Before You Start, Find Out Who Needs Your Offer

Choose a specific first group

Everyone is too broad a starting customer description. Identify people who share a situation, a recurring difficulty, and a plausible way for you to reach them. For example, independent repair shops that manage appointments on paper is more useful than small businesses. This is a starting hypothesis, not a permanent restriction. Explain why the group might need help and which assumptions remain untested. Separate the person experiencing the difficulty from the person authorizing expenditure. Also ask whether the need occurs often enough, or has a serious enough consequence, to justify a new service rather than a casual favor.

Ask about the last real occurrence

An interview should uncover experience, not obtain agreement with your idea. Ask when the problem last occurred, what happened, how the person handled it, and what it cost in time or inconvenience. Request concrete examples without demanding private records. Questions such as “Would you love a convenient app?” invite polite speculation. “How did you arrange last week’s bookings?” produces a more useful account. Avoid introducing your preferred solution too early. Listen for the person’s own language and unexpected workarounds. A problem you consider obvious may be minor to them, while a different part of the process may be genuinely troublesome.

Record patterns and contradictions

Use a consistent note structure: situation, problem, current alternative, consequence, decision maker, and unresolved question. Obtain consent before recording a conversation and collect only information you need. Talk to more than close friends, whose encouragement may not represent demand. A handful of interviews can reveal patterns and questions, but cannot establish the size of a whole market. Record contradictory answers rather than averaging them away. If one subgroup experiences a problem weekly and another rarely does, that difference may guide a narrower focus. Compare direct conversations with credible background information and observable behavior where available.

Choose what to test next

After a small round of research, write what you learned and what would still need to be true for the offer to work. Decide whether to investigate further, narrow the group, change the problem, or run a bounded pilot. Set a concrete criterion for the next step, such as a potential customer agreeing to test a clearly described service at a stated price. Do not interpret every objection as something to overcome through persuasion. Some objections reveal that the problem, timing, or payer is wrong. Good research can lead you to stop before making an expensive commitment, which is a useful outcome rather than a failure.

Notice how you recruited participants. People who respond to a public invitation may differ from those who ignore it. Record that limitation alongside the findings. If the next business decision depends on reaching less enthusiastic customers, include a realistic route to hearing from them instead of assuming the early volunteers represent everyone.