Talking to Humans – Complete Book Summary & All Key Ideas

Talking to Humans: Complete Summary of Giff Constable’s Customer Discovery Method for Startup Success

Introduction: What This Book Is About

“Talking to Humans: Success starts with understanding your customers” by Giff Constable, with Frank Rimalovski, and a foreword by Steve Blank, provides a practical guide to customer discovery and lean innovation. This book emphasizes that startup success hinges on deeply understanding customers rather than solely focusing on product development. It serves as a focused primer on qualitative research, teaching entrepreneurs and product managers how to validate their riskiest assumptions by engaging directly with real people.

The book is designed for anyone looking to bring a new product or business idea to market, from tiny startups to intrapreneurial teams within large companies. It offers actionable advice on how to get out of the building and gather meaningful insights, preventing the common pitfall of building products no one wants. Readers will learn to approach customer discovery with a detective’s mindset, seeking clues to confirm or deny hypotheses and make better, data-driven decisions.

Constable demystifies the often intimidating process of talking to strangers, providing a clear framework for recruiting candidates, conducting effective interviews, and synthesizing learnings. By combining storytelling with practical tactics, the book empowers founders to confidently navigate the early stages of product development. This summary will provide comprehensive coverage of all key insights, ensuring you grasp the full scope of Constable’s powerful methodology for understanding your customers.

PART ONE: The Story

This section introduces Koshi and Roberta, two scientists who have developed a cost-effective way to manufacture artificial down feathers, aiming to create a better pillow. Their journey highlights the common challenges and the structured approach needed for effective customer discovery.

The Breakthrough and the Business Question

Koshi and Roberta successfully developed NewDown, an artificial down feather material with enhanced insulation and resilience, that is also environmentally friendly. Their technical achievement leads them to the critical question: Do they have a viable business? They recognize that a technical advantage does not automatically translate into market success.

The Advisor’s Guidance on Risky Hypotheses

Their entrepreneurial advisor, Samantha, emphasizes the need to understand the market and challenge risky assumptions. Samantha explains that every new business idea rests on a stack of assumptions, and those that are wrong can lead to failure. She guides Koshi and Roberta to list their riskiest hypotheses, which will then drive their research.

Initial Risky Hypotheses Identified

The founders identify six critical assumptions about their business:

People care about sleep quality when making a pillow purchase decision.
Selling online directly to customers is a viable sales channel.
Their target customers will be young urban professionals.
Their very first customers will be new graduates outfitting apartments.
Pillows can be sold at a high enough price to cover costs.
Enough capital can be raised for manufacturing investments.
Samantha advises them to set aside fundraising risk initially and focus on customer-related risks to strengthen their story.

Samantha’s Three-Pronged Research Approach

Samantha recommends a multi-faceted approach to gather market insights:

Walk a day in the customer’s shoes: Personally experience the pillow buying process. This builds empathy and personal understanding.
Observe people buying a pillow: Witness honest behavior in a retail environment. This provides insights into actual actions.
Talk directly to them: Gather intel on both behavior and motivation through interviews. This helps understand the “why” behind actions.
Each method has strengths and weaknesses, but together they provide comprehensive learning.

Addressing Scientist Skepticism About Talking to People

Koshi, a scientist, expresses skepticism about talking to people, fearing they would provide unreliable answers if asked about product preferences or purchase intent. Samantha clarifies that the goal is not to sell, but to learn. She stresses the importance of understanding how, when, why, and where customers buy, framing the process as scientific research to gather data and test hypotheses.

Initial Interview Plan and Data Collection Strategy

The scientists outline an initial interview plan, focusing on past behavior:

Introduction: Briefly explain their research on sleep quality and ask about their last pillow purchase.
When was the last time you bought a pillow?
Why did you go looking for a pillow?
How did you start shopping for a pillow?
Why did you choose the one you bought?
After you bought, how did you feel about the pillow you purchased?
Are you going to be in the market for a pillow anytime soon?
Samantha advises them to take good notes and regularly regroup to review findings and look for patterns, noting the method used for each observation.

Walking in the Customer’s Shoes: Online Purchase Insights

Koshi and Roberta buy pillows online to experience the customer journey firsthand. Roberta finds the process frustrating due to poor manufacturer websites and reliance on Amazon and Bed Bath & Beyond reviews. She notes that 65% of reviews mentioned sleep quality, validating their first assumption. Koshi observes that Amazon and BB&B dominate search results, with specialty providers like BestPillow ranking high. He also sees an opportunity for search engine optimization and environmentally friendly claims.

Observing the Customer: Retail Store Insights

Roberta visits Bed Bath & Beyond, observing fifteen people and speaking to ten. She notes that many shoppers puzzled over packaging and used mobile phones to look up reviews and pricing online. Koshi visits a high-end department store, observing eighteen people and speaking to nine. He finds that firmness preferences were tied to beliefs about sounder sleep, and that prices of better pillows aligned with their target charge.

Synthesizing Initial Observations and Metrics

The founders combine their observations, having seen 33 people and spoken to 19. They begin to quantify their findings:

24% of shoppers knew what they wanted upon entering the store.
52% looked up information on their phone in the store.
45% purchased a mid-priced or high-priced pillow.
68% of interviewees indicated better sleep as a major driver.
37% were reacting to a life change (e.g., moving, marriage).
37% were in replacement mode.
They identify mobile phone usage as a critical area for strategy development.

Targeting Urban Professionals and New Graduates

Roberta and Koshi expand their research to urban professionals. Koshi approaches people at a downtown coffee shop, using a “coffee for science” sign to attract interviewees. He finds that new graduates often bought the cheapest pillows and had little idea how to shop for better ones. Older urban professionals (late twenties/thirties) had bought at least one pillow, often online, and were planning new purchases only for life events like marriage or moving.

Further Interviews and Challenging Assumptions

Roberta interviews old classmates and their friends, confirming the lag effect after college graduation regarding linen purchases. She finds that initial spending for new grads goes towards clothes, not linens. Most of her interviewees (60% of 22-25 year olds) had bought a pillow, primarily online, with women caring more about quality. Koshi notes that people found their idea of a new pillow “awesome,” but Samantha dismisses this as unreliable validation.

Re-evaluating Initial Assumptions with Data

The team revisits their initial assumptions based on 72 observations and interviews:

Assumption 1 (Sleep Quality): 68% of retail shoppers and 70% of urban professionals (excluding new grads) indicated sleep quality as a major factor. This assumption is reasonably confident.
Assumption 2 (Online Sales): 77% of urban professionals start with search engines, and mobile usage in stores was high. More data is needed to confirm online conversion.
Assumption 3 (Young Urban Professionals as Customers): This group shows purchase behavior for quality items and prefers online buying, making them a good target.
Assumption 4 (New Graduates as First Customers): This was totally wrong. New grads rarely bought expensive pillows. Evidence points to mid-to-late twenties/early thirties and life changes (moving, marriage) as key triggers for purchase.
Assumption 5 (High Enough Price): 45% of retail shoppers bought mid or high-priced pillows, and their target price aligns with the high-end market. Profitability depends on scale and manufacturing improvements.

New Worries and Next Steps

Koshi worries about customer confusion due to similar brand promises and the market’s division into firm vs. soft preferences, despite their pillow being a middle-ground solution. Roberta is concerned about initial market size, growth speed, and path to profitability. Samantha suggests:

Continue interviews with a new spin: Test messaging by showing an infographic on a phone to see if it’s understood and meaningful.
Create a financial model: Play with pricing, sales volume, and costs based on learned data.
Run customer acquisition and sales experiments: Create a basic online store, drive traffic with ads, and run A/B tests on ad copy, landing pages, and price points.
Follow up with customers: Interview them on their buying process.
The ultimate goal is to learn before scaling, continually talking to customers to evolve questions and gain insights.

PART TWO: How To

This section provides practical guidelines for conducting effective customer discovery, starting with core questions to guide the process.

Getting Started with Customer Discovery

Qualitative research, or “talking to humans,” is an ongoing process for entrepreneurs. It can feel intimidating, but a professional and thoughtful approach often yields willing participants. The process begins by addressing five core questions:

Who do you want to learn from? Define your target audience.
What do you want to learn? Identify key assumptions and questions.
How will you get to them? Develop strategies for recruiting interview subjects.
How can you ensure an effective session? Implement best practices for interviews.
How do you make sense of what you learn? Analyze observations for actionable insights.

Who Do You Want to Learn From?

Defining your market is the first crucial step in customer discovery. Thinking about a few categories helps to focus your efforts effectively.

Identifying Your Target Customer and Early Adopter

You must have an opinion about who your market actually is, moving beyond the vague notion of “everyone.” Focus on the kinds of people who experience the problem you aim to solve. This might involve specific jobs, mindsets, geographical locations, or age groups.

The typical customer: The broad audience you envision if your idea gains traction.
Your early adopter: The people most likely to try your product first, often due to acute pain points or a desire for novelty.
Critical partners: Entities essential for distribution, fulfillment, or other business functions.
Early adopters are critical because mainstream customers wait for their proof. They are usually individuals who feel a pain acutely or are eager to try new products. Examples include busy 20-somethings for a vet service or solo plumbing practices for an online marketplace. Focused research on early adopters makes evidence easier to interpret.

Special Considerations for B2B Products

For Business-to-Business (B2B) products, understanding the sales process participants is crucial. A classic enterprise sale often involves:

Strategic buyer: Excited about the potential change.
Economic buyer: Controls the budget.
Technical buyer: Holds approval or blocker rights.
Actual users: Those who will use the product daily.
Identify your champion within the organization and potential saboteurs. Steve Blank recommends starting with mid-level managers in B2B contexts. They are easier to access, more likely to offer repeat conversations, and provide valuable education before approaching higher-level executives.

What Do You Want to Learn?

Go into every customer interview with a prepared list of questions, known as an interview guide. This guide ensures organization, professionalism, and early focus on important questions.

Uncovering Your Most Risky Assumptions

Identify your most important and risky assumptions to prioritize learning. These are the areas where insights are most urgently needed. Use frameworks like Alex Osterwalder’s business model canvas or Ash Maurya’s lean canvas, or answer specific questions like:

My target customer will be?
The problem my customer wants to solve is?
My customer’s need can be solved with?
Why can’t my customer solve this today?
The measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is?
My primary customer acquisition tactic will be?
My earliest adopter will be?
I will make money (revenue) by?
My primary competition will be?
I will beat my competitors primarily because of?
My biggest risk to financial viability is?
My biggest technical or engineering risk is?
What assumptions do we have that, if proven wrong, would cause this business to fail? (Include market size here).
Be honest about uncertainties and focus on assumptions that are both highly important and fairly uncertain.

Getting Stories, Not Speculation

Humans are poor predictors of their future behavior, making speculative questions unreliable. Avoid asking “Would you like this idea?” or “Would you buy this product?” Instead, ask interview subjects to share stories about their past experiences. For example, focus on a past pillow buying experience, as Koshi and Roberta did.
For an on-call vet service, an interview plan might include:

Warm up: Concise intro, basic questions about person and pet.
Who is your current vet? How did you find and choose them?
Describe the last time you took your pet to the vet for a checkup.
Walk me through scheduling a vet visit.
What was frustrating/likable about that experience?
Have you ever had an emergency vet visit? Describe it.
Have you ever thought about changing vets? Why/why not?
These questions elicit actual behaviors and motivations, which are far more valuable than hypothetical answers.

Asking Open-Ended Questions for Deeper Insights

To encourage open sharing, structure open-ended questions. Try to start questions with who, what, why, and how, avoiding “is, are, would, and do you.” If you get a yes/no answer, follow up with an open-ended question to prompt further discussion. A useful concluding question, popularized by Steve Blank, is: “What should I have asked you that I didn’t?” This can uncover unexpected insights.

Testing for Price and Willingness to Pay

Price is one of the hardest aspects to validate qualitatively because speculative answers are highly suspect. To learn about pricing, ask:

How much do you currently spend to address this problem?
What budget do you have allocated to this, and who controls it?
How much would you pay to make this problem go away? (Interpret answers with skepticism).
The most reliable way to test willingness to pay is to create a situation where the subject believes they are actually buying something. Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter test pre-order demand. For corporate products, try to get customers to buy in advance or sign a non-binding letter of intent. People don’t honestly consider willingness to pay unless they perceive a real transaction.

Getting Feedback on a Prototype Effectively

When seeking reactions to a product solution, separate this step from questions about past behavior. First, ask questions about their behavior and challenges to avoid influencing their answers with product features. People naturally love discussing features, so addressing behavior first ensures unbiased insights. Interpret reactions to prototypes with skepticism, as they are still speculative.

The Magic Wand Question: Focus on Problems, Not Solutions

The “magic wand” question (“if you could wave a magic wand and have this product do whatever you want, what would it do?”) is generally avoided because customers are limited by their current reality and are not product designers. Their job is to explain their behavior, goals, and challenges. The product designer’s job is to create the solution. A useful variation, however, is: “If you could wave a magic wand and solve any problem, what would you want to solve?” This focuses on problems without asking for solutions.

Designing “Pass/Fail” Tests with Quantitative Mindset

While customer discovery is qualitative, adopting a quantitative mindset helps. Set measurable goals for key questions and track results. For example, Koshi and Roberta set targets like:

40% or fewer shoppers know what they want when they walk in (to confirm undecided market).
At least 40% of shoppers buy mid- or high-end models (to validate price point).
Over 60% of shoppers indicate sleep quality as a major decision factor (to confirm differentiator).
These numerical targets, even if educated guesses, force careful thought and make decision-making easier when reviewing data. The interview guide is a guide, not a script, allowing for improvisation while ensuring key questions are covered.

Observation Can Be As Powerful As Questions

Sometimes, the best approach is to observe someone’s behavior directly. This might involve watching their purchase process or how they solve a particular problem. Koshi and Roberta gained valuable insights by watching customers struggle to buy pillows in linen stores before asking questions. While not always feasible (e.g., observing diet habits), observing uninfluenced behavior can yield profound insights.

How Do You Find Your Interview Subjects?

Approaching strangers can be daunting, but people are often willing to help if approached professionally. Three general rules guide candidate recruitment:

Getting One Degree of Separation Away

Avoid interviewing close friends or family, as their affection can bias their feedback. Aim for one degree of separation away to get more objective insights. If a close contact is interviewed, their feedback should be taken with skepticism.

Being Creative in Recruitment

Don’t expect people to come to you. Be creative in finding interviewees. An entrepreneur targeting mothers found success by organizing evening events at a local spa with pedicures and wine, where moms were relaxed and willing to talk, after initial attempts at school pickup zones and playgrounds failed.

Fishing Where the Fish Are

Go where your target audience naturally congregates. If a method isn’t working, try something new. For a product related to getting gas, a team visited gas stations to observe and interview consumers at the moment of pain. For busy women, intercepting shoppers at a retail store was less effective than finding bored people waiting in line at a sample sale.

Making Referrals Happen

Leverage referrals as much as possible. Aim to walk out of every interview with 2-3 new candidate leads. Ask interviewees if they know others facing the problem you’re trying to solve. If you’ve respected their time, they’ll often be happy to introduce you. This is particularly effective for hard-to-reach groups like doctors.

Utilizing Conferences & Meetups

Conferences and meetups are excellent recruiting grounds because they gather people with shared interests. Be respectful of their time; ask for their contact information and schedule an in-depth conversation after the event. Send a short follow-up email immediately to remind them where you met. For expensive conferences, consider intercepting people outside or contacting attendees/speakers directly if lists are available. Meetup.com helps discover relevant local events.

Strategies for Enterprise Customers

Recruiting enterprise customers requires laser-like targeting. LinkedIn is extremely useful for identifying people with target titles. Seek referrals via LinkedIn or cold-call through company main numbers. Decide whether to ask for advice (default for early discovery) or approach as if selling (for testing acquisition/messaging).

Asking for advice gains easier access and makes people feel important. Steve Blank’s approach: “My name is Steve and [dropped name] told me you were one of the smartest people in the industry and you had really valuable advice to offer. I’m not trying to sell you anything, but was hoping to get 20 minutes of your time.”
An effective spin is to create a blog about your problem space and ask for interviews for an article.

Benefitting from Gatekeepers

To reach high-level executives, call the CEO’s office and speak to their executive assistant. Explain you’re looking for the person who handles X, and they often connect you to the right person. Mentioning the CEO’s office or name can improve response rates. Alternatively, send a targeted, concise email asking for an introduction to the right contact, making educated guesses about email addresses based on LinkedIn.

Leveraging Students and Researchers Status

If you are a student or academic researcher, explicitly state this. People are often more willing to grant time to students. Offering to share research results can be an extra incentive.

Expecting Surprising Opportunities

Be open to unexpected recruitment opportunities. A team trying to interview rare oil platform engineers discovered an onshore training facility nearby, making in-person interviews possible. The key is that it often isn’t as hard as you think.

Avoiding Unproductive Recruitment Methods

Just as you fish where the fish are, don’t fish where they are not. If a recruitment method isn’t yielding results, change your approach. A magazine team struggling to intercept busy women found success with bored people waiting in line at a sample sale. They also leveraged the magazine’s social media presence to recruit specific target demographics through online surveys, leading to scheduled calls.

Utilizing Online Forms & Landing Pages

Creating an online form or landing page to build a list of contacts is an effective tactic. A team testing a home organization product used a three-step funnel (call to action, price choice, email request) to track conversion metrics and schedule interviews. Driving traffic can be done through Google or Facebook ads, or word-of-mouth on social media or through bloggers.

Conclusion on Finding Subjects

There is no single way to find interview subjects; it requires creativity and hustle. People will not perceive you as rude if you maintain a pleasant and professional demeanor. The Appendix provides additional tips for cold email and voicemail approaches.

How to Ensure an Effective Session?

Running a productive interview session requires adhering to several key guidelines that maximize the quality of learning.

Conducting Interviews In Person

The quality of learning is highest with in-person interviews. This allows you to read body language and build rapport more easily, as a large percentage of human communication is non-verbal. Video conferencing is the next best option, as it still allows for facial expression interpretation. Phone calls should be a last resort, and text-based mediums like email or chat should be avoided entirely.

Talking to One Person at a Time

It is best to interview one person at a time to avoid groupthink and allow for deep dives into individual stories and motivations. Having a second person quietly taking notes is highly recommended, allowing the interviewer to focus on the conversation, body language, and flow without distraction. If taking your own notes, write them up immediately after the session to capture details. Recording sessions (with permission) can be helpful, but notes should still be written up promptly for easier review by the team.

Starting with a Warm Up & Keeping it Human

Begin the interview by concisely explaining your purpose and thanking them for their time. Start with one or two easy warm-up questions (e.g., where they’re from, what they do, how long they’ve been with their company). This gets the conversation flowing. While having a written list of questions is important, don’t rigidly read from it. Be present and make the interviewee feel genuinely listened to.

Disarming Your Own Biases

Humans are prone to confirmation bias, hearing what they want to hear. Go into each session prepared to hear things that contradict your assumptions. Some entrepreneurs even adopt a mindset of trying to kill their idea to set a high bar and prevent leading the witness. This helps ensure objectivity in interpreting feedback.

Getting Them to Tell a Story

Avoid speculative questions like “Would you use this?” as humans are terrible at predicting future behavior. Instead, get people to tell stories about past experiences related to the problem area. Ask about:

What triggered their search for a solution?
How did they look for a solution?
What did they expect the solution to do?
How did that particular solution work out?
Help them set the scene by asking about the time of year, day, or if they were with anyone. Follow up with questions about their emotional state during the experience. Meetup.com uses a “filming a documentary” analogy to help subjects recall emotions.

Looking for Solution Hacks

A strong indicator of market need is when people are not just frustrated by a problem, but are actively trying to solve it themselves, perhaps by trying various solutions or “hacking together” their own. These stories demonstrate an acute need and willingness to invest effort in finding a resolution.

Understanding Priority

For someone to adopt a new product, their pain must be acute enough to trigger a behavior change, risk-taking, and payment. If you find evidence of a problem, ask where it ranks in their list of priorities. Is it their #1 pain, or too low a priority to warrant their attention or budget? This helps assess the urgency of the need.

Listening, Not Talking

Talk as little as possible during the interview. Keep your questions short and unbiased, avoiding embedding the answer you want to hear. When the customer pauses, don’t rush to fill the silence; they might be thinking or have more to say. Ensure you are learning, not selling, unless the interview is specifically part of a sales experiment.

Following Your Nose and Drilling Down

If something sparks your interest, drill down with follow-up questions. Don’t hesitate to ask for clarifications and the “why” behind their statements. You can even use the “Five Whys” technique to uncover deeper motivations, as long as the interviewee doesn’t become annoyed.

Parrot Back or Misrepresent to Confirm

For important topics, repeat back what the person said. This can lead to two outcomes: they might correct your interpretation, or by hearing their own thoughts, they might articulate a more sophisticated or nuanced opinion. Occasionally, you can purposefully misrepresent what they said to see if they correct you, but use this technique sparingly.

Doing a Dry Run

If new to customer discovery, practice with a friend or colleague. This helps you get comfortable with the questions, listening carefully, and improvising. A dry run makes the actual interview feel more natural and professional.

Getting Feedback on Your Product Effectively

When seeking feedback on product ideas (mockups or demos), keep these tips in mind:

Separate storytelling from feedback: Discuss behavior and challenges first, then introduce product ideas to avoid influencing their stories.
Disarm politeness training: Explicitly ask for brutally honest feedback, explaining it’s the best way to help you avoid building something nobody cares about.
Don’t trust “likes”: People easily say they like your product. The true test is watching their behavior when they experience it or getting them to open their wallet.
Don’t wait for perfection: Initial product versions are rarely perfect. Spot errors sooner by testing mockups at an appropriate level of polish for your industry.

How Do You Make Sense of What You Learn?

The ultimate goal of customer discovery is to make better decisions that increase the odds of success. This requires translating observations into actionable insights.

Taking Good Notes for Pattern Recognition

To identify patterns, track your data meticulously. If a note-taker is present, this is easy. Otherwise, write up your notes as soon as possible after the conversation to retain detail and color. Make notes accessible to the entire team, for example, using Google Docs. At the start of each entry, include:

Name of interview subject
Date and time
Name of interviewer
In-person or video conference
Photo (if available)
Also, include basic descriptive information about the interview subject.

Leveraging Quantitative Measures for Scorecard Tracking

When setting specific metric goals, create a shared spreadsheet that acts as a running scorecard to track progress against targets. For example, for an air purifier for greenhouse plants, track:

Percentage of farmers wanting increased volume (target 60%+).
Percentage of farmers already spending money on growth accelerators (target 50%+).
Percentage of farmers with suitable electrical outlets (target 70%+).
Quantifying observations helps fight cognitive biases and provides a structured way to assess progress. While useful, don’t take these statistics too literally or confuse them with statistical significance. They are for identifying patterns, not indisputable facts.

Conducting a Dump and Sort Exercise

Bring your team together with sticky notes and sharpies. Give everyone 10 minutes to jot down observed patterns and observations. Place all sticky notes on a wall and have someone sort them into groups. As a team, discuss the patterns, then re-review your assumptions or business canvas to see what needs to change or requires further investigation.

Looking for Patterns and Applying Judgement

Customer development interviews provide insights based on patterns, not statistically significant data. They require judgement to interpret because what people say isn’t always what they do. Avoid reacting too strongly to single comments or taking things too literally. However, don’t get bogged down in analysis paralysis trying to talk to thousands of people. The ability to use human judgement based on human connections makes interviews more useful than surveys. Move fast and make decisions from credible patterns.

Not Abdicating Your Role As Product Designer

Remember, it is not the customer’s job to design your product; it is yours. As you gather information and make decisions, act as an intelligent filter, not an order-taker. Your vision guides the solution, informed by customer insights.

Expecting False Positives

Be wary of false positives in customer development interviews. People often want to be helpful and nice, and your brain wants to hear positive things. As you weigh what you’ve learned, keep this inherent bias in mind. Skepticism helps ensure you’re validating real needs, not just politeness.

Understanding The Truth Curve

Qualitative research is powerful for big leaps of insight, but it’s not the only source of learning. The absolute truth about your product emerges when it’s live and generating real money. The “Truth Curve” illustrates levels of believability for different experiments:

Talking to people: Powerful for insights, but what people say isn’t what they do.
Mockups/Prototypes: Provide feedback, but reactions need skepticism.
Concierge and “Wizard of Oz” experiments: Stronger evidence because you observe actions in an experience (manual work hidden or visible).
Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Truly functional product tests, providing even stronger evidence.
All steps reduce risk, but judgement must be applied to everything learned.

Determining How Many People to Talk To

There’s no single answer to how many people to interview.

Consumer businesses: Should talk to an order of magnitude more people than B2B. At least 50-100 people is a good starting point.
B2B businesses: Steve Blank’s I-Corps course requires teams to talk to at least 100 people over 7 weeks.
Never stop talking to potential customers, but evolve what you seek to learn. If patterns repeat, shift focus to new assumptions or risks (e.g., how customers learn about and purchase solutions). Remember that observing customers can be as powerful as direct interviews.

Leading with Vision

Customer development and lean startup techniques are powerful tools to increase success odds, but they are not a replacement for vision. You must start with a vision for how you want to improve the world and add value. These techniques help reality-check your vision and optimize the path to achieve it, ensuring your efforts align with real market needs.

Conclusion

Thoughtful qualitative research is an essential tool for any entrepreneur. This book provides strategies to effectively implement it.

The Numerous Ways a Business Can Fail

Creating a new business is incredibly challenging, with many potential failure points:

Customer and market fit
Revenue model
Cost structure
Customer acquisition
Product quality and features
Team dynamics and execution
Market timing
Failing in any one of these areas can lead to business failure, highlighting why entrepreneurship requires resilience.

The Power of Customer Discovery and Lean Experimentation

Entrepreneurs are called to change the world and dream big. While passion is vital, it must be coupled with a ruthless examination of ideas and assumptions. Customer discovery and lean experimentation are powerful methodologies that help:

Chart a better path
Find success faster
Operate with more capital efficiency
These techniques enable entrepreneurs to build products that customers genuinely want and need.

The Ongoing Nature of Customer Discovery

As a business grows and evolves, so too will its customer base. Therefore, it is crucial to continuously reality-check hypotheses and keep talking to humans. This ongoing engagement provides the necessary insights to adapt and thrive in a dynamic market.

PART THREE: Appendix

The appendix provides practical examples and tools to aid in customer discovery.

Cold Approach Examples

When contacting someone you don’t know, remember these rules:

Keep things concise: Get straight to the point.
Keep things convenient: Offer to meet near their office or via quick video call.
Name drop when possible: Mentioning a mutual connection increases credibility.
Follow up without being annoying: A gentle reminder can be effective.
Practice voicemail messages: Ensure they sound professional and clear.

Example Email 1

A concise email to John Smith, referred by James Smith, asking for 30 minutes to discuss expense report management workflows, with an offer to share research conclusions. This is a request for advice.

Example Email 2

Another concise email to John Smith, stating the sender is working on expense management solutions due to personal frustration, and asking for 30 minutes of advice and shared experiences, explicitly stating “I’m not selling anything.”

Example Voice Mail Message

A practiced, professional voicemail stating name, referral source, purpose of call (researching expense management workflows), and asking for 30 minutes of advice, reiterating “I’m not selling anything” and offering to share research conclusions.

Final Note on Cold Calling

Cold calling is often perceived as painful but is less so in reality. It requires a determined mindset and professionalism. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Recruitment can also happen through Craigslist, Facebook/LinkedIn groups, and networking.

Business Assumptions Exercise

This exercise helps map out business assumptions, regardless of the framework chosen (e.g., Osterwalder’s business model canvas, Maurya’s lean canvas). The goal is to make assumptions concise and specific enough to be tested via experiment.

Key Questions for Laying Out a Belief System

The exercise provides a simple set of questions to define your business’s core beliefs:

My target customer will be? (Describe primary target customer)
The problem my customer wants to solve is? (What customer struggles with or needs to fulfill)
My customer’s need can be solved with? (Concise product description/elevator pitch)
Why can’t my customer solve this today? (Obstacles preventing current solution)
The measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is? (Measurable change in customer’s life)
My primary customer acquisition tactic will be? (Dominant marketing channel guess)
My earliest adopter will be? (Who will try the product first)
I will make money (revenue) by? (Primary revenue model)
My primary competition will be? (Direct and indirect competitors)
I will beat my competitors primarily because of? (True differentiators)
My biggest risk to financial viability is? (What could prevent breakeven, and how to de-risk)
My biggest technical or engineering risk is? (Major technical hurdles)

Identifying Critical Failure Assumptions

An open-ended question is also included: What assumptions do we have that, if proven wrong, would cause this business to fail? This encourages creative examination of potential failure points, including market size. After reviewing all assumptions, mark those that are highly important and uncertain to prioritize customer discovery and experiments. A PDF worksheet is available on talkingtohumans.com.

Teaching Exercise #1: Mock Interviews

This exercise provides real-world practice for teaching customer discovery.

Tools and Topic Selection

Participants need pen and paper. The class interviews each other on a common topic that most people can relate to, focusing on:

Past behavior: E.g., “Tell me about the last thing you purchased over $100,” including purchase process, decision-making, etc.
Deeper motivations: E.g., “Tell me about your dream car,” digging into reasons behind the choice and imagined use.

Exercise Steps

Intro (5 minutes): Explain the exercise, topic, and give specific question suggestions (e.g., “when did you fall in love with the car and why?”).
Interview Plan (2 minutes): Students write down no more than 6 questions.
Pair Interviews (5-7 minutes each): Students pair up, one interviews while the other is interviewed, then switch roles. The interviewer also takes notes to experience solo interviewing.
Observations and Questions (5-10 minutes): The class shares observations, challenges, lessons, or questions from the live interview experience.

Teaching Exercise #2: Mock Approach

Dean Chang’s exercise involves students cold calling an “expert” (played by a teacher) repeatedly until they get it right.

Exercise Mechanics

One or more teams come to the front. Their job is to cold call a teacher playing an expert in their target field. The team must get the expert to take the call and smoothly transition to asking questions. The “expert” blocks misguided attempts by declining or ending the conversation, or using a “gong” sound.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistakes that trigger a restart include:

Long or unclear introductions
Pitching the product/technology too soon
Implying the expert has problems needing help
Generally making the expert uncomfortable
Other teams offer critiques and suggest new approaches. The goal is to help teams converge on a good elevator pitch that praises and disarms the expert, paving the way for an interview. This exercise highlights why best practices are essential.

Screwing Up Customer Discovery

This section outlines common anti-patterns that derail effective customer discovery.

1. Treating Speculation as Confirmation

Discount answers to speculative questions like “would you use this?” or “would you pay for this?” Instead, focus on behavioral questions such as: “Tell me about a time when you bought airline tickets online. What did you enjoy/frustrate you? What systems have you tried?”

2. Leading the Witness

Avoid putting the answer in the interviewee’s mouth. For example, don’t ask, “We don’t think most people really want to book tickets online, but what do you think?” Ensure neutral phrasing and tone. Ask open-ended, neutral questions before drilling down, like “what was that experience of buying online tickets like?”

3. Not Being Able to Stop Talking

Entrepreneurs often get overly excited and pitch too much. While pre-selling can be an experiment, don’t mix it with behavioral learning. If pre-selling, ask people to actually pay, rather than just asking “Would you pay for this?” or “How much would you pay?”

4. Only Hearing What You Want to Hear

Be aware of confirmation bias. Don’t let your beliefs filter what you hear. Have two people per interview (one asking questions, one taking notes) to mitigate this bias.

5. Treating a Single Conversation as Ultimate Truth

Don’t jump to conclusions based on one strong opinion. Look for patterns and use your judgment. A clear, consistent pattern from 5-10 people is a signal, but patience is key.

6. Allowing Fear of Rejection to Win Out

Fear of rejection is a major blocker. Overcome excuses like “I don’t know how to find people.” Just Do It (JFDI). Recruit through Craigslist, Facebook/LinkedIn groups, and networking.

7. Talking to Anyone with a Pulse

Avoid a shotgun approach. Define your target customer and early adopter, perhaps with a lightweight persona. Focus on validating or invalidating assumptions about these specific groups. Occasional deviation is fine, but maintain focus.

8. Winging the Conversation

Prepare your questions ahead of time and force-rank them based on risks and assumptions. While the interview should be conversational and not a literal script, planning ensures you cover critical areas. Be ready to diverge if something interesting arises.

9. Trying to Learn Everything in One Sitting

Instead of broad questions, zoom in on a few critical areas for each conversation. If you have many questions, conduct more interviews and split the topics.

10. Only the Designer Does Qualitative Research

Everyone on the team should participate in talking to real people. Newcomers might need coaching on avoiding jumping to conclusions.

11. Stopping Customer Development After the First Week

Don’t stop customer development once initial momentum is gained. While the intensity may ebb and flow, build a regular qualitative cadence into your product process. It complements quantitative metrics by providing context and understanding the “why” behind data.

12. Asking the Customer to Design Your Product

Remember Henry Ford’s quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” It’s your job to design the solution, informed by customer feedback, not dictated by it. Filter feedback through your judgment and vision, especially for early product versions.

Disclaimer

These tips are guidelines. There are always contexts where breaking the rules and adapting to your specific business needs is appropriate.

Key Takeaways: What You Need to Remember

Core Insights from Talking to Humans

Startup success depends on understanding customers deeply, not just building a product.
Validate your riskiest assumptions early by getting out of the building and engaging with real people.
Prioritize learning over selling in initial customer interactions.
Focus on past behaviors and stories rather than hypothetical or speculative questions.
Combine observation, personal experience, and direct interviews for comprehensive insights.
Quantify qualitative findings by setting “pass/fail” goals for key questions, but interpret them with judgment.
Be creative and persistent in finding interview subjects, leveraging referrals and diverse channels.
Conduct interviews in person whenever possible to capture non-verbal cues and build rapport.
Disarm your own biases by actively seeking contradictory evidence and having a note-taker.
Listen more than you talk, allowing interviewees to share openly and drilling down on interesting points.
Expect false positives as people tend to be polite; true validation comes from observed behavior or willingness to pay.
Recognize the “Truth Curve”: Different experiments offer varying levels of believability, with real transactions providing the strongest evidence.
Never stop talking to customers, as your business and customer base will evolve.
Lead with your vision, using customer discovery to reality-check and optimize your path, not to dictate your product design.

Immediate Actions to Take Today

List your riskiest business assumptions to clearly define what you need to learn.
Develop a concise interview guide with open-ended questions focused on past behaviors.
Identify your early adopters and brainstorm creative ways to reach them for interviews.
Schedule your first few customer interviews this week, even if it’s just a dry run with a colleague.
Commit to taking detailed notes immediately after each interview to capture fresh insights.
Plan a team regroup session to discuss patterns and re-evaluate assumptions based on initial findings.
Start thinking about a small, low-fidelity experiment (e.g., a landing page test) to gather quantitative data on specific assumptions.

Questions for Personal Application

What are the top 3 riskiest assumptions for your current business idea or product?
Who specifically is your earliest adopter, and where do they spend their time offline and online?
How can you rephrase your current questions to focus more on past behavior and less on speculation?
What is one creative way you can recruit your next 5 interview subjects this week?
How will you disarm your own biases during your next customer discovery interview?
What single metric would you track in your interviews to validate a critical assumption?
How will you ensure your team consistently engages in customer discovery as your business evolves?