Founder’s Guide to User Interviews - Should Founders Tap into User’s Imagination of the Product ?
Dos and Don’ts of User Interviews for Startup Founders
In continuation of the series of articles published on user interviews. Following are some of my learnings/experiences while doing user interviews. The article also features an answer on defining target audience of the product from Sudipta Banerjee, Founder and CEO of Spilll, world’s first next-gen participative social network with a mission to rewrite the rules of social.
Transform theoretical questions to practical experiential questions
Ask questions such that it converts a theoretical question into an activity. Example: Explain “How to make coffee?” to “Teach me on how you make coffee?” This converts the participants into a teacher and allows them to express their thoughts in words, emotions as well as actions. Giving enough clues to you as a user interviewer. Steve Portigal says that “Shifting discussion from conceptual to tangible is the one of ways to get hard-to-uncover information”.
Uncover Hidden insights by using often discouraged approach of hearing user explain their version of the ideal product
One of the techniques to do user interviews is to let users explain about their thoughts and experiences with respect to the ideal interaction with the product and ideal product design. We founders have been forewarned many times that it’s our job to imagine the product and execute. Asking the user to explain what the ideal product is offloading the crucial product design and vision to the user. I differ from this opinion a bit. I observed that many times users find it easy to imagine their solutions and go about explaining them in deep detail which leads to discovery of a lot of emotional clues and friction points in the current product usage. In such situations, our task is to listen to their ideal version of the product and ask “Why did they build it that way?”. This helps uncover the issues that they are currently facing. The user imagined product might not always be of use but can help uncover the problems users face while using the current solution to the problem and what they prize in the ideal solution.
Defining the user base
The often proposed technique for interviewing targeted users of the product is to define the segment as tightly as possible and then talk to participants in the user interview to figure out the next tighter definition of the possible user base. This process continues till you find your power users. This approach might work for larger companies but for small nimble startups, this internal exercise of defining the audience for a long duration of time could just be the death kiss they are trying to avoid.
Sudpita (Founder of Spilll) suggested the following solution to this problem of defining the users. Following is his answer, mostly verbatim.
The conventional wisdom of tightly defining user segments and iteratively narrowing them down through interviews is a well-intentioned approach, but it often falls short for early-stage founders. Following is a more effective strategy:
1. The Illusion of Point-in-Time Research: Capturing a user's thoughts in a single interview is like trying to understand a movie from a single frame. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that often reinforces our existing biases rather than revealing true insights. As founders, we need to break free from this limited perspective. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that user research with just 5 participants can uncover up to 85% of usability problems. However, this applies to usability testing, not market validation. For startups, the challenge is much broader and requires deeper engagement.
2. Immersion Over Interrogation: Instead of formal interviews, immerse yourself in your users' world. Observe their social media content, participate in their community discussions, shadow them during relevant activities. This approach provides a rich, contextual understanding that no questionnaire can match. It's about experiencing their experience, not just hearing about it.
Research from the Harvard Business School shows that founders who engage in customer development are 2.3 times more likely to reach product-market fit. This underscores the importance of deep, ongoing customer engagement rather than isolated research sessions.
Create the simplest, lowest-cost prototype that embodies your core idea. This is where the real learning begins. Convince a small group of users to adopt this prototype in their daily lives. Their natural, unguided interactions with your product will teach you more than any pre-launch research ever could. This approach might seem less structured, but it's far more revealing. It combines quantitative data (usage patterns, engagement metrics) with qualitative insights (user feedback, behavioral observations) in a way that traditional methods struggle to achieve.
By combining these immersive, user-centric approaches with rapid prototyping and data-driven learning, founders can navigate the challenging early stages of product development more effectively than traditional, rigid user research methods allow. The numbers don't lie – deeper engagement with users, coupled with an openness to pivot and adapt, significantly increases a startup's chances of success.
I am eager to hear your views on the article, please leave a comment here or reach out to author, Priyanka at pn@vevesta.com or LinkedIn
Preceding articles on the topic of User Interviews by the author are below
References
Experience from the field
How to Uncover Compelling Insights by Steve Portigal