Key Moments
How To Talk To Users | Startup School
Y CombinatorKey Moments
Founders should constantly talk to users, not just for feedback, but to deeply understand their problems. Neglecting direct user interaction can lead to building solutions nobody needs or wants.
Key Insights
Brian Chesky of Airbnb lived in 50 different Airbnbs to gain direct, honest feedback from hosts, showing a commitment to understanding user motivations and problems.
When interviewing users, avoid introducing your idea or solution too early, as this can bias their responses; focus on listening and asking open-ended follow-up questions like 'Tell me more about that.'
Founders should not ask users about desired features or how a better product would look, as users are not product developers and their job is to articulate problems, not design solutions.
Users often have good problems but bad solutions, necessitating founders to observe user behavior (e.g., screen sharing) rather than just relying on stated preferences.
The value of a problem can be assessed by checking if people are already paying for solutions in the space or if they have existing, satisfactory workarounds like Excel or Google Sheets.
Creating exclusive communities like Slack or WhatsApp groups for early users makes them feel special, enhances trust through prompt feedback incorporation, and fosters peer connection.
The indispensable role of user interaction for founders
The most successful startup founders engage with their users continuously throughout the company's lifecycle, not merely for occasional feedback but for deep, ongoing learning. This direct interaction is crucial because users are the ultimate stakeholders who provide revenue and, consequently, will offer the most honest insights. Founders who neglect this direct line of communication often fall into the trap of developing products based on assumptions rather than validated needs. For instance, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, famously lived in 50 different Airbnb accommodations in 2010 to experience firsthand what hosts went through, collecting invaluable, unfiltered feedback that shaped the company's future. This level of immersion goes beyond transactional relationships, fostering genuine understanding. In contrast, many founders focus on scalable growth channels like Google Ads, missing the opportunity to build personal connections that can reveal critical product flaws or opportunities. The pervasive use of 'do not reply' email addresses by companies is a stark indicator of this avoidance, signaling a reluctance to engage directly with customers.
Identifying and reaching out to potential users
Finding and connecting with early users requires a proactive approach. While it's easy to start with your personal network and acquaintances, these individuals may provide less candid feedback to avoid causing offense. It's essential to extend beyond this circle. Former colleagues can be a valuable resource, especially if they have expertise relevant to your startup's domain. Beyond personal and professional networks, common channels for finding early adopters include platforms like LinkedIn, specialized online forums, and community hubs such as Slack or Discord servers. Even in-person industry events can be fertile ground. When making initial contact, whether through a personalized LinkedIn message to someone you know or a more formal outreach to a stranger, the key is to be brief, clearly state your purpose without revealing too much about your idea, and request a short meeting, typically 20 minutes, for a call or video chat.
Conducting effective user interviews
The execution of user interviews is paramount to extracting genuine insights. Conduct these conversations via video calls, phone calls, or in person, as non-verbal cues and spontaneous reactions offer more than written responses. Building rapport is essential; interviewees need to feel comfortable sharing potentially sensitive information. A critical technique is to delay introducing your product idea or solution until the very end of the conversation, or perhaps not at all. This prevents biasing their responses and keeps the focus on their problems. Your primary role is to listen, not to talk. Employ open-ended follow-up questions like 'Tell me about that,' 'What do you mean by that?' or 'Can you elaborate?' to encourage deeper explanations. If you're not recording, meticulously take notes. Observing users perform tasks (e.g., screen sharing) offers even richer data than their words alone, highlighting discrepancies between what they say and what they do—a vital distinction for driving behavioral change.
Key questions to ask and pitfalls to avoid
Effective user interviews revolve around understanding the user's current process and pain points. Essential questions include: 'Tell me how you do X today?' (where X is a specific task or problem), 'What is the hardest thing about X?', 'Why is it hard?', 'How often do you do X?', and crucially, 'Why is it important for your company to do X?' Diving deep into the motivation behind the importance is critical. Also, ask, 'What do you do to solve this problem for yourself today?' Observing their current solutions, even if basic like using spreadsheets, provides invaluable context. Conversely, avoid questions that can derail the interview or lead to unhelpful answers. Do not ask 'Will you use our product?' or 'Which features would make product X better?' as users aren't product designers. Similarly, avoid 'yes/no' questions and asking multiple questions simultaneously. The biggest danger is focusing on features instead of problems; your goal is to deeply understand the users' challenges, not to brainstorm solutions prematurely.
Interpreting user feedback and developing an MVP
After conducting 5-10 interviews, organize your notes to identify recurring problems and themes. Use this consolidated information to formulate a hypothesis for a potential solution and define your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The focus should be on speed and accuracy in building this MVP, ensuring it addresses the core problems identified. Once the MVP is conceptualized, test it with the same users you interviewed. Critically, you must assess the problem's value: are people willing to pay for a solution? Indicators of value include existing paid solutions in the market or deep-seated user workarounds, even if they seem rudimentary (like Excel). If users are already paying consultants for carbon emission reports, it signals a valuable problem space, even if their current method of receiving a PDF report is inefficient. Understanding the ease of selling to a particular audience is also crucial; startups are generally more receptive to new tools than industries with entrenched software practices, like plumbers or contractors.
Testing prototypes and building user community
Even before building a full product, you can test prototypes. Using tools like InVision, create clickable mockups and show them to users. At Airbnb, they would approach people in their office lobby and ask them to try out a prototype on a phone, giving them a specific goal like 'try to make a booking.' The key when testing prototypes is not to guide the user step-by-step through the interface but to observe their natural interaction. Ask them to 'think aloud' as they navigate, revealing their understanding of the language, the interface, and the purpose of each screen. This passive observation is invaluable because in a real product scenario, you wouldn't be there to direct them. Furthermore, foster a sense of community and exclusivity among your early users. Creating dedicated Slack or WhatsApp groups makes them feel special and provides a direct channel for rapid feedback. Shipping new features based on their input builds trust and reinforces their value within your product development process, demonstrating that their voice is heard and acted upon.
Mentioned in This Episode
●Software & Apps
●Companies
●Organizations
●People Referenced
How to Talk to Users: A Startup Founder's Cheat Sheet
Practical takeaways from this episode
Do This
Avoid This
Common Questions
Talking to users throughout the company's lifecycle keeps founders honest, as customers are the ones paying for the product and will provide truthful feedback. This direct interaction helps validate problems and build products that truly meet market needs.
Topics
Mentioned in this video
Gustav, the speaker, is a group partner at Y Combinator.
Mentioned as a past company of Gustav and the subject of an experiment by its CEO, Brian Chesky, to understand user needs.
A platform suggested for creating customer groups to keep early users involved and provide them with exclusive access.
A platform suggested for finding early users and for outreach messages.
Mentioned as a scalable growth channel that many founders focus on instead of direct user interaction.
A common tool that serves as a formidable competitor to new startups, requiring significantly better solutions to displace it.
A community platform where founders can find early users.
An example used to illustrate how user feature requests can stem from underlying problems, like the need to view inbox and emails simultaneously due to slowness.
A common tool that serves as a formidable competitor to new startups, requiring significantly better solutions to displace it.
A community platform where founders can find early users and is suggested for creating customer groups later on.
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