Talking to Users - Cheat Sheet

Nice one, the questions for validation are so much inspired by the book "the mom's test" not sure if you have read it?

Great summary of user interview techniques! Engaging with potential users early on is key to building a product that truly solves their problems. For anyone struggling with finding the right questions to ask, this cheat sheet is invaluable. If you need further guidance on crafting user-centric solutions, check out a team verbier, they have a wealth of practical insights.

This is a fantastic summary! 🎉 The questions you’ve outlined really get to the heart of understanding user needs. I love the focus on real experiences and the importance of frequent problems—definitely helps in honing in on product-market fit. Can’t wait to try these in my own user interviews! Thanks for sharing!

Great summary, this YC material is evergreen!

I highly recommend reading The Mom Test. Actually it's a must if you want to build anything successful. What I found to work the best for me, is going through the whole book throughout a weekend. Great read.

I highlighted the most important parts in the book, anyone can download it from here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12FCqBmWPaZlCr07geKwWBBIydER9BSLT/view?usp=sharing

I used the following colour code:
Yellow highlight = “key insight specific to the chapter”
Green highlight = “specific, Mom Test-proof questions”
Red highlight = “general, high level insights, core implications”
Blue highlight = “sales related insights”

Those YC articles are always amazing. Their podcast/youtube series was also really great if you haven't checked those out yet.

The linked page is no longer available. However, it was 📦 archived by the Wayback Machine (legends), plus the video is also available on 📼 YouTube.

I think the most important thing is to identify your target audience. Determine who your ideal customers are and what industry they belong to. This will help you create targeted marketing campaigns and find potential customers more effectively.

Once complete, you can offer incentives like discounts or free trials to encourage potential customers to try out your platform.

Attend networking events and conferences relevant to your target industry to meet potential clients in person, consider partnering with other businesses in your industry to cross-promote each other's services and reach a wider audience.

Good luck with your work, and I hope these tips help you find more clients for your job posting platform!

Thanks for sharing! These are very similar questions as described in the Mom Test. I actually picked that book and made it into a Notion Template to use as a framework for myself: https://brauhaus.gumroad.com/l/user-research-b2b

Hit me up on Twitter if you (or any indiehacker, really) want access to it and I'll send a free coupon!

What I find the hardest is not the "what to talk with potential users", is how to reach them!
Everyone is rightly so super busy, if we said yes to anyone who is asking for a "quick call" we couldn't do any work. That's where I'm struggling the most right now. :)

Thank you for this list!
I also encourage the reading of Deploy Empathy, which is precisely about talking to users

Looks awesome. I think this is very similar to what Rob Walling in Start Small Stay Small and Rob Fitzpatrick in the Mom Test say :) Very useful though

One of the most insightful things I've ever been a part of is "observed usability studies". We asked people to come in, sit down at a computer, and accomplish tasks using our software. A task could be anything from "first use" to achieving a goal.

It was remarkable the things we learned. Many things were problems we were blinded to by our familiarity with our own software.

You can easily do an informal version of this with people that you know using their own computers. Or you can formalize a study by organizing groups of beginner, intermediate, and advanced users.

The usability flow of software is so very important. And it's very difficult to free yourself from the prejudices you carry with you from working on a product for so long. You can assume that you know what they'll go through, what steps they'll walk, but until you witness somebody actually use your software then you may be blinded.

One tip? No helping! Just observe, at least at first. You may see people get very frustrated but isn't that the point?

I will always believe that our software was much better as a direct result of observing people use it and then incorporating what we learned back into our design. Sometimes a simple word, when changed, made all the difference.

What can I offer to the potential client without having a product?
answer to this question is not simple, that's why most founders end up not finding any

in short:
Offering incentives such as free lifetime access or monetary compensation is an ineffective way to attract potential clients. This approach can lead to superficial engagement rather than genuine interest in your solution.
NOT AT ALL RECOMENDED AT EARLY STAGE

I don't want to give a generic answer. Any one at early stage, feel free to reply for further discussion.

Nice post. I have a quick question.

How to start talking with potential customers, why would they spend their time talking to some random online?

What can I offer to the potential client without having a product?

Hey, Community I would like to share product hunt launch of - Echo ( https://www.producthunt.com/posts/echo-78ebfee0-82df-4cac-be61-c6c020f27972 )

I believe you all understand the value of innovation and efficient communication.

Echo is a powerful browser extension that lets you leave voice comments directly into platforms like Google Docs,Slides,Sheets Notion, and Figma & more.

Imagine giving feedback, explaining complex ideas, or collaborating on projects & designs using the simplicity and nuance of your voice.

As an early adopter, your insights and feedback will be invaluable in shaping this tool to better suit your needs.

PH - https://www.producthunt.com/posts/echo-78ebfee0-82df-4cac-be61-c6c020f27972

Best, Amogh Tiwari

Great tips, gonna use this to talk to users about MyArchitectAI!

thanks for sharing those insightful tips on talking to potential users! It's essential to understand their challenges and experiences to develop effective solutions. Speaking of solutions, have you heard about ValidatorAI and Checkmyidea-IA? They are AI tools specifically designed to assist with idea validation.

ValidatorAI (https://validatorai.com/) offers features like user feedback analysis, surveys, and valuable insights to help you validate your project. It's like having an AI-powered assistant to guide you through the validation process.

On the other hand, Checkmyidea-IA (https://www.checkmyidea-ia.com/) simplifies validation by automating feedback gathering and providing comprehensive market potential reports. It's like having a reliable research companion to support your decision-making.

These AI tools can be incredibly useful as you navigate the journey of talking to users and validating your ideas. Good luck with your project!

I think the hardest part is whether or not a prospect wants to pay for a pre-product or not. I spoke to a few prospects a couple months ago, using more or less the same script but they often said I'll think about it or not now, as they want me to come back to them later to show them an MVP before they say yes.

What I like about this article is that you addressed the part where the founder with an MVP could follow up with prospects. The challenge is, will they respond to you after you reach out them again.

Awesome video and post! I would recommend reading the Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick) - it's a brilliant guide to how to ask the right questions.

👍

How do you deal with negative feedback in public? I.e. if I want to self-promote on reddit (which hasn't necessarily been very product friendly), how do you handle that?

Thank you for summarizing this. What are some other important factors to consider when trying to achieve product-market fit, besides measuring the percentage of people who would be very disappointed if they could no longer use your app?

so great

Nice summary! Did you learn about Teresa Torres' book/framework "Continuous Product Discovery" yet? If not, I can highly recommend it to you. It had a big impact on how we approach product in our company!

thanks for the tips definitely follow in future

Wow, Great Thanks for sharing.

There's a very good book called "What Customers Want" by Anthony Ulwick that talks about how to extract the true requirements out of customers when interviewing. Highly recommend reading it.

Thanks for sharing! This is a big help for me as I am recently struggling with conducting a user survey.

Quality stuff! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for summarizing. Did you end up tryin it out to see if it works?

That's such a great template to establish my user feedback form for the upcoming beta of my product, thx!

some quality stuff, thank you, but there are some tools also that would help here, trey checking these guys, and it's free - https://unicamel.io/checklist-kit/

This is really useful information which can help me get better insights from customers! I appreciate this post alot and thank you for this :)

I am building a platform where you can ask these questions to your target users https://syncy.net/

The only way to find out is to advertise and see how people react; alternatively, you may give manual-based services at first in which you conduct all those automated tasks manually and see whether or not people are prepared to pay for it. Your hypothesis can only be verified if you do this. People like small talk, but as soon as they take their hands out of their pockets, they forget what they were talking about. Some could argue it's a good idea, but only if it results in financial gain. Conversation is a common leisure activity. If you have any queries, just drop me a line.

thanks.

Interesting to see how the approach of the questions evolve from design and features of the product to pricing and eventually to retention.
I'm currently trying to get as much information as possible for my business - which is at pre-launch stage. I'm building a B2B marketplace so I'm not really sure of how to intially connect with potential clients in the first place.
I thought about doing free consultations and getting interest from people running startups or small businesses...
Any thoughts on that?

Nice totally agree with these question types! If anyone has spare time would love some feedback on this idea :)
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/uncommon-collective-245384be9d

Nice, totally agree! What are good places to get feedback using surveys?

Thanks for the post got stoke and created my first survey 😁

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/my-first-user-survey-25-sec-to-fill-9f92b56e64

Some good ideas here to stick on your landing page to help highlight the benefits of your product.

This is fantastic. Love these VC articles. Thanks for sharing

Exactly what I needed. Gotta jot these down when I get started with interviews.

How do I arrange those customer interviews?

@nearmint thanks for sharing it's really super helpful..

I really like the simplification here!

In reality, starting a project or business, is really just about getting to know the problem your solving for your customers. It'll save you a ton of time, both if it's a good idea, or, more importantly, if it is not.

Great summary. Thanks for sharing!

Great Idea, Thanks for Sharing