Problem Interview Guide for Lean Startup Experience

Problem interviews are one of the hard parts of customer development. Approaching strangers does not come naturally, and running the interview well is a skill of its own. The good news is that practice works: get it wrong a couple of times and you quickly see what to keep and what to change.

This is the short guide we handed out at Lean Startup Experience in 2014. Download the problem interview guide (PDF), print it and keep it in your pocket. Do not read it during the interview: check it between two interviews.

The three rules

If you remember only three things:

Do not talk about your business idea or your product.
Ask about past events and behaviours.
No leading questions: you are there to learn from the customer.

Prepare

Write down your customer hypothesis and your problem hypothesis. Do not worry too much about them: chances are both are wrong.
Pick the place where you are most likely to meet those customers.
Go with a partner. One leads the conversation, the other takes notes, and you can swap.
Come to learn about the customer’s problem, not to sell your idea.

Open the conversation

Talk to one person at a time. Introduce yourself as someone doing research on the topic, and make the conversation about them and their experience of the problem. I use something like this:

Hello, I am doing some research on [topic] and I would love your view on it. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? It won’t be long. I am trying to understand people’s experience with [problem]. Have you ever been in a situation where it happened to you? What happened?

And smile.

What you want to learn

How important and how frequent the problem is for this person.
How they deal with it today: the alternatives they use, what the problem costs them, how they look for solutions, and its root causes.
Related problems you did not know about.

Questions to ask

Ask about past events:

Tell me about the last time you had this problem.
What did you do then? Why? Did it solve it?
What else did you try?
What was hard about that situation?
Does it happen to you often?
Why is it a problem for you?

Be nosy. Drill down and keep asking why. Get excited when you hear things you did not want to hear. Keep your questions short, open and neutral: “How do you…”, “What makes you…”, “Tell me more about that”.

Then listen. Leave silences and let them talk. Repeat what you understood, so they can confirm or correct it. Take notes on the problem interview template.

Close

Thank them for their time and answer their questions. Ask for introductions to other people who have the same problem. Right after, debrief with your partner and complete your notes while they are fresh.

The full method is in How to Interview Customers: a Field Guide, the questions in Customer Interview Questions: 45 Questions for Customer Discovery, and all my notes on the subject in the guide Customer interviews.