Customer Problem Discovery Strategies for Startups

I've watched over 2,500 discovery calls in the last few years. There's one thing I'm convinced of: Top salespeople get to the "heart of the problem" FASTER than their peers. SPEED to uncovering the 'real' problem matters. Here's why: Avg salespeople don't uncover even the tip of the ice berg until late in the call. So they never get a chance to go beyond the surface. They run out of time. Great salespeople get to the heart of the matter fast. That gives them TIME: Time to peel back the onion. Time to explore negative impact. Time to diagnose the root cause. Here are four questions (in order) that get to 'the heart of the deal' fast: 1. Tell me about your biggest challenges when it comes to X? Easy enough. Just enough to kickstart the conversation in the right direction. But not enough by itself. Customers will (almost) always give surface level answers to the first question. 2. What's going on in the business that's driving [what they shared] to be a priorty. Ask this, and your customers will CHUCKLE half the time. Why? Because you are striking a CHORD when you ask that. You're getting to the 'need behind the need.' That's where big money lives. Getting closer. 3. What metric is suffering most as a result of that? Avg sellers struggle to quantify pain. You walk into a different world when you go from expressed pain to quantified pain. Your customer's urgency ramps up. And spending money to solve the problem begins to look REAL good. 4. What's driving you to solve all this now rather than later? Ask this too early? And the answers will be weak. BUT... If you ask this AFTER those first three questions... Your customer now has the FULL CONTEXT of the problem top-of-mind. And now... their answers to THIS question will be far, FAR richer. Give those 4 questions (in order) a try. P.S. Here's 39 more questions that sell: https://lnkd.in/g-VRcCsq

I kicked off a product advisory engagement last week w/ the technical co-founder of an early stage YC-backed startup. He's hungry to become a better product leader (he's an A+ engineer). Context: I'm coaching him around customer discovery + product validation, including internal communication loops to ensure learnings & insights from customers are incorporated into his team's product development process. He framed the initial problems and I tried a question-based approach. He stopped me. "I'd like you to tell me what to do specifically as if I was a junior PM at my own startup." Here are a few points I shared: 1) Intimately know your customer. His company has a few early customers so I told him he needs to become an expert on every user and decision maker. What are their goals in life, pain points in their daily workflow, etc. I should be able to quiz you about your customers and you know the answer every time. 2) Learn where deals die. Product leaders are first & foremost business leaders. Understand the GTM + revenue generating motion of the business, including how customers find you and convert from leads to paying customers. Blockers to closing deals are a P0. You should always understand the deal pipeline. 3) Fall in love w/ problems, not solutions. Engineers tend to feel a sense of pride in the elegance of the solution. However, early stage solutions are usually wrong and need iteration. The *problem* is what has longevity, not the solution. Falling in love with a problem will give you the energy and excitement to experiment w/ different solutions as you seek product market fit. 4) Be 10x better on a key dimension the customer cares about. You have a small team and need to focus on the biggest impact. I believe the right place to focus for a new product is in being 10x better along a key dimension your customer cares about. Bite off a part of their workflow that sucks and make it fun, seamless, or gone. Incrementality = death. 5) Delighting customers is the best way to grow. Your customers will know people just like them. The best way to get word-of-mouth (WoM) going is by blowing them away. WoM is free marketing that brings highly qualified prospects to your doorstep with their wallets out. Make your first customers your biggest champions. 6) Bring your team along for the ride. Don't wait to have a fully fleshed out solution in your head. Instead, regularly share your latest thinking about the business strategy, milestones, biggest bottlenecks for growth, and problems you think the business should be focused on. This ensures everyone on the team is living and breathing the same headspace as the founders. I've never seen a founder ask for this advice this directly but I absolutely loved it because it showed humility and a true growth mindset. Anything else you'd advise a founder through the lens of "what's the basic advice you'd give me as a junior PM at my own startup?" #startupadvice #productmanagement #ycombinator

Have you ever finished customer interviews more confused than when you started? You're not alone. Most founders make the same mistake: They ask customers what problems they have instead of studying what customers actually do. Here's what happens with each approach: ❌ When you ask "What are your biggest challenges?" → 50+ interviews asking direct problem questions → 200+ documented problems → Conflicting feature requests → Zero customer commitments → Months invested, no validated demand ✅ When you ask "Walk me through your last experience with [existing solution]" → 10 focused interviews studying actual behavior → Real insights emerge from usage patterns → Discover problems customers didn't even know they had → Sell before you build with validated demand → Build what customers actually want instead of what they say they want → Cause customers to switch from existing alternatives The difference? Instead of asking about problems, you study how people currently get the job done. Their frustration and excitement reveal more than any survey ever could. Key insight: People may not always be able to articulate their problems, but their behavior and choices reveal the true story. This systematic customer discovery approach has helped 1,000+ startups build products customers actually want instead of products they hope customers want. Want the full framework? Watch here: https://lnkd.in/dXPUcu4j And yes, people are already declaring "talking to customers" as dead in the new AI era. AI will make building easier, and I use it daily, but it can't tell you what to build. That's your job. What's been your experience with customer interviews? 👇

I remember the exact moment I realized that most of what I'd learned at HBS, McKinsey, & in all the startup books + blogs was kinda irrelevant: I had been struggling to find product-market fit for 2 years. Did all the things you're "supposed" to do to launch a startup - customer interviews, demand validation, doing the unscalable, prototypes, pilot agreements, you name it. Did all the right things, built the "right" product, but the market just didn't seem to pull. Sound familiar? I then heard this quote that changed how I thought about startups and business generally: “Anybody who does product design has to switch between looking at the world from two different perspectives. The first perspective is what we call Supply… all about what we make, what we build, what we put out there… And the other side is called the Demand side. The Demand side is all about what you can’t control. This is about what’s going on for the customer in their life. We don’t get to decide what’s happening to the customer, what they’re trying to do, what they value… those are all things that are out there in the real world. As modern, informed product designers, we try to be very user-centric. We like to think that we’re sitting in the demand box, trying to figure out what to build on the supply side. But it turns out that in reality, a lot of the things we think are demand really aren’t.” (Listen to the full 18-minute podcast by Ryan Singer and Chris Spiek for an example that adds color to the concept, link below.) This was the point that I realized that everything I’d done and learned was on the supply side - the things I controlled: Our product, our customer research as it relates to our product, our marketing & sales. And when I thought I’d understood what customers wanted, I was REALLY looking through the supply lens - what their problems were as they related to my product idea, not what they were actually trying to do. I’m now obsessed with demand, and am blown away by how little it is understood and discussed. → Understanding demand is the ONLY way to “build something people want” & find PMF → The main problem startups have is that they obsess over supply, but THINK they are focused on demand → When you focus on demand, you can get to a product the market pulls (oddly, the path to building a great product ISN’T by focusing on product) → Successful founders often have an intuitive sense for demand, but can’t explicitly describe it → Demand is the foundation of “jobs to be done” - a wildly powerful concept that most people think they understand, but actually don't → Many problems in modern businesses are due to designing the organization around Supply (what we do), not Demand (what the customer wants to accomplish) Ultimately, what I’m building with PMF Camp is really about helping founders find demand - which makes everything else downstream easier and intuitive. Demand rules all. The most important (& totally ignored) business concept. More to come…

How to Craft Solutions as a #Startup That Outshine Existing Solutions in Your Target Market by Dr. Joybert Javnyuy Over the years, through my work in startup business consulting, I have collaborated with numerous incubators and accelerators in #Cameroon, #Nigeria, #Ghana, #Kenya, #SouthAfrica, and other nations. At The Center for Entrepreneurship, Leadership & Business Management Development (CELBMD) Africa, which I founded in 2012 to provide startup and enterprise development training and solutions to African startups, I have gained practical experience working with diverse startups from various industries. One of the most critical phases every startup must go through and get right to a certain extent is validating the problem they aim to solve with their business. When leading problem validation and idea validation sessions with startup founders, one of the core questions I always want us to deliberate upon is, "Why are existing products or services (solutions) insufficient, and what makes you feel that your solution will stand out in the eyes of the target market?" Processing and understanding this question and being able to obtain real-time findings will bring a significant change in your startup process. Additionally, this step helps in refining the business model and ensures that the startup is addressing a genuine need, which is crucial for long-term success. Moreover, engaging with potential customers early on can provide invaluable feedback that can shape the product development and marketing strategies. The inadequacy of current solutions typically stems from their inability to fully address the evolving needs and pain points of consumers. This can manifest in various forms:  - Outdated technology - Lack of user-centric features - Poor customer service - Simply the failure to adapt to changing market trends. When it comes to building a startup, the foundation of a successful business often lies in identifying gaps within existing products or services and proposing innovative solutions. Understanding these insufficiencies involves deep market research and an empathetic approach to customer feedback. Entrepreneurs must immerse themselves in the experiences of their potential users to uncover these hidden gaps. Once these gaps are identified, the next step is to conceptualize a solution that not only fills these voids but also offers a distinct value proposition. Here is one truth, recognizing the shortcomings of existing products or services and addressing them with a novel, user-centric approach is key to standing out in a competitive market as a startup founder. Blessings Dr. Joybert Javnyuy #Innovation #Future #Entrepreneurship #Careers #Startups #India #20daylinkedinchallengewithhaoma #linkedinacceleratorwithlynn

I spend a lot of time talking with customers about their pain points and have a few useful techniques that I use in every customer discovery call: ☑ Uncover pain - “if you could wave a magic wand and we solve any problem you have, what would it be?” ☑ Understand their current state - “How are you solving this today? Why is it insufficient?” ☑ Quantify Value - “If we build X, how much more valuable would it make our product? 10%? 30%? 50%?” Finally — keep asking “why” they need something instead of sticking to the status quo. Most people will say “yes- I want that.” As a PM, it’s your job to prove why they need your solution, not why it’s a nice-to-have.

Last night at ProductCampRTP™ we had a great panel discussion on #customerdiscovery with Scott Burleson, Kenya Oduor, PhD and Jason Brett. I received such a great response to my 3 guiding principles, I thought I'd put them out there to my network. Here they are! My 3 principles of customer discovery for B2B that keep it simple: 1. Facilitate the conversations as if your products don't exist to ensure there's no product bias in the customer insights you're gathering. 2. SHORTCUT 1 - Discovery doesn't start with users, it ends with them. Always start by understanding what's driving your customers from the top of the organization down. It's a shortcut that leads you directly to the users and jobs that if improved, deliver guaranteed strategic value to the customer. 3. SHORTCUT 2 - Stop starting with customer problems. Make customer business outcomes the centerpiece of the conversation. All you have to do is figure out the obstacles standing in the way of those outcomes and eliminate them with your products. It's a shortcut to uncovering the biggest problems that matter most and it's how you deliver guaranteed value that's measurable. Here's the bottom line. In B2B, our products have to make users better at their jobs in ways that have strategic value to the customer organization. The easiest way to consistently do that is to start the discovery process by identifying the strategic priorities of your target customers and then follow the breadcrumbs to the user jobs most in need of improvement! If you want to learn customer discovery the simple way, contact me and discuss how we can train your team to be a group of skilled discovery facilitators!