Strategic Interviewing Frameworks for Entrepreneurs to Optimize Customer Discovery

Customer discovery is critical for entrepreneurs to identify customers and their needs successfully. It is an essential piece of the lean startup methodology for discovering and confirming customers, their needs, value propositions, business models, and minimum viable products. This effort requires that the entrepreneur develop practical and successful interviewing skills and processes. This paper focuses on several essential aspects involved with the strategy to set up a productive customer discovery and interview process. It addresses upfront planning requirements, including the selection of the right customers and defining the optimal approach. The discussion then delves into a four-part approach to the strategic planning around the key objectives and questions to address, the methods to use, the gathering of data, and final the communication of results. Following this discussion, the paper examines the “FUNNEL” and “SPEECH” techniques. These are two approaches that the entrepreneur can use with screening customers and guiding one’s interviewees through the “Painful Interview.” In the end, discovery needs to focus on the customer and needs. It is not about one’s company and its products. When used correctly, effective questioning and interviewing strategies leads to valuable insights that guide a data-driven decision, instead of one based on assumptions or guesses. These will focus on the right customers and their needs. Such will provide insights to create a compelling value proposition. This way the entrepreneur can mitigate risk, “nail” one’s product and business model, and scale-up the venture with greater confidence.