2 builders who never spoke to each other

Re-run the research before it goes stale

Customer context keeps shifting, so last year's findings expire: check every quarter whether the audience, the critical problem and your answer to it still hold. Interview the people who have stalled and expect the blockers to sit outside your product entirely, and when a complaint surfaces, send a follow-up that makes people name the specific source rather than acting on the first version.

The method

1. 01

   Keep interviewing customers on what they are struggling with and how they want things to improve, because their context keeps shifting and last year's research goes stale.

2. 02

   Re run your validation at least once a quarter, checking whether the audience, the critical problem and your solution still hold. Kahl and his cofounder did this informally every few months at FeedbackPanda, dismissing far more ideas than they took.

3. 03

   Do not act on a complaint the moment it surfaces in customer research: send a follow-up question that makes people name the specific source of the problem, and watch what turns up in the answers you did not ask for.

4. 04

   Interview the customers who are stalling and expect the blockers to sit outside your product entirely: no product to sell, nothing to say on the landing page, no graphics, no headline, no idea what incentive to offer, no traffic.

5. 05

   Every three months, check whether the problem you solve has changed, whether it is still your customers' critical problem, and whether you still want to run this business. Kahl calls it continuous validation, borrowed from IT operations.

What it returned

• When noise came up in an internal Indy Hall research project, Hillman asked whether it came from phone calls, desk conversations, nearby common areas or something else, and the responses landed evenly across every option.

Sources

• “Open-plan offices were devised by Satan in the deepest caverns of hell” and other similar nonsense you might read about trends in the workplaceAlex Hillman · dangerouslyawesome.com · Lesson 2 - Noise is definitely an issue. But not always how you think. · 2013-11-01
• When you're building a product, whose opinion should you listen to?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · 4. Listen to your customers · undated
• How selling a SaaS app like an info-product doubled revenueNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Find the issues · 2014-06-26
• The Bootstrapped Founder Newsletter Episode 6 – December 20th 2019 – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Dear founder, · 2019-12-19
• The Myth of The Finished Product – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Entrepreneurial Dissatisfaction · 2020-02-27