The document discusses building a customer development plan through conducting interviews. It provides guidance on what questions to ask customers to understand problems, needs, and opportunities. Examples of questions are provided. The document emphasizes iterative learning - summarizing after a few interviews to assess what is working and not working about the interview process. It also stresses the importance of talking to multiple customers to identify trends rather than relying on individual anecdotes. The goal is to learn enough about customer needs to build an initial product before further validation.

1. Building Your Customer
Development Plan
Cindy Alvarez
The Experience is the Product - http://www.cindyalvarez.com
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

2. If you don’t have a plan...
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

3. What we’ll cover
• What should I ask and how?
• Is this working? Iterate.
• What does it mean? Finding patterns.
• Devil’s advocate.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

4. If customers could talk...
• Here’s why it’s a problem.
• Here’s how we try to deal with it now.
• Here’s who is involved.
• Here are the contexts where it’s a
problem.
• Here are our constraints.
• Here’s what we’re willing to pay to solve
it.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

5. Teasing out the information
• Who, what, where, why, how
• “Other customers have told me...”
• Expectations vs. realities vs. aspirations
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

6. “Tell me about how you do
_________ ...”
• High-level
• Don’t mention your solution
• 60 seconds of silence
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

7. “What did you originally hope to
do be able to do with ______?”
• Mental model of ‘how it should be’
• Listen for emotion here
• If
neither of these, IS there a
problem?
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

8. X
“What’s wrong with what you’re
using / doing now?”
• Don’t put customer on the defensive.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

9. “Are you able to do that as often as you’d
like?”
“Are you able to do that as easily as you’d
like?”
“How happy are you with the results?
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

10. “Who works with you on doing
____?”
• How will stakeholders change with
your solution?
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

11. “What other tools or processes
have you tried?”
• Thisis your competition.
• Value anchoring.
• Why not X?
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

12. “If you could wave a magic wand
and do anything with _____,
what would you be able to do?”
• Explicitly grant permission to ask for
the impossible.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

13. “Is there anything you’d like to
ask me?”
• Remember, it’s a conversation.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

14. It’s not about you
“The first rule of Fight Club is, you do
not talk about Fight Club.”
“You[r product] is not a beautiful and
unique snowflake.”
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

15. What I do (YMMV)
• Ask for 20 minutes (Provide suggested
timeslots or Tungle.me URL)
• Emphasize no preparation needed
• Phone or face-to-face
• Let customer lead, encourage tangents
• Take notes (silence is OK)
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

16. Simple notetaking
other tools
Customer name how often
Company what do they wish they
knew?
Date stakeholders
do they use GA?
Freeform notes
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

17. Summarizing is critical
(most companies
skip this --> fail)
surprises / trends /
(in)validates hypothesis
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

18. Stop! Are you learning?
after 3 interviews
• Am I getting the information I need?
• Do interviews feel comfortable?
• Am I talking to the right people?
• Am I getting yes/no answers?
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

19. Watching for Trends
1 person might be a nutcase
2 people means keep listening
(and start asking others)
3 people is interesting
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

20. “I’ve talked with other people
who said [the opposite]...”
• Peopletend to agree out of
politeness
• Disagreeing = emotion = validation!
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

21. “If you could do ______, how
would that make your life better?”
• Dig deep.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

22. How many is enough?
• About 50 KISSmetrics interviews pre-
MVP
• About 20 KISSinsights interviews pre-
MVP
• No surprises in last 5 interviews? MVP.
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010

23. More resources from my blog
• FAQ: Customer Development for Product Managers http://
www.cindyalvarez.com/learning/faq-customer-development-for-product-
managers
• The “Who” and “Why” of your Target Customer http://
www.cindyalvarez.com/lean/the-who-and-why-of-your-target-customer
• The Plural of Anecdote IS Data http://www.cindyalvarez.com/learning/
the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data
• Customer Development Interviews: What you SHOULD be learning
http://www.cindyalvarez.com/communication/customer-development-
interviews-how-to-what-you-should-be-learning
• Customer Development Interviews: Finding People http://
www.cindyalvarez.com/best-practices/customer-development-
interviews-how-to-finding-people
Copyright 2010 Cindy Alvarez
Tuesday, December 7, 2010