Talking to Humans by Giff Constable

These are the notes I took while reading Talking to Humans by Giff Constable. The book ended up in my Twitter feed (I can’t remember from who though).

Additional notes I’ve taken while reading other books can be found here.

Introduction

There’s a natural tendency to try to sell other people on your idea. However, your job in customer discovery is to learn. You are a detective.

You are looking for clues that help confirm or deny your assumptions. Look for patterns that will help you make better decisions.

The Story

(In the example of customer development for starting a new pillow company)

1. Walk a day in your customer’s shoes and actually go out and buy a pillow.
2. Observe people in the process of buying a pillow.
3. Talk directly to pillow buyers

• How does your customer buy?
• When do they buy?
• Why do they buy?
• Where do they buy?

What do you want to learn?

Ask your most important questions and most risky assumptions first.

1. My target customer will be?
2. The problem my customer wants to solve is?
3. My customer’s need can be solved with?
4. Why can’t my customer solve this today?
5. The measurable outcome my customer wants to achieve is?
6. My primary customer acquisition tactic will be?
7. My earliest adopter will be?
8. I will make money (revenue) by?
9. My primary competition will be?
10. I will beat my competitors primary because of?
11. My biggest risk to financial viability is?
12. My biggest technical or engineering risk is?
13. What assumptions do we have that, if proven wrong, would cause this business to fail?

Be careful with speculation. Avoid “would you like this idea?” or “would you buy this product?” Instead ask your interviewee to share a story about the past.

Steve Blank’s question to end interviews: “what should I have asked you that I didn’t?”

Testing for Price

Questions to help answer the questions of “will someone buy this?” and “how much would you pay?”

• How much do you currently pay to address this problem?
• What budget do you have allocated to this? Who controls it?
• How much would you pay to make this problem go away?

Remember people don’t honestly think about willingness to pay unless they feel like it is a real transaction.

How to ensure an effective session?

• Do your interviews in person
• Talk to only one person at a time (avoid focus groups)
• Bring a note taker (so you don’t have to take your own notes)
• Parrot back or misrepresent to confirm
• Do a dry run with a friend or colleague beforehand

To help get interviewees into story mode:

When they are asking someone to take them through a purchase experience, from first thought through purchase and then actual product usage, they say: “Imagine you are filming the documentary of your life. Pretend you are filming the scene, watching the actor playing you. At this moment, what is their emotion, what are they feeling?”

Getting feedback on your product

• Get stories first, then gather any feedback second
• Disarm their politeness training. People are trained not to call a baby ugly, but you need to make them feel safe to do this. Explain that brutal honestly is the best way for them to help you.

The worst thing that could happen is to build something people didn’t care about.