(2024-05-15) Maurya How To Uncover What Customers Want

Ash Mauyra: How to Uncover What Customers Want.

1 Universal Principle
“New problems worth solving come from old solutions.”

Most founders struggle with uncovering what customers truly want because they use approaches that don’t work:

Validating problems you think customers have (which leads to confirmation bias)

The better approach starts with understanding what I call the “Innovator’s Gift” – the simple but powerful concept that new problems worth solving come from old solutions.

2 Underlying Strategies at Play

I. Study existing solutions.

We switched from cassettes to CDs because CDs solved a specific pain point – the need to rewind and fast-forward

In each case, the technology that gained traction addressed familiar, specific, and compelling problems with the old technology

II. Discover rather than validate. (problem discovery)

spotlight effect—you’re biasing answers simply by bringing up the problem.

Don’t ask customers what they want or about problems directly. Instead, get them to tell stories about how they use current solutions and listen carefully for the signals that matter.

3 Actionable Tactics

I. Target customers of the old way.

target people actively using popular existing alternatives.

current status quo solution.

II. Study when, why, and how they use the old way.

don’t even ask them about problems directly.
Instead, ask them to walk you through WHEN, WHY, and HOW they use their current solution.

III. Look for pet peeves, struggles, and workarounds.

As customers tell you their stories, listen carefully for:

Workarounds

The magic of this type of customer interview is that people are more alike than unalike.

When done well, it only takes 10 interviews for patterns to emerge.