What I Learned About Users and Product Features

Oct 16, 2024

This blog is not meant to be a lousy read for everyone. Nor is this a guide filled with expert tips or hard-and-fast rules. I just penned down the learnings that resonated with me about understanding the users and deciding what product features to ship. By way of background, I work as a startup founder of a B2B enterprise platform.

Enjoy :)

Why to talk to your users?

Why would you want to understand the user? Because, contrary to the belief that good ideas are born on a lazy Sunday, the very best founders learn directly from their users throughout the life of their company. Users and customers will keep you honest.

Founders like Deepinder Goyal choose to become a delivery person for a day to figure out anything that might be bugging delivery partners that hasn’t yet been addressed. Movies like The Social Network can be highly misleading in this regard; they never show the countless hours of product cycles born out of an obsession with users. Brian Chesky, who founded Airbnb, spent a week with Amal—the very first guest at Airbnb. He also spent time in 50 different Airbnb locations, forming relationships and understanding the hosts because they are the ones making his product successful.

Whom to Talk To?

This aligns with my experience as a founder in the B2B enterprise space. Sales in this domain are extremely difficult, so each moment spent with a client is very important because feedback cycles are not common (unlike B2C) unless you are working directly with a client. Simply because:

It is very difficult to find a client.

People are paying way more at this scale for the product, so expectations are high—as it affects their work much more!

Now, this blog is not about sales, but this point was necessary to establish that enterprise users really do know a thing or two about the product and will directly let you know what features to add. Keep this in mind, especially if you are doing a pilot or paid POC with them (in which case the users are also your customers) —you have to keep the product aligned to your end goal. Don’t be very obstinate about the different features but focus on the goal.

Whom do you exactly reach out to?. Once I have figured out the demographic I want to target, this includes not only the list of companies I will cold email but also the relevant leaders within such organizations. Relevant people are further bucketed into individuals:

Who have the decision-making power for the organization, such as the director, VP, or CEO.

People who will be using the product, such as SDEs, sales reps, etc.

Better to start off talking to people you know—your coworkers from past companies or your past colleagues who’ve moved on to new companies. But they are the ones who are much more likely to tell you what you want to hear to not hurt your feelings.

What to talk about?

Now, we want to make the product experience as good as possible for the users. This is the goal! So, do you ask the end user what feature they desire or give a list of features to them and have them choose which is the best one? No! This may sound contrarian, but users generally have good problems and bad solutions. It is not their job to decide what product features will solve their problem—that is your job as a founder! Tell me - what incentive does your user have in telling you that they dislike this upcoming feature?

The customer will be best able to tell you about their problem and what they are currently doing to solve it. Some good questions that you can ask in the call are:

How are you currently doing X?

What is the hardest thing about doing X?

Why is it hard :)?

How often do you have to do X?

How much does it cost you to do X?

On the other hand, to truly learn the essence of drawing out valuable information from a call (and bear in mind that it has to be a call—no hiding behind emails!), you should avoid these things:

Never, ever talk about your product or ask questions like, “How would a better product look to you?” This will bias the user.

Keep the interview (if I may call it so) about the user, not yourself. Many people, including me, fall for this initially and think that saying something clever about the problem will help the conversation. It usually doesn’t.

How to talk?

This is very important and is the highlight of this blog. Read the book The Mom Test if you get the chance. I dedicate a great part of my learning from that book. They say you shouldn’t ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point.

You shouldn’t ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It’s a bad question, and everyone will lie to you at least a little.

As a matter of fact, it’s not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It’s your responsibility to find it, and it’s worth doing right.

The main idea is to frame questions to get honest feedback. Instead of asking, “Would you use this?” ask, “Can you tell me about the last time you faced this problem?” This helps avoid false positives, even from supportive people like your mom. Lots of entrepreneurs and founders will ask, “Would you use [description of their product]?” or “How much would you pay for [my product]?” But these questions aren’t helpful because no one wants to be the one to tell you that your baby is ugly, so they’ll be polite and say “Yes” and “$20” to make you feel good.

Instead, The Mom Test suggests that you focus your questions on learning about your target user’s workflow or daily habits related to your product’s topic, while being open to the fact that what you think was a terrible problem may just be a minor annoyance for your target user.

Pro Tip

Always make a list of questions that you want answered by the end of the conversation. Ask ChatGPT if these questions comply with The Mom Test rules. Then go on the call. It may not always happen that everything is clarified, but your job is to make the maximum out of the call, and not in an interrogative manner. I usually do this with the help of a Google Form and keep it to 4-5 calls a day for 10 days. No more.

In closing, most of these lessons came back to me after rewatching YC’s Startup School. They hit differently when you’ve experienced them firsthand.