customer-discovery

name

customer-discovery

description

Use when the user says "run customer discovery", "help me interview customers", "write customer interview questions", "validate my assumption", "talk to users", "synthesize customer interviews", "what are my customers saying", "user research for my startup", "mom test interview", "are we solving a real problem", or wants to extract real insight from conversations with potential or existing customers.

Overview

Based on "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick. The core principle: most customer conversations are worthless because founders ask questions that invite polite lies. The Mom Test fixes this by shifting from opinion-seeking ("would you use this?") to behavior-seeking ("how do you currently handle this?"). Every question must pass the test: would your mom give you an honest answer even if she wanted to protect your feelings?

Workflow

Step 1: Define the assumption you are testing

Before writing a single question, state the riskiest belief your business depends on.

Format:

• Assumption: [specific belief about customer behavior, pain, or willingness to pay]
• Why it matters: [what breaks if this assumption is wrong]
• What evidence would confirm or deny it: [observable behavior, not stated preference]

Do not run the interview until the assumption is written down. The interview exists to pressure-test this specific thing.

Step 2: Write your question set using Mom Test rules

Rule 1: Ask about their life, not your idea. Rule 2: Ask about specifics in the past, not generalities or futures. Rule 3: Talk less. Listen more.

Core questions to use:

• "Walk me through the last time you dealt with [problem area]."
• "How are you handling it today?"
• "What have you tried before? What happened?"
• "How much time or money does this cost you right now?"
• "Who else is involved when this happens?"
• "What would need to be true for you to change how you do this?"

Questions to cut entirely:

• "Would you use [your product]?"
• "Do you think this is a good idea?"
• "How much would you pay for this?"
• "Can you imagine a world where..."

Step 3: Run the interview (20-30 minutes)

Structure:

• 2 min: warm-up ("I'm not selling anything - I'm trying to understand how you work")
• 20 min: open-ended questions, following their answers rather than your script
• 5 min: close ("Is there anything I didn't ask that I should have? Who else should I talk to?")

Take verbatim notes. Do not paraphrase in real time - you lose signal when you summarize. After each answer, ask one of: "Tell me more about that." / "What happened next?" / "Why?" Do not advance to the next question until the current thread is exhausted.

Step 4: Synthesize within 30 minutes of the interview

Capture immediately after:

• 3 direct quotes that surprised you (verbatim)
• The specific workflow or behavior they described
• Emotional tone: frustrated, resigned, indifferent, or actively seeking a fix
• What they are already doing or paying to solve this
• The one thing that changed your understanding of the assumption

Keep each interview raw. Do not aggregate across interviews yet.

Step 5: Identify patterns across 5+ interviews

After enough sessions, look for:

• Repeated phrases - exact customer language is your copywriting
• Consistent workflows or workarounds that reveal the real problem
• Who suffers most - this is your early adopter profile
• What people are already paying for - reveals real willingness to pay
• What nobody mentions - may signal the problem is not acute

Update your original assumption: confirmed, denied, or did a more important problem surface?

Step 6: Write the insight memo

One page. No decks.

Sections:

1. Original assumption
2. What we learned (3-5 concrete findings with supporting quotes)
3. Early adopter profile (who suffers most and what they look like)
4. What we were wrong about
5. Next assumption to test

Anti-Patterns

1. Compliment collection Bad: "Everyone I talked to loved the idea." Good: "Three of five people described spending 4+ hours a week on this manually. Two had already paid for a tool that failed them."

2. Future-tense answers treated as data Bad: Recording "they said they would definitely pay for this." Good: Asking "have you paid for anything like this before? What happened?" and recording what they actually did.

3. Pitching during discovery Bad: Describing [your product] mid-interview because you sense interest. Good: Staying in question mode for the entire session. Save the pitch for a separate conversation.

4. Averaging across interviews too early Bad: Running 2 interviews, declaring the assumption validated, and building. Good: Running at least 5-7 interviews before drawing patterns. Outlier responses often contain the real signal.

Quality Checklist

• Assumption is written down before the interview starts
• Every question asks about past behavior, not future hypotheticals
• Verbatim quotes captured during or immediately after the session
• Notes include what the person currently does, not just what they wish existed
• Synthesis memo updates the original assumption with a clear confirmed/denied/pivoted verdict
• Early adopter profile becomes more specific after each round
• At least one thing believed before the interview was changed by it