- Write code and talk to users -The best founders maintain a direct connection to their users throughout the lifespan of their entire company. They maintained a direct connection because they need to extract information from their users at all different stages of running their company. - They can outsource customer research to other people in their company. They can hire salespeople, they can hire heads of product. But at the core, the best companies are the ones where the founders themselves maintain a direct connection to their users. If you are the CEO, it is your job. It is in your job description to talk to customers. All founders need to participate in this process as well. If you're the engineer, if you're the developer, don't think that you can escape this process just because you're the person who's coding. - In general, customers don't buy what. They buy the why. Product manager define the what and why from customers. Designer and Engineer work on the how.
- Five questions to ask in the customer interview: -What is the hardest part of doing...? (understanding pain point) -Tell me the last time you encountered the problem. (Understand the fact and real example not hypothesis) -Why is this hard? -What, if anything, have you done to solve the problem? -What don't you like about the solutions you've tried?
- Talking to users is useful at all stages: - Got idea? → find users with the problem you are trying to solve - Build prototype → find best first customers to be your early users - Launched → find and iterate to product market fit (Superhuman example)
- Discard non-useful data: - Compliment - Fluff. Hypotheticals and genetic information
Learn more:
The Mom Test - Summary & Insights