Understanding customers: using discovery interviews to find problem-solution fit

Six out of ten product launches fail to deliver on expectations. Without a practical way to verify customer interest, it is easy to make the mistake of executing on ideas that no one wants. We have trained thousands worldwide with our proven methods to rapidly test new business ideas. In this course we focus on how to get a sense early on, whether your value proposition resonates with your customers using customer interviews.

• Learn to de-risk and test ideas with discovery interviews
• Advance your testing skills with step-by-step, hands-on techniques
• Learn to analyse your results to inform evidence-based decision-making
• Improve business outcomes with customer insights
• Scale a practical testing approach in your organization

How do I better understand customers?

In today’s competitive environment, it is essential to take a customer-centric approach in your business. We’ll show you simple processes and practical templates that will help accelerate your customer focus.

How do I reduce the risk and uncertainty of new ideas?

Good ideas alone are not enough to design a successful business or product. You need to shape, test, and adapt those ideas with business experiments. We’ll show you how to de-risk ideas to reduce the chances of failure.

A Strategyzer enterprise client used the principles from this course for a software project they were planning on developing. By increasing their customer understanding, they were surprised to learn that there was no interest in their idea. They used these insights to pivot their approach and saved themselves from spending $800k building something customers did not want.

How can my customer insights lead to growth?

The goal is not just to better understand customers but for customer insights to lead to stronger value propositions and business models. We’ll show you how to connect your work of understanding customers to improving and adapting your ideas.

WL Gore used the principles from this course to accelerate their growth. They gathered real customer input that led to new markets to sell to, products that were more in line with customer needs, an updated go-to-market strategy, and the realization of a more efficient manufacturing method.

Learn how to answer these questions, and master the customer interview process with this "Understanding customers" course.

What you will learn

Chapter 1: Foundations of testing business ideas

• Evaluate your testing competencies
• Become familiar with a systematic testing process
• Use Assumptions Mapping to prioritize and refine hypotheses
• Select the right experiment at the right time

Chapter 2: How to run customers interviews

• Download templates and checklists to plan your interviews in three steps: prepare, execute and analyze
• How to run Partner & Supplier and Expert Stakeholder Interviews
• Pair interviews with Card Sorting and the Speed Boat exercise
• Find, vet and compensate interviewees in a B2C and B2B setting
• Debrief and analyze interviews
• Decide what action to take based on what you’ve learned