🙋‍♀️ Talking to Customers

👋 Hi there - it’s Egemen. Thanks for reading Scalable.

Talking to customers can be hard.

I’m not talking about finding the right target audience and getting some time with them - often times, this is difficult to accomplish as well.

So many founders still end up building things nobody wants - the opposite of Y Combinator’s infamous motto of making something people want.

Why? The problem often lies not in talking to customers but in how you talk to them.

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🧠 Deep-Dive: Learn How to Talk to Customers

Getting honest feedback from customers isn’t easy.

Often, they tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. We ask the wrong questions and get misleading answers.

Why do founders keep doing this then? Well, it’s simple human behavior, because founders want to win - confirmation bias is one hell of a catalyst for that.

The Mom Test is a book that I’ve been getting through lately, and it offers a framework to get to the truth behind customer feedback without bias or self-deception.

Here’s are 3 underlying principles:

1. Avoid talking about your product directly.

This may sound counter-intuitive first, but it’s nothing new. Instead, ask about the customer’s life.

This shifts the conversation from “Do you like my idea?” to “What’s a real problem you have?”. Ask the right questions. Being problem oriented is often a winning strategy.

Be more interested, not interesting. There are many interesting things out there, very few interested ones.

A great example of this approach is when Steve Jobs handled a somewhat rude question during a product launch event many years ago:

👉 Drama-aside, remember, some subset of people will definitely use your product if you are solving a problem for them.

2. Be specific, not broad.

People tend to overestimate how much they’ll use a product in the future. Hypotheticals are wishful thinking. Instead, ask about specific actions they’ve taken in the past.

Example:

• Bad Question: “Would you use this app every day?”

• Good Question: “What’s the last time you used an app to organize your schedule? Can you walk me through that?”

This reveals real habits and priorities, helping you understand if your idea aligns with their current needs.

People lie about what they would do. Stick to what they’ve actually done. What you do is who you are.

3. Listen more, talk less.

When you’re doing the talking, you’re missing the point. Ask, then get out of the way. Really, once you’ve asked a good question, step back and listen (I gotta do a better job at this myself 😄).

Allow the customer to share their experience without interruption, which often leads to the best insights.

After asking, “Can you tell me about the last time this problem occurred?” stay silent. Let them dig into the details and avoid jumping in too soon.

👉 Whether it’s a B2B or B2C customer, no matter their net worth, no matter their loyalty to other platforms - keep in mind, people will almost always gravitate towards warmth and competency. Showing one is good, both is ideal.

The less formal a conversation feels, the more likely you’ll get something genuine out of it.

🗺️ Method: Customer Interview Template

This is something I’ve been working on for a while.

As a rule of thumb, an ideal customer interview must be:

• less about selling / pitching

• more about asking about their problems / challenges

preferably on a human level (casual is what I mean, but you won’t always get to change to tone of a room).

So, here is an interview template that should help you:

I hope this comes in handy for you when you need it - it’s yours!

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☝️ Scaled This Past Week: Tola

Tola just wrapped up their $10.2M seed round led by Sequoia - it’s the scale of the week!

Here’s what Tola does:

• helps small businesses manage cash flow by offering flexible payment options, including "pay later" solutions.

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They have already attracted thousands of businesses and processes millions in payments monthly. With Sequoia's support, Tola aims to expand its customer base and enhance its product offerings.

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