Short book on the social game between people, including us.
People pleasing is an issue, especially when building a company. The way out is how you ask: don’t talk about your product, talk about their real, concrete experience.
Then even your mom will be honest.
Ties back to The Art of Conversation A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure, covering what that book didn’t.
Asking
While using generics, people describe themselves as who they want to be, not who they actually are. You need to get specific to bring out the edge cases.
The more you leave your idea out, the faster it goes.
If you slip into pitch mode, snap out of it with an apology!
You should be scared of the answers, or your questions don’t matter. It saves your time, money and effort, even if it stings.
What not to trust
Compliments: don’t collect them. They’re often polite, a way to get rid of you, and commit to nothing. They come when you pitch or put your ego on the line (“I really care about this”).
Feature requests: dig into whether they’re really needed, always understand the motivation behind them. Ppl aren’t that bright, or they just don’t understand your product like you do.
Sometimes people are complaining about something minor, not desperate to buy. But they should be desperate.
Where the risk is
Don’t zoom in early on a problem that might not matter: they may not have the need that makes them a customer.
Most of the time the risk is your ability to build it, everyone wants fun video games. Can you do better?
Or it’s market risk.
Commitment
It took me years to learn that there’s no such thing as a meeting which just “went well”. Every meeting either succeeds or fails. You’ve lost the meeting when you leave with a compliment or a stalling tactic.
Push for a commitment to the next stage: their time, money or reputation at risk. Don’t let it drag, that’s wasted time.
Every meeting ends with a clear next step.
They’ll either move forward or make it clear that they’re not a customer. Both are good results for your learning.
When you fail to push for advancement, you end up with zombie leads: potential customers (or investors) who keep taking meetings and saying nice things, but who never seem to cut a check. It’s like your startup has been friend-zoned.
I love the comparison with dating
Emotional about it is a great sign! That could be your first crazy customer (in a good way), giving your product more than makes sense. They really need it.
Who and where
You NEED to start with a specific customer segment, to avoid feature creep and confusion. It’s clear when you know exactly where to find them.
No need to set up a meeting: if you know what you want to learn, have it right there. Keep it informal, people like talking about themselves and their problems.
Phone is worse than coffee: you’re interrupting, they want to move on. Coffee takes time though. So the best is to talk with ppl when you meet them, do the mom test, keep the interesting ones.
Frame it as looking for advisors not clients lol.
Makes sales better too: a natural way into the subject, understanding their situation and whether they even have the need (respectful of the person).
Running it
Prepare each meeting: what are the 3 big questions that could break your product?
Take notes, exact quotes if possible.
Don’t let one person be the bottleneck by talking to all the customers.
Use hacks to skip ahead when you find them. Don’t over-plan meetings either, just enough, not stalling. And mistakes are okay.