3 ms·
The issue with in-person customer interviews done by the founders themselves is that VERY few people will be honest enough with the founders to tell them their
by tchock23 11y ago
The issue with in-person customer interviews done by the founders themselves is that VERY few people will be honest enough with the founders to tell them their idea sucks.
While there is obviously value in in-person interactions, I would strongly recommend balancing it with some online interactions as well. People tend to be MUCH more honest about your idea if they know there is distance and a level of anonymity between you and them (see also: Show HN :-)
(Source: Worked in market research industry doing customer interviews and qualitative research for almost 15 years)
- rgbrgb 11y agoI like to tell interviewees that I'm an intern.
- danieltillett 11y agoThe best piece of advice here - of course you can only pull this off if you were born after 1992.
- nostrademons 11y agoThat was something we noticed (eventually) as well. The presence of a founder who was clearly keen on doing something about the problem would bias the respondent, so that things that they would normally shut out of their head (like getting a job) became easy to talk about. Once the founder goes away, they get shut out of their head again. You can compensate for this somewhat by gauging emotional response - someone whose eyes shoot open while exclaiming "You can do that?!" and then tracking you down when you walk away is probably a much better prospect than someone who says "Oh, sure, I'd use that" in a level tone of voice. But for my latest venture, I've been using a combination of AdWords and going to meetups to validate the idea: each of them tells something that the other doesn't.