Interviewing an early adopter can often take finesse and calculation. Anyone who has watched a legal drama like Law & Order or my personal favorite Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny, has seen an attorney asks a series of questions, usually to some expert witness. The purpose of asking a series of questions that seem simple is to carefully create a scenario for a jury that will reveal the guilt or innocence of the defendant. We know it’s going to happen everytime, but we’re always surprised! It’s an element of surprise for us because the attorney always begins by asking some pretty harmless questions. Never do they begin with something obvious like: “Do you think so-and-so is guilty?” The reason they ask leading questions is because they’re trying to extract information that tells a story.
Now of course the opposing attorney maybe smart enough to recognize what is going on, and interrupt moments later with, “Objection leading the witness!” But it doesn’t matter the story is established the jury gets it.
Apply this same style of questioning to a prospect or early adopter can be just as effective. In this case the point isn’t to determine guilt, but to determine customer fit. The other difference is that you want to balance the questions so that you don’t overly constrain the thoughts of the interviewee. You want to steer the conversation to cover certain topics, but let the interviewee answer as they’d like. The reason you want to do this is because you’re not trying to close a sale. You’re still discovering who is an early adopter and how they think. In order to accomplish that goal you need to let them feel comfortable about their answers.
Talk to people bah humbug!
When you don’t know who your customer is, or you only have a hypothesis you have to sit down with some potential early adopters to understand them and their needs. Sure you can just build something, do a lot of marketing, then check analytics, sign up numbers, and engagement metrics, but let’s assume you yourself cannot yet build a product, or you’re operating on a really tight time frame or budget. In other words, you’re lean. In that case, you’ll want to make sure that every dollar and minute spent is being put to good use. So you’ll want to validate your hypothesis on who your customer is by having some conversations.
Finding a Fit
There are really 3 critical pieces of information you need from the people you’ll be chatting with:
- What is their pain?
- What would they be willing pay for a solution?
- And assuming you have the solution, are they willing to purchase it from you?
But here’s the problem. Most people just pick up the phone, talk to a customer, and tell them what they’re selling. They don’t take the time to lead the customer. It’s not their fault, they probably just don’t know how.
Leading Them On
To give you a clear example of how early adopter interviews should be done I’ve devised a short skit on what leading an early adopter looks like. The following skit is one I’ve used a number of times on customers, so while it might seem contrived, know that it does actually work! You can use it as a starting point and tweak it to fit your conversation style and goals.
In the following skit Joe is a first time entrepreneur, who is in the idea stage. He hasn’t yet built a product, and he’s not a 100% sure if he has the right idea, and he also wants to test it on a few different user segments. He gets an introduction to Sally, through his network, who fits into his hypothesis of who maybe an early adopter for his product. Joe would have sent Sally a quick qualification questionnaire before setting up the interview to make sure that Sally had some time to spare, and that she was a good candidate i.e. potential early adopter. Joe would have reviewed her answers to the qualification questionnaire, and setup an interview with her to get some validation on what he thinks Sally’s problems might be, and to get answers to the 3 questions posed above.
Joe: “Hi Sally.”
Sally: “Hi Joe.”
Joe: “Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today! I know we’re scheduled to chat for about 15 minutes, does that still work for you?”
Sally: “Yes it does.”
Joe: Great! So I’d like to start by just learning a little bit more about your (business, hobby, interest, etc.) Would you mind telling me a little bit about it, and how you’ve been doing XYZ?”
Sally: “Sure! Well I’ve been doing XYZ for awhile now, like 3 years almost. I was introduced to it by my friend Mary, who’s been doing XYZ for like 5 years, she’s an expert!”
Joe: OK she’s serious about XYZ since she’s been doing it for 3 years. Hmm… Mary is an expert and an influencer, since she got Sally into XYZ. I need to ask for an intro to Mary at the end of the interview.
Joe: Do you ever run into any problems or issue while doing XYZ?
Sally: All the time!
Joe: OK there are probably a lot of issues and I only have 15 minutes with Sally, let’s cut to the chase…
Joe: What would you say is the #1 problem you experience Sally?
Sally: Well… (Sally pauses to think) I really have this Problem ABC and sometimes Problem 123, but Problem ABC is the bain of my existence!
Joe: Have you tried any solutions to help you with Problem ABC?
Sally: Yes but I hate’em all! They just suck and I feel stuck!
Joe: What are the current solutions you’re using, and why do you think suck? (Joe does a good job of getting specifics: names of solutions and specific pain points)
Sally goes on to names a solution and mentions that it’s really costing her 10+ hour a week. The solutions she’s using aren’t very user-friendly, and she’s tried to contact customer support but they haven’t been very responsive to her needs. Before she used the solution she was just doing everything by hand, which was much worse! So she feels like she’s been able to upgrade from those efforts, but it’s still not sufficient, there is room for improvment.
Joe: And if you don’t mind me asking, what are you currently paying for cost you?
This can be a rather intrusive question, so Joe gives Sally an out in case she doesn’t want to answer. In that case, Joe already has the name of the company that is providing Sally a solution and can contact them directly to find out what their pricing structure is.
Sally: I’m paying about $X/month.
Joe: And since you mentioned that it does help, what is that you would not be able to live without?
Sally: Hmm… well it does have this Feature EFG, and I don’t think I could live without!
Joe has now determined what is keeping Sally sticking to the solution. He will either need to produce a feature that gives Sally and other people who respond like her the same benefit in order to compete with the competitor, or find a way to be complementary to the competitor.
Joe: Would you be willing to pay for something better?
Sally: Definitely!
Joe: Do you mind providing me with a range?
Once again this might be thought of as an intrusive question. If that happens, Joe would have probably asked Sally to spend some time quantifying the results like the revenue brought in through new business, time saved, or wider appeal.
Sally: I’d say $X/month-$Y/month, not more than $Y/month, then I’d be losing money.
Joe: Well Sally I appreciate you for taking the time to meet with me. I’ve learned a lot in talking to you. I’d like to talk to some others like you who are serious about XYZ and are experiencing the ABC issue. Do you know anyone who might have the time? Perhaps your friend Mary?
Remember Joe made a note to ask about an intro to Mary the expert!
Sally: You’re welcome and yes I can put you in touch with Mary!
Joe: Great! Well I can’t make any promises because I’m just exploring right now, but I’d love to see if I can come up with a solution to Problem ABC and get some feedback from you. Would you mind if we scheduled another interview in the near future?
Sally: Well I’m pretty tight on time these days…
Joe: I understand, I’d keep it short like today. It would be great to get some insight from you since you’ve been doing XYZ for 3 years, and I’m sure you’d like to also have solution to Problem ABC.
Sally: Sure, I can spare a little bit of time like today.
Joe: Thanks a lot, I’d really appreciate it!
In this short and sweet interview Joe was able to answer the first two questions. Since he’s in ideation he won’t yet be able to answer #3. But he’s at least built up a rapport with Sally to come back. The other big takeaways from this conversation were:
Understanding the price point Sally was willing to pay.
Finding some other early adopters like Mary.
Getting Sally to tell him solutions she’s currently using so Joe can go and research potential competitors!
All in all this short 15 minute interview has provided Joe a lot of insight that he didn’t have before.
Now to keep making progress, Joe needs to rinse and repeat this interview process with more potential early adopter. Once isn’t enough, unless he’s building a custom solution at a high price point. If he’s trying to build a more general solution for the masses, he’ll need to spot patterns in the problems people are experiencing, and to do that he’ll need to talk to more potential early adopters!
Did you find this post on early adopters useful? If so, and you want to learn more strategies for interviewing and attracting early adopters, the check out our Lean Product Development Course Learn more!
