Three Steps to Unlock Customer Insights

Founders: Don't build without customer discovery.

If you understand your market, your customers’ needs, and how your solution beats their current alternatives, you’re on your way to building a foundation that lasts. It seems so obvious, right? However, after talking with numerous startups and reading case studies from major brands, I've come to realize that you cannot afford to skip this step or do it poorly. The result: wasted time, weak decisions, and sometimes reputational hits.

Customer interviews are the essential first step for a reason. They unlock clearer insights, helping you to make confident product decisions and reduce risk.

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Step 1: Prepare for customer discovery

Getting started is the hardest part. Block focused, interruption-free time and write down the answers to these two prompts:

• Which one or two decisions must you make to move the business forward? (e.g., “Continue building this product?”, “Target this segment now?”)

• What questions must you answer to make those decisions?

Step 2: Ask the right questions to unlock meaningful insights

Before interviewing, ground yourself in third-party sources (forums, analyst notes, recent surveys). You'll get a good sense of current market conditions.

Set up a note tracker for every interview (spreadsheet or doc is fine). Recording with auto-transcription helps—you won’t catch everything live.

When you invite participants, be specific about who you want and why. Example: instead of “Can we talk about a better paintbrush?” go up a level—“Can we spend 30 minutes on how you approach DIY projects at home?” (People say yes when expectations are clear.)

Avoid garbage-in/garbage-out. Unlocking customer insights can be tricky. And have professional interviewers can be money well spent. Check out this in-depth article from Teresa Torres at Product Talk too. You can also learn how to conduct good interviews that surface the unexpected and expose blind spots. A few guardrails:

Let customers do most of the talking - about 80% them, 20% you. Acknowledge their expertise and reassure them that you will only share their comments internally.

Structure the interview to illicit stories. Ask participants to take you through a situation, i.e., "tell me about the last time you used ___..."

Prompts you can use

• “Tell me about your work. Walk me through what you did last time you tried to grow the business.”Listen for current behaviors, constraints, and frustrations. Such comments may be unrelated to your product, but they may shed new light.

• “What alternatives have you considered or used?” Signals future behavior and any switching barriers.

• “What does a typical day look like? Which tools do you touch and why? What actually works?” Answers can reveal what benefits and features are most important and who your real competition is.

• “If you had a magic wand, what’s the one thing you’d change?” This answer could be the real ah-ha moment!

Steer clear of bias

• Avoid leading questions (“Wouldn’t it be better if…?” “Don’t you hate…?”).

• Prefer past-tense, specific stories over hypotheticals (“Tell me about the last time…”).

• Closed yes/no questions are fine sparingly to confirm facts, but they’re weak for discovery.

When appropriate, show your concept/MVP with a neutral, brief description. Let them react; don’t sell. Capture what feels off, missing, or unnecessary.

Read on for the third part in the three steps to unlock customer insights.

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For an excellent primer on interviewing users, check out First Round and their podcast featuring Jeanette Mellinger.

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Step 3: Synthesize

After each interview, debrief with your team and compare notes. As patterns emerge, cluster them and include:

• Segment & role (user vs. buyer)

• What's the "job to be done" (read more about JTBD)

• Top pains/gains and current alternatives

• Notable quotes and signals (sighs, pauses, “we tried X and gave up,” etc.)

• Decision impact (does this answer the questions from Step 1?)

Customer interviews can feel daunting, but the earlier you hear their needs and understand their challenges first-hand, the easier it is to pivot—or press forward with confidence. Remember, don't build without customer discovery.

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At Outside In, I help turn your perspective inside out. Gather genuine customer evidence and replace "we think" with "we know."

The Outside Scan module is designed to orient your business to your marketing and your ideal customer. Book a discovery call to learn more.