostov-on-Don) as a tracker for start-up projects. During this time, over 20 projects passed through my caring hands of an individual tracker, and more than 200 projects passed through Accelerator in general.
This is just a conversation, during which you ask the right questions. During such a conversation, it is important to find out the actual past experience of the interlocutor regarding the problems of interest to us. It is highly desirable to record the questions and answers of the interlocutor. Ideally - to record the conversation on the recorder, so that later you can make sure that the answers are correctly interpreted.
The conversation plan is based on your hypotheses about the needs of consumers.
A good version of the plan is a hypothesis map, which I wrote about in this article .
After the polite greeting of the interlocutor, it is worth telling in general terms what you want to talk about, or rather, listen. Your task is to make the interlocutor speak while you are listening. It is important to immediately find out the attitude of the interlocutor to the problems of interest to you. Ideally, it is worth finding out even at the appointment and time of the conversation. If the conversation occurred suddenly, then immediately identify what will be discussed.
It is possible that your interlocutor will have absolutely nothing to say on the merits and he will be tempted to talk on a given topic in an abstract way, not based on personal experience. It is necessary to learn to distinguish such situations and not perceive what has been said as facts. A person with no actual experience may be useful as a link to other people. Ask him to introduce you to his acquaintances who have actual experience on the subject of interest to you.
A hypothesis map as a conversation plan is much more convenient than a list of questions, a conversation script, or any other linear plan, since the interlocutor, answering your question, may not go at all to where you expected. If the interlocutor starts talking about what you have as hypotheses related to other problems, then you can quickly note the connection of information with actual hypotheses and continue to dig out the issues raised. Then, when this direction is exhausted, you can return to the original problematic.
The most common mistake of beginning interviewers is to slip into a dialogue or even a monologue, inspiringly telling about their product. This is absolutely impossible to do. As soon as the interlocutor understands that you invented or developed something, he stops speaking sincerely and begins to either praise you or argue with you. The interview turns into a discussion of a product, usually not existing yet, and you begin to exchange fantasies and hallucinations. If this happened to you during the interview, this interview should be considered unreliable.
The answers “yes”, “no”, “sometimes” and the like give very little information. To get more information, ask open-ended questions - such that the other party will have to give a detailed answer.
Of course, questions should be adapted to the course of the conversation. If the interlocutor told you that at that time the solution chosen by him was the only one, you should not ask what options you considered from. That is why the conversation script is less convenient than the hypothesis map, but without training you may not immediately be able to construct questions during the conversation. So practice on your friends and your co-founders.
Try to "dig out" the details and facts from the interlocutor's experience, finding out specific numbers, names, dates, periods, number of repetitions, places, sources of information, etc., since these facts give us information to assess the degree of awareness of the problems.
If a person agrees with you that he has an overweight problem and says that he does sports from time to time, then it is very important to find out how often he does and what sports. If he answers that he is swimming in the pool, then it is important to find out how often he visits the pool, what pool, how he chooses him, what time he practices, how many swims at a time, how much time he has spent on it, whether he eats after classes sports and in general, how he eats. This is important, because in these particular facts lies the truth.
A misunderstood interlocutor leads to unnecessary functions in products and even to useless products. Insufficiently tested hypotheses lead to significant costs in subsequent phases.
Finding out the specific circumstances of the interlocutor's experience helps to clarify not only the existence of problems and their awareness, but also the value of solving these problems.
The value may be in the economic benefit or savings, reducing risks, both financial and reputational.
One of the most important results of problem interviews is the found, clarified value of solving customer problems, expressed in money or time, which is saved or earned when solving a problem.
If we find out how much the consumer will earn or save on average, solving the problem, we can push off from this when choosing the price for our solution.
This is the second most frequent mistake of beginning interviewers - to allow the interlocutor to argue abstractly - what he would do if he were in a situation of interest to us.
These arguments do not bear any direct benefit, since when such a situation occurs, our interlocutor can do something completely different.
Numerous experiments suggest that in conditions of danger, stress, need, pressure from society, people act quite differently than when nothing threatens them.
These are the most basic rules, the observance of which will allow you to start practicing problem interviews.
I highly recommend reading Rob Fitzpatrick’s book “Ask Mother: How to communicate with customers and confirm the correctness of your business idea if everyone is lying around?” - it is small (about 150 pages) and is easy to read.
The vast majority of businesses die because they offer a product that consumers do not need. This is a famous statement by Eric Rees, author of the Lean Startup technique.
How not to fall into this trap with your project? The decision has long been known - before creating a product, you need to investigate the needs of potential consumers using the methodology of problem interviews. A comprehensive guide to conducting problematic interviews is contained in Rob Fitzpatrick’s book “Ask Mother: How to communicate with customers and confirm the correctness of your business idea if everyone is lying around?”. In this book, only 150 pages, in Russian it was published in 2015, but nevertheless, most startups still do not know how to conduct problem interviews.
About myself
My name is Igor Sheludko.
I have been an entrepreneur in software development and sales since 2000. I have a higher technical education. I began my work activity as a programmer, also led small teams, was engaged in both product and custom development.
')
For 3 years I have been cooperating with the Accelerator of the Southern IT Park (Rostov-on-Don) as a tracker for start-up projects. During this time, over 20 projects passed through my caring hands of an individual tracker, and more than 200 projects passed through Accelerator in general.
What is a “problem interview”?
This is just a conversation, during which you ask the right questions. During such a conversation, it is important to find out the actual past experience of the interlocutor regarding the problems of interest to us. It is highly desirable to record the questions and answers of the interlocutor. Ideally - to record the conversation on the recorder, so that later you can make sure that the answers are correctly interpreted.
Rule number 1 - To conduct a conversation, we need a plan of conversation.
The conversation plan is based on your hypotheses about the needs of consumers.
A good version of the plan is a hypothesis map, which I wrote about in this article .
After the polite greeting of the interlocutor, it is worth telling in general terms what you want to talk about, or rather, listen. Your task is to make the interlocutor speak while you are listening. It is important to immediately find out the attitude of the interlocutor to the problems of interest to you. Ideally, it is worth finding out even at the appointment and time of the conversation. If the conversation occurred suddenly, then immediately identify what will be discussed.
To clarify the relationship of the interlocutor to the problem, you can use questions like:
Have you ever ...?
Did you get into a situation ...?
How often happens to you ...?
When was the last time you found yourself in a situation ...?
Are you worried about ...?
How does your life affect ...?
It is possible that your interlocutor will have absolutely nothing to say on the merits and he will be tempted to talk on a given topic in an abstract way, not based on personal experience. It is necessary to learn to distinguish such situations and not perceive what has been said as facts. A person with no actual experience may be useful as a link to other people. Ask him to introduce you to his acquaintances who have actual experience on the subject of interest to you.
A hypothesis map as a conversation plan is much more convenient than a list of questions, a conversation script, or any other linear plan, since the interlocutor, answering your question, may not go at all to where you expected. If the interlocutor starts talking about what you have as hypotheses related to other problems, then you can quickly note the connection of information with actual hypotheses and continue to dig out the issues raised. Then, when this direction is exhausted, you can return to the original problematic.
Rule number 2 - Do not let yourself talk, let speak out to the interlocutor
The most common mistake of beginning interviewers is to slip into a dialogue or even a monologue, inspiringly telling about their product. This is absolutely impossible to do. As soon as the interlocutor understands that you invented or developed something, he stops speaking sincerely and begins to either praise you or argue with you. The interview turns into a discussion of a product, usually not existing yet, and you begin to exchange fantasies and hallucinations. If this happened to you during the interview, this interview should be considered unreliable.
Rule number 3 - Ask more open questions
The answers “yes”, “no”, “sometimes” and the like give very little information. To get more information, ask open-ended questions - such that the other party will have to give a detailed answer.
Examples of detailed questions:
Can you recall the case when you found yourself in a situation ...?
Tell me more about how ... was the last time?
Can you tell me how you did then?
Tell us more about how you solved this problem?
Do you always do that?
In other similar cases, what did you do?
How do you solve this problem now?
What difficulties does this decision cause you?
What does not suit you in the current decision?
Why did you do that?
What other options have you considered?
Of course, questions should be adapted to the course of the conversation. If the interlocutor told you that at that time the solution chosen by him was the only one, you should not ask what options you considered from. That is why the conversation script is less convenient than the hypothesis map, but without training you may not immediately be able to construct questions during the conversation. So practice on your friends and your co-founders.
Rule number 4 - Ask as specific questions as possible and look for the value of solving consumer problems
Try to "dig out" the details and facts from the interlocutor's experience, finding out specific numbers, names, dates, periods, number of repetitions, places, sources of information, etc., since these facts give us information to assess the degree of awareness of the problems.
If a person agrees with you that he has an overweight problem and says that he does sports from time to time, then it is very important to find out how often he does and what sports. If he answers that he is swimming in the pool, then it is important to find out how often he visits the pool, what pool, how he chooses him, what time he practices, how many swims at a time, how much time he has spent on it, whether he eats after classes sports and in general, how he eats. This is important, because in these particular facts lies the truth.
A misunderstood interlocutor leads to unnecessary functions in products and even to useless products. Insufficiently tested hypotheses lead to significant costs in subsequent phases.
Finding out the specific circumstances of the interlocutor's experience helps to clarify not only the existence of problems and their awareness, but also the value of solving these problems.
The value may be in the economic benefit or savings, reducing risks, both financial and reputational.
Questions to help figure out the value:
Why is solving this problem so important to you?
What results have you previously achieved by solving such problems?
What happened when you didn’t solve this problem?
What difficulties did it cause?
What costs did this lead to?
What did you lose in that situation?
How much time or money did you spend on solving this problem?
One of the most important results of problem interviews is the found, clarified value of solving customer problems, expressed in money or time, which is saved or earned when solving a problem.
If we find out how much the consumer will earn or save on average, solving the problem, we can push off from this when choosing the price for our solution.
Rule No. 5 - Ask only about past experience and avoid opinions, abstract thinking and reasoning about the future.
This is the second most frequent mistake of beginning interviewers - to allow the interlocutor to argue abstractly - what he would do if he were in a situation of interest to us.
These arguments do not bear any direct benefit, since when such a situation occurs, our interlocutor can do something completely different.
Numerous experiments suggest that in conditions of danger, stress, need, pressure from society, people act quite differently than when nothing threatens them.
These are the most basic rules, the observance of which will allow you to start practicing problem interviews.
I highly recommend reading Rob Fitzpatrick’s book “Ask Mother: How to communicate with customers and confirm the correctness of your business idea if everyone is lying around?” - it is small (about 150 pages) and is easy to read.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/446448/
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