{"id":683,"date":"2014-02-05T06:48:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T05:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/?p=683"},"modified":"2014-02-05T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T07:58:09","slug":"discovery-phase-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/discovery-phase-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery Phase Interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

How-to Guide (suitable when your offering is big, complex, and expensive)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ask\"<\/a>I love doing discovery phase interviews and have always been particularly good at them.\u00a0 They reward those that think quick on their feet and have a broad education and business knowledge.\u00a0 For me it is improvisational theater meets MBA case study review– great fun.\u00a0 In a recent startup incubator program, I made an attempt to describe the process I use so that others could try on their own….<\/p>\n

Step one of any product launch, business expansion initiative, or startup is best described by Steve Blank as \u201cDiscovery\u201d.: \u201cvalidating whether they are solving a\u00a0meaningful problem and whether anybody would hypothetically be interested in\u00a0their solution\u201d\u00a0 Technical people, especially, struggle with this phase (partially because they think they already know the answer and partially because they are often poor collaborative listeners)<\/p>\n

Lean Startup (Riess) and other modern product launch concepts focus on selling early and often.\u00a0\u00a0 This first phase is the big exception.\u00a0 Here we want to confront customers but make it absolutely clear that we are not<\/span> selling, not<\/span> sure if we will ever sell, or even sure what the offering might look like or be priced.\u00a0 Instead, we are journalist on a mission to understand the customer and their business.<\/p>\n

Repeat after me: \u201cWe are not<\/b> sure if we will sell, when we might sell, and what the package might look like\u201d.\u00a0 This is critical.<\/p>\n

You have an idea for a product\/service for a specific customer group (MVS).\u00a0 You test your theory by first assuming that it is flawed and search for the inevitable flawed portions of your idea.\u00a0 You do this by asking open questions.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start from the beginning and assume that you have an idea and have defined a potential Minimum Viable Segment (MVS) that tightly describes things like region, industry, and other attributes of what you expect to be a homogenous customer group.<\/p>\n

How do you get people to let you interview them?<\/b>\u00a0 One of my favorite techniques is to attending an event.\u00a0 Some time ago, I was working on a project for personal GPS trackers for door to door delivery people in German speaking markets.\u00a0 The Mailtag event in Nuremburg had delivery companies, aggregators, and marketing agencies that employ these delivery companies.\u00a0 At the booths are mostly salesmen, but there are also often operational and CEOs\/owners (if it is a big enough event).\u00a0 Salesmen are especially generous to tell you whatever they know; however, you must never visit a booth when potential customers are waiting or nearby (this is like getting between a bear and her cubs).<\/p>\n

Alternatively, a cold call is often effective for such activities.\u00a0 Remember, you are not selling\u2014you are seeking information about a potential market.\u00a0 Pick a region and a week and start calling.<\/p>\n

How do I start?<\/b>\u00a0 You need to position you company or your startup team.\u00a0 This means 3 sentences that explain what is your experience, who do you already help, and why you are considering a launch in this market segment.\u00a0 \u201cWe are trying to decide if this market would be right for our solution and what that solution might need to look like if we did make the commitment\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, start asking questions?\u00a0 What similar solutions have you seen?\u00a0 We thought the fundamental problem that we could solve is XXXX, can you tell me a bit about this type of problem in a company like yours?\u00a0 If your company wanted to buy a solution like this, who would be involved in the decision and where would it be budgeted from?<\/p>\n

Next, dig into the problem more.\u00a0 What about completely different solutions?\u00a0 (eg. temporary workers to count instead of an automated barcode inventory system)\u00a0 How have they succeeded as a company so far without such a solution?\u00a0 At this point, the person you are interviewing\u00a0 is often trying to convince you that there is a market for your solution.\u00a0 Be careful on two fronts:\u00a0 Don\u2019t let the conversation shift to him buying\u2014instead tell him you will contact him immediately if you decide to commit to this market\/problem space.\u00a0 Next, make sure he is not just giving encouragement to be nice and think that this is what you wan to hear.\u00a0 Probe deeper into why the problem cannot be ignored or solved n different ways\u2014remember, before your idea was created, they existed and prospered.<\/p>\n

Finally, understand the job titles of the people involved in the decision.\u00a0 Focus on Technical, User, and Financial buyer roles (Consultative selling \/ Miller Heimann).\u00a0\u00a0 In your next meeting, you will now know which people you want to interview.<\/p>\n

You often have some minimum solution in mind for your first release (MVP).\u00a0 Go back to their major problems and compare your solution with the customer.\u00a0 Avoid defending your product or choice of solutions.\u00a0 Turn questions around by asking, why their reaction is not as you anticipated.\u00a0 Remember, you are an independent journalist\u2014you quest honest knowledge even if it is irrational or defective per your education.\u00a0 You want to know how they think, not convince them to buy. (at least at this stage)<\/p>\n

In these later interviews, test the comments of the first interviews, \u201cI was told that typically a field salesman would drive more than 50K Km per year for the company and that they had company credit cards that could purchase solutions that cost less than 50\u20ac\/month\u2014how would your company be different?\u201d\u00a0 The person is letting you interview them because you are telling them that they are important and knowledgeable (ego) and they are curious about what you and their colleagues are saying.\u00a0 The information you share will often keep them motivated to share with you more.<\/p>\n

In the wrapup,<\/b> i) thank them, ii) summarize what you learned, iii) ask them if you can ask follow questions later as you learn more, and iv) commit that you will tell them if you plan to \u2018commit to this market\u2019 or not.<\/p>\n

What if I already have one customer in this market already?<\/b>\u00a0 If done correctly, this discovery phase can reveal more information in 2 days than you learned from your current customer in 6 months.\u00a0 Acknowledge that you have one customer already, but that you have not committed to have a general commitment to the market.<\/p>\n

Notice I use the word \u201ccommitment\u201d a lot.\u00a0 You are going to commit energy, resources, and money to this idea.\u00a0 Even though you have already invested in MVP and researching your idea, there are for sure other people that would like you to make this investment to solve their different problems.\u00a0 Your future investment will be 100X what has been made so far\u2014it is important that your potential customer and you both understand the cost of saying \u201clet\u2019s try\u201d.\u00a0 Focus on what customers are willing to pay for, why, and how.<\/p>\n

for those that like video examples: http:\/\/startupweekend.wistia.com\/medias\/tao3s8hf7l<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How-to Guide (suitable when your offering is big, complex, and expensive) I love doing discovery phase interviews and have always been particularly good at them.\u00a0 They reward those that think quick on their feet and have a broad education and business knowledge.\u00a0 For me it is improvisational theater meets MBA case study review– great fun.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.telekta.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}