How To Talk To Users | Startup School
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful talk, Gustav from Y Combinator, a former Airbnb founder, shares valuable strategies for startups on engaging with users and future customers. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining open communication with users throughout a company's lifecycle to ensure product relevance and customer satisfaction. Gustav outlines practical steps for identifying and interviewing potential users, crafting the right questions to ask, and transforming insights into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). He also cautions against common pitfalls such as focusing on features rather than problems and provides actionable advice on validating the value of a solution and keeping users involved in the development process.
Takeaways
- 🗣️ Communication is Key: The best founders maintain dialogue with their users throughout the company's lifecycle to stay grounded and receive honest feedback.
- 🤝 Building Relationships: Founders like Brian Chesky of Airbnb build personal connections with their users to gain deep insights into their needs and feedback.
- 🔎 Finding the Right Users: It's crucial to identify and engage with the right users, including those outside of personal networks, to ensure diverse and honest perspectives.
- 📢 Outreach Methods: Utilizing platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, Slack, or Discord, and attending in-person events are effective ways to reach potential users for feedback.
- 🤔 Understanding Problems: The focus should be on understanding users' problems rather than immediately jumping to solution discussions or introducing one's own ideas.
- 📝 Conducting Interviews: Effective user interviews involve building rapport, asking open-ended questions, and actively listening without biasing the conversation with one's own ideas.
- 🚫 Avoiding Pitfalls: Certain questions should be avoided in interviews, such as yes/no questions, feature-focused inquiries, and multiple questions at once that may confuse the respondent.
- 📊 Analyzing Feedback: After gathering user insights, it's important to organize and analyze the data to identify common problems and form hypotheses for solutions.
- 💡 Creating an MVP: Use the collected information to develop a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) that addresses the core problems identified during user interviews.
- 💼 Valuable Problems: Determining if a problem is valuable involves checking if people are willing to pay for solutions, if they are satisfied with existing solutions, and how easy it is to sell to the target audience.
- 🔄 Iterative Feedback: Keeping users involved in the development process by showing them prototypes and MVPs, and incorporating their feedback into the product development.
Q & A
What is Gustav's role at Y Combinator?
-Gustav works at Y Combinator as a group partner, a position he has held since 2017.
What was Gustav's involvement with Airbnb before joining Y Combinator?
-Before joining Y Combinator, Gustav was a practitioner at Airbnb and a Y Combinator founder in 2007.
What are the key points Gustav plans to cover in his talk?
-Gustav plans to cover why the best founders talk to users throughout the company's lifetime, how to find and communicate with users, what questions to ask and avoid, and how to turn conclusions into an MVP.
Why do most people have a wrong idea about how new startups form?
-Most people believe that ideas for new products come from spontaneous moments of inspiration, rather than through a process of engaging with and learning from users and customers.
What is the significance of the photo of Brian Chesky and Amal with Airbnb?
-The photo signifies the importance of two-way conversations with real customers, as Amal was the very first guest on Airbnb and spent a weekend with Brian in San Francisco.
How did Brian Chesky's experiment of living in 50 different Airbnbs benefit Airbnb?
-The experiment allowed Brian to gather honest feedback on Airbnb's product directly from 50 different hosts, which was instrumental in shaping the company.
Why is it important for founders to build personal connections with their users?
-Building personal connections allows founders to receive direct and honest feedback from their users, which is crucial for understanding user needs and improving the product.
What are some common platforms YC founders use to find their early users?
-Some common platforms include LinkedIn, Reddit, Slack, Discord communities, and sometimes in-person events.
What is Gustav's approach to understanding if the problem he's addressing is real?
-Gustav plans to interview potential customers to learn about their problems and motivations around carbon emissions, and then use this information to understand what an MVP might look like.
How does Gustav suggest conducting interviews with potential customers?
-Gustav suggests conducting interviews over video calls, phone calls, or in person, building rapport with the interviewee, not introducing one's idea until the end or not at all, and focusing on listening and asking open-ended follow-up questions.
What are some specific questions Gustav recommends asking during customer interviews?
-Some recommended questions include asking how they currently perform a specific task, what the hardest part about it is, how often they perform the task, why it's important for their company, and what they currently do to solve the problem.
What are some questions Gustav advises against asking during customer interviews?
-Gustav advises against asking if they would use the product, which features would make the product better, yes or no questions, how a better product would look to them, and asking two questions at the same time.
What is the danger Gustav mentions when focusing on features instead of problems during interviews?
-The danger is that users generally have good problems but bad solutions, and they may not have the incentive to say no to additional features, which can lead to an overcomplicated product that doesn't address the core problems.
What steps should be taken after conducting user interviews?
-After conducting interviews, one should organize the notes, bucket them into different problem areas, write down conclusions and hypotheses, create an MVP, and test it with the same users.
How can founders determine if the problem they're solving is valuable?
-Founders can determine if the problem is valuable by checking if people are paying for solutions in the space, if they have existing solutions they are happy with, and by evaluating how easy it is to sell to the target audience.
What is Gustav's advice on involving users in the product development process?
-Gustav suggests creating a Slack instance or WhatsApp group for customers, showing them the product as it progresses, and keeping them involved by reacting quickly to their feedback.
Outlines
🗣️ Engaging with Users for Startup Success
Gustav, a group partner at Y Combinator, discusses the importance of founders maintaining a dialogue with users throughout a company's lifecycle. He emphasizes that great founders learn directly from their users and highlights the story of Airbnb's CEO, Brian Chesky, who lived in 50 Airbnbs to gather honest feedback. Gustav advises against the common misconception that ideas for new products come from isolated brainstorming sessions and stresses the value of keeping users engaged for continuous learning and improvement.
🔎 Finding and Interviewing Potential Customers
The speaker outlines a strategy for identifying and interviewing potential customers to understand their needs and motivations. He suggests reaching out to founders, CEOs, and individuals with relevant job titles on LinkedIn for insights. The speaker provides examples of outreach messages and emphasizes the importance of building rapport and trust during interviews. Crucially, he advises against introducing one's own ideas too early in the conversation to prevent bias, focusing instead on listening and asking open-ended follow-up questions to elicit detailed responses.
❌ Avoiding Common Interview Pitfalls
This section warns against certain questions that can derail the interview process, such as asking leading questions about product features or yes/no questions that don't provide depth. The speaker explains that users often propose solutions that may not be practical or efficient, so it's vital to focus on understanding their problems rather than their proposed solutions. He also cautions against asking multiple questions at once, which can confuse both the interviewer and interviewee, and stresses the importance of deeply understanding the problems before jumping to solutions.
📈 Translating User Insights into an MVP
The speaker discusses how to take the insights gathered from user interviews and use them to formulate a hypothesis for a solution, which can then be developed into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). He suggests organizing notes from interviews, identifying common problems, and creating a hypothesis based on these findings. The speaker also provides tips on determining if the problem is valuable, such as checking if people are already paying for solutions or if they are using alternative methods like Excel. Finally, he recommends keeping users involved in the development process, using tools like Slack or WhatsApp groups, and iterating on the MVP based on their feedback.
🚀 Keeping Users Involved and Iterating on MVP
In the concluding section, the speaker stresses the importance of maintaining user involvement throughout the development of a product. He suggests showing users early prototypes and observing their interactions without guidance to gain authentic feedback. The speaker also recommends having users verbalize their thoughts during these interactions to gain deeper insights. By keeping users engaged and iterating based on their feedback, a startup can build trust and ensure that the product meets the users' needs effectively.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Y Combinator
💡Airbnb
💡Founders
💡Users
💡MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
💡Customer Feedback
💡Outreach Messages
💡Interviews
💡Behavior
💡Product Development
Highlights
Gustav, a Y Combinator group partner since 2017, shares insights on engaging with users and future customers throughout a company's lifecycle.
The misconception that startup ideas come from isolated epiphanies is debunked, emphasizing the importance of user interaction from inception.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb's co-founder, exemplifies the value of direct customer engagement, having spent time as a host to gather firsthand feedback.
The importance of identifying the right users to learn from is underscored, as they are the primary stakeholders who will provide candid feedback.
Gustav recounts Brian Chesky's experiment of living in 50 Airbnbs to deeply understand host motivations and gather honest product feedback.
The early adoption of personal connections with users by Airbnb's founders, setting a precedent for customer engagement in the startup world.
The common mistake of hiding behind anonymous emails is highlighted, urging founders to build genuine connections with their users.
Strategies for finding early users are discussed, including leveraging LinkedIn, Reddit, Slack, Discord, and in-person events.
A mock startup scenario is introduced to illustrate the process of identifying and interviewing potential customers to validate a business hypothesis.
The significance of video calls or in-person interviews over written surveys for gaining deeper insights into customer problems and motivations.
Advice on conducting interviews without introducing one's own ideas to prevent bias, focusing on listening and asking open-ended follow-up questions.
Examples of outreach messages for conducting user interviews, demonstrating how to approach both known contacts and strangers on LinkedIn.
The pitfalls of asking leading questions during interviews, such as focusing on features rather than problems, and the importance of avoiding yes/no questions.
The process of translating interview notes into hypotheses for an MVP, emphasizing the need for accuracy and the avoidance of over-intellectualization.
Tips for determining if a problem is valuable, including assessing if people are paying for solutions, the ease of selling to the target audience, and competition with existing solutions.
The strategy of involving early interviewees in the product development process through platforms like Slack or WhatsApp to maintain engagement and gather ongoing feedback.
The final summary encapsulates the importance of continuous user engagement, the right way to conduct interviews, and the steps to transform insights into an MVP.
Transcripts
foreign
[Music]
my name is Gustav and I work here at y
combinator as a group partner I've been
here since 2017. before YC I was a
practically to Airbnb and actually a YC
founder back in 2007. today I'm going to
talk about how to talk to your users and
your future customers here's what I plan
to cover today why the best Founders
talk to the users throughout the
lifetime of the company two how to find
your users and how to talk to them three
what questions to ask them and what not
to ask them and four how to turn your
conclusions into an MVP most people in
the world have the idea on how new
startups to form completely wrong they
think ideas of new products is something
the financials come up with on a lazy
Sunday or a late night coding session
you probably know it doesn't work this
way this scene as you can see here here
is a scene from The Social Network movie
it's a great movie but they got a lot of
things wrong on how Facebook actually
got started this is Brian chesky Brian
is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb on
the left side of the photo is Amal Amal
was the very first guest on Airbnb they
actually spent a weekend together in San
Francisco when they'd be kind of watched
you notice the difference between this
photo and the previous photo well this
photo actually is a real photo it
includes a two-way conversation with a
real customer great Founders talk to
Future customers before they even have a
product in fact the very best Founders
in the world learn directly from their
users throughout the life of their
company but that's again if you have
correctly identified who your users are
you should learn from them throughout
the lifetime of your company why you
might ask
users and customers will keep you honest
they are the only stakeholders actually
paying you anything if anyone will tell
you the truth it will be them so my talk
today is about how to do this well so
let's talk about another m b story in
2010 um and I remember this uh myself
Brian chesky the CEO of Airbnb he'll
decide to launch an experiment he was
going to give up his apartment and live
in 50 different airbnbs over the next
couple of months you might ask yourself
why would anyone do that so much hassle
most people read the articles about this
experiment because he did announce it
they missed a point
um I personally remember this being kind
of crazy by doing this Brian will
literally get a chance to talk to every
one of these 50 hosts each single day on
this trip and one incredible source of
honest feedback on your product without
the Airbnb hosts MB would not exist
exist today what Brian Joe and Nate did
so early is deeply understand the
motivations
um and the feedback from their hosts
still today Brian and Joe gets calls
from hosts on their personal cell phone
numbers I remember them telling me that
that on their first day of adworks at
Airbnb
why do they do that well it's the number
that they put on the website and share
with all of their hosts early on they
weren't hiding behind Anonymous email
they wanted to hear from the customers
at the time this seemed almost radical
most Founders would spend their time in
front of the computers trying to find
scalable growth channels like Google ads
unfortunately most Founders still don't
build personal connections with their
users today behind behind info at emails
or don't do not reply emails you don't
believe me you should just do a search
in your email for do not reply at and
see how many people don't want to talk
to their customers so let's start by
trying to figure out who I should talk
to it's always easy to interview people
that you know or people who are on your
network they're simply the most likely
to respond but perhaps can be less
honest in their answers to not offend
you don't be afraid of reaching out to
them and don't be afraid of rejection
the second group here is co-workers or
former co-workers they can be a really
great source they might know the topic
really well and if you're building
software for startups you can easily and
easily navigate yourself to someone
who's a potential User it's also very
common that the early users you speak to
are outside of your personal circuits or
your co-workers circles when asking YC
Founders how they found their early
users some of the most common answers
were LinkedIn red forms slack or Discord
communities and sometimes in-person
events so to illustrate this process
um a little better I'm going to start a
new mock startup this is not a real
company I'm just making it up but I'm
going to go through the process as I
would have if this was a real company
and first I want to understand if the
problem is real my hypothesis that I
have here or kind of like the idea space
that we sometimes call as NYC is that
companies want to reduce their carbon
emissions but for whatever reasons don't
do that so my plan is very simple I want
to first interview some potential
customers to learn about the problems
and motivations around carbon emissions
and three try to understand what an MVP
will look like MVP is a minimal viable
product to do this research I plan to
start by reaching out to Founders CEOs
CFOs at startups or bigger companies I'm
also going to be shocked to people on
LinkedIn that have titles like
carbon or climate or sustainability
basically Wars that gives me hint that
they might be relevant people to talk to
so what am I looking to learn well first
I'm trying to understand do the company
that they work for care about their
carbon emissions and two why do they
care and why do they not care if they
don't care and three who in that company
might be the one who cares the most
about this uh and why all right so so
here are two examples of Outreach
messages so the first one is a LinkedIn
message to a CFO who I used to work with
at Airbnb the message will go something
like this first I introduce myself I
mentioned something about our time at
Airbnb then I say I'm starting a new
project briefly describe it but not too
much in detail and I just asked for 20
minute phone call or video call that's
it and here's another example of a
message to someone I don't know it's
also on LinkedIn to the same group that
I mentioned earlier it's similar but
geared towards people I don't know so
the message will and the tone will be a
little bit different all right so once I
get on the phone or once again on the
video call let's talk about uh how to
actually interview potential customers
so first you want to make sure that
these interviews are over video calls
phone calls or in person you can learn a
lot more from a five minute video
interview than 500 or 5 000 sugar
responses
secondly you want to build some Report
with interviewee they're going to give
you answers to questions that maybe no
one have asked them before so you need
to make sure that they can trust you and
feel comfortable in this situation next
uh the most important thing here the
most most important thing here is to not
introduce your idea until maybe at the
end of the call or maybe not at all
doing this too early can bias them in
their answers your role here in this
interview is to listen not to talk
there are some great techniques to get
people to open up and talk about their
problems and one good one is to ask
follow-up questions that are open-ended
for example tell me about that if you're
not recording the interview you should
at least take notes as much as you can
you need to translate the recordings to
notes anyway so you might as well take
notes in the in the actual interview I'm
going to play an example video here on
uh how a potential customer for my
carbon emission company and how that
conversation will go like Hi how are you
um it's been a long time since we worked
together Airbnb
yeah great to see you
so I don't know if I told her this but
I'm thinking about starting another
company and I have a couple questions I
wanted to ask you about this era that
I'm interested in uh does your company
montevue Inc do you care about your
carbon emissions
we do actually care and we use a
consultant who creates these PDF reports
once a year
interesting uh what do you do with a
report
I mean right now I don't think we really
take much action on it unfortunately
well why not
it's just really hard to know what to do
with the information
um the information is really dense and
um uses words we don't really understand
tell me more about that
well we hired this consultant
um they asked us to fill out this word
doc with information but most of the
data that goes into it uh seems
inaccurate and I just feel like we need
another expert to figure out what to do
with the data
got it got it
um but why is it important for your
company at all to track carbon emission
well our
um and I think there's some regulations
coming up too
you notice here how I never introduced a
product or a solution I only ask
questions to learn about the problem
that Amy's having I don't even say what
I'm going to build
that's how you want to do it here are
some very specific questions that you
can use in your interviews one tell me
how you do X today by X of course I'm
referring to a specific problem a task
or goal that you are trying to solve two
what is the hardest thing you are doing
about x three why is it hard four how
often do you have to do x five why is it
important for your company to do X make
sure you dive deep into this question
like understanding that motivation is
going to be critical here and six what
do you do to solve this problem for
yourself today it's really important to
understand what they're doing
now if you can watch them do this that's
even better if they can screen share
during the video call or show you their
laptop as you're doing the interview and
show you how they actually get the PDF
report what they do with it
um how it looks like
that's the ideal State you want to
deeply understand their behavior not
just what they're saying but what
they're doing because changing the
behavior will be hard you can also ask
follow-up questions and please learn how
to make use of these ones it's very hard
to get someone to say everything in just
one answer to one question get
comfortable with asking questions like
what do you mean by that or can you tell
me more about that or why is that
important to you here are some questions
that you should not ask like there are
ways you can kind of derail this
interview will you use our product
they're probably going to say yes but
they're not going to mean anything to
you the answer
two which features would make product X
better
remember their job is to tell you about
the problem your job is to think about
what features to solve that problem so
asking them about your job isn't really
going to help you yes and no questions
it's not really that helpful for you you
want them to explain and give you as
many concrete and real examples as
possible so just simply asking yes no
questions is not ideal here and four
um how would would a better product X
look like to you how would a better
Carbon emission counting software look
like to you uh many of the people aren't
product developers they're not software
Engineers they're not designers they're
not product managers this is not their
job their job is to do a different job
and you are the one trying to understand
what is the challenging part about their
job
and finally
um asking two questions at the same time
that's going to confuse them it's going
to confuse your answers so this is when
you're eager to get um get answers it's
very easy to do this this thing but try
to avoid it but I want to highlight one
of the things I mentioned here there's
one big danger during interviews and
that is to focus on features instead of
problems
it's very natural for you to do that
your bra your brain is thinking through
all the ways you're going to solve this
problem
but really what you're here for during
this interview is to deeply understand
the problems not actually come up with
Solutions that's for for us for a
separate event so users generally have
good problems but also generally bad
Solutions so I'll give you two specific
examples so early days of Gmail users
were asking
um Paul Buchheit the founder of Gmail to
view both the Inbox and the actual email
that they were reading on the same
screen now why would they ask for that
well the reason was simply that Gmail is
too slow and people did not want to wait
to load each of the emails in the inbox
they want to see everything at the same
time similarly in early Airbnb a lot of
guests want to have the phone numbers of
the host so they can call them we're
like why do you need that it just turned
out that they didn't fully trust the
platform like we had not displayed
enough trust in Airbnb so they needed to
feel comfortable uh with getting to know
the host before it actually
um making the booking secondly
um users don't
have incentive to say no to really any
additional features if you ask for this
feature or this feature this feature
they'll probably say yes to everything
right you however are in charge of the
projectations and you have a lot more
incentives than they have to figure out
which are the most important of the
features so let's talk about next steps
so you've done your um five or ten of
these user interviews you've written
down your notes let's let's talk about
what you do then one you want to make
sure you have notes from all each of the
interviews you can use sticky notes or
some similar software to organize these
learnings you can bucket them in
different buckets that kind of describes
different problems and see which one is
actually the thing that matters the most
and then you want to write down your
conclusions what are you learning from
all of this you want to use all of this
information to create a hypothesis or
what the solution to this problem might
be don't over intellectualize this
process really you just want to start
assigning MVP as fast as you can but you
want to make sure you have accurate
information when you decide the MEP and
then you'll want to test it with the
same users it's also important to know
if the problem you're solving is
actually valuable what I mean by this is
that people will value the solution to
the problem enough to pay for it or the
problem itself solving the problem is
valuable so here's some good tips to
determine if it is one are people paying
money for other Solutions in the space
today are the people that make the PDF
reports for carbon emissions accounting
are they getting paid well if they are
getting paid that's a good sign that
this is probably a valuable thing do
people already have solutions to this
problem they are very happy with even
though it might appear Basics to you for
example like Excel or Google
spreadsheets is actually competitors to
many many many hundreds of startups
actually quite a formidable one to move
someone off Excel a Google spreadsheet
you need to make the experience of your
solution dramatically better they're not
going to pay you hundreds of dollars a
month for something they can almost as
easily do in Google spreadsheet or Excel
and three you want to evaluate how easy
it is to sell to this audience and this
is one thing that I like to do a lot
with the companies I work with for
example selling to Plumbers or
contractors is notoriously difficult
compared to selling to startups the
first two groups just don't change their
tools or the software very often versus
startups are open to trying new things
all the time so if you are solving a
problem is valuable you still have to
think about whether it's going to be
easy to sell this particular audience
once you have an MVP prototype you can
start by showing it to users even if
it's just a design prototype in Envision
or something like that you can just
click through we used to do this at MB
all the time we would go downstairs in
our in our office and we would find some
people that were waiting for an
interview or waiting for getting a
coffee or something and we just show
them the latest version of the app this
would be a Envision prototype on our
phone it would be Spike hand them our
phone and and show it to them this is
stuff that we haven't even built yet the
key thing but if you're doing this
tactic is to not tell them what to do do
not tell them what to do just watch them
play around with it you can tell them a
specific goal like try to make a book in
Airbnb or try to do a search with dates
and even b or something like that but do
not tell them exactly how to solve each
screen remember if this was a real
product you wouldn't you wouldn't be
standing there next to them to give them
advice another good trick when you're
doing this either when you're listening
or having them or recording them is to
have them speak their mind while they're
doing it have them describe exactly what
they're thinking on each of the steps
maybe the words that they're reading
maybe that will give you hints of what
words that they understand and which
words they don't understand or maybe
what specific screen means or what
purpose is and after you've done a bunch
of these interviews and then maybe MVP
protest sessions it's a great idea to
keep these interviewees involved
throughout the process
one common idea that a lot of wasting
companies are using is to create a slack
instance or a WhatsApp group for with
their customers now you want to make
them feel special right you want to make
them feel like they have exclusive
active access to the Future world
changing product so think about how
you're wording or or how you communicate
this WhatsApp group that you adding them
to it's a great idea to keep showing
them your product as they are
progressing like kind of give them this
exclusive feeling that I'm the first one
to see this product assets progressing
and also as you are
reacting to things that they're saying
you can ship a new a new screen with a
new version of the product
um and that builds trust with it with
them they now know that you react to
their feedback very fast finally some of
them will love connecting with other
people doing the same thing as they are
they don't get to do this very often and
um you are the one enabling that if you
do all these steps you will collect the
right information
um from your future users you will keep
them involved and transfer the
information uh and that allow you to
transfer the information into your first
prototype and MVP so to summarize here's
what I covered today why the best
Founders talk to their users throughout
the lifetime of the company
how to find your users and how to talk
to them
what questions to ask them and what not
to ask them and finally how to turn some
of those conclusions into an MVP thank
you everyone
[Music]
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