Let’s cut to the chase. If you’re building a company, you need to talk to users. Not just at the start - but throughout your company’s entire lifecycle. (This article is a more comprehensive version of the author’s LinkedIn notes.)
Why Bother? 🤔
Users are the ones paying you. They’re your reality check - keeping you honest and focused on actual problems, not imaginary ones. As a founder, you’ve got two primary jobs: Write code, Talk to users. Everything else? It’s just noise. You won’t value the medicine till you’ve known the pain of being sick.
Finding Your Users 🕵️
Your network is gold, but don’t stop there:
- Tap into former co-workers
- Leverage LinkedIn (yes, it’s still useful)
- Dive into Reddit/Discord communities
- Show up at in-person events
It becomes exponentially harder to get someone’s time as you go down the list. Get as much as possible out of your network first. Pro tip: Always aim for video calls or face-to-face meetings - text-based communication misses crucial nuances.
Before You Talk 📝
- Define clear learning goals
- Identify the right person (usually a decision-maker)
- Craft a compelling outreach message
- Set up the call
The kicker: don’t mention your product at all. It biases the conversation and ruins your data.
Ask the Right Questions 🎯
Good questions:
- “Walk me through how you handle X today.”
- “What’s the most frustrating part about dealing with X?”
- “How often does this problem crop up?”
- “Why is solving X critical for your company?”
- “What solutions have you tried so far?”
If they haven’t tried solving it - it’s not a real problem.
Bad questions:
- “Would you use our product?”
- “What features do you want?”
- Anything with a yes/no answer
The Stages of User Conversations 🌱 ➡️ 🌳
- Ideation Stage (Plant the Seeds): Find users actually experiencing the problem. Milk your network, become a regular at industry events, and embrace the cold outreach grind if needed.
- MVP Stage (Nurture the Sprouts): Identify your best first customers. Rank prospects by Cost × Frequency × Budget, then pursue the top-ranked.
- Launched Stage (Grow the Tree): Iterate toward product-market fit (PMF). PMF Indicator - ask users: “How would you feel if our product disappeared tomorrow?” (Very disappointed / Somewhat disappointed / Meh, I’d live.) If more than 40% say “very disappointed,” you’ve hit PMF. Time to scale.
Pro Tips from the Trenches 💡
- Ask for phone numbers during sign-up. Then use them.
- Create exclusive WhatsApp/Slack groups for engaged users.
- Ruthlessly discard non-quantifiable data - even compliments. “Your UI looks nice” doesn’t pay the bills and isn’t actionable.
- Test intent with actions, not opinions - e.g., add a “Pay More to Upgrade” button before building a feature to gauge willingness to pay; add interested users to a waitlist until the feature is done.
The Bottom Line
User conversations are your compass, keeping you focused on solving real problems. Remember: Write code. Talk to users. Everything else is a distraction.
Relevant Sources
- “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick
- A couple of YC videos (YouTube)