Introduction

In this blog post, I'll be covering the my novel methodology and a bunch of basic and useful questions of how to interview a client effectively, in order to validate a need.

You might be asking:

“Why would you need to interview a client?”

Well, here are some of the reasons:

• to confirm the needs and requirements of your client.
• to effectively communicate your services. -to validate how much work (and cost) is required to fulfill those needs.
• you may want to get more information about what they're looking for in order to better tailor your proposal or service.

So...before we get started, let's review Why is important and what ar the goals of this interview.

What is the goal of interviews clients

• Extract info about the problem- not sell your idea!
  • Bad example: ❌ "if we build 'X' would you be interested?"
• Talk specific! not hypothetical. For example - go through the process and the current workflow- step by step.
• Try to divide the conversation into: 90% Listen 10% navigate the conversation.
• Look for unbiased person/insights to ask . or at-least be aware of the bias!
• Go to In-person to ask them about their problems

How to manage the meeting?

• Start with common-language alignment 🙊
  • Clarify domain-specific terminology, including: the roles, type of tasks, type of tools that are currently in usage in that field.
• Prioritize the subjects that you want (according to the time)
  • Also the type of questions (for example - the problem vs the business related questions)
• Doing the interview 🗣
  • Sleep well before, and
  • Be calm and try to be as friendly as you can, the more comfortable you will feel together the more wide-perspective and deep conversation you will have.

5 great questions to pinpoint the problem and the value that underneath:

The following list are from the great video from Y-combinator¹

1. What is the hardest part about [doing X]? (where X is the part that you trying to make more efficient/cheaper/better)
   • Did you encounter that on REGULAR BASIS? Or this is painful enough?
     • 💡Tip: Good problem is a one that occur on regular basis. which then can be easily verified for Product-Market fit.
2. Tell me about the last time you encounter that problem?
   • Extract context when, with whom?
   • 💡Tip: This question is great In order to reference real-life scenario & then overlay the solution later on pitching stage.
3. Why was this hard?
   • You may hear different things
   • 💡Tip: This give you a deeper identification the problem
     • also - best way to market the product later.
       • Because people buy the "WHY"²
4. What have you tried to do to solve that problem?
   • If they didn't try to solve it, it might not pain for them ❌
   • Competitors ( also..) how i compare to m
5. What don't you love about the solutions you've tried?
   • What the feature specifics to beging working on?
   • The diff between the solution of yours and others.

Additional 5 more questions that are more "businessiable" manner (my term to describe business oriented)):

1. How much does this problem cost you? (how much wasted)
2. How frequently they encounter
3. How large is the budget?
4. Who has the authority to solve that problem?
5. What are the interests of the players in the market (both visible & invisible) ?
   1. Who would object novel endeavor in this field/market?

When to users is useful at all stages: 📅

1. Got idea? find users with problem and go deeper to valid it.
2. Built prototype? Go to user to get some insights.
3. Launch product MVP? - Find product/market fit.

More tips (on how to process the information):

• Write as much as notes as you can! in order to post-processing the interview. ✍
• Discard Bad data 💩 /fluff/general infor. Try to retrieve specifics!
• Asking five whys (❓* 5 )... to the root cause & beyond! I found it useful for post-processing analysis. In order to validate my understatement of the subject.
• How to prioritize the idea to work on? using the table of: frequency, budget, ROI
• Record the meeting via Microphone or camera whenever it possible. 🎤 📷

My takeaway and next actions (with status)

• Put this into practice when intreview a client on my next startup idea.
• Build a template format for interviewing, and connect it to "family of needs" in different areas. (Kind of zettlekasten³ of problem needs)

References: