How to ultimate list of customer development questions

Problem Discovery

Questions to validate your hypothesis about a problem, or to learn about problems.

What’s the hardest part of your day?
What are some unmet needs you have?
What product do you wish you had that doesn’t exist yet?
What tasks take up the most time in your day?
What could be done to improve your experience with [process/role]?
What’s the hardest part about being a [demographic]?
What are your biggest/most important professional responsibilities/goals?
What are your biggest/most important personal responsibilities/goals?

Problem Validation

If your customer did not talk about the problem you wanted to address, use the below questions to begin validating/invalidating that your customer has the problem you think they have. In addition, it’s often not enough to just solve a problem, sometimes it also needs to be one that people are highly motivated to solve. Some of the below questions can help with that too.

Do you find it hard to [process/problem]?
How important is [value you’re delivering] to you?
Tell me about the last time you [process you’re improving] – listen for complaints
How motivated are you to solve/improve [problem/process]?
If you had a solution to this problem, what would it mean to you/how would it affect you?

Product Discovery

Questions to help generate ideas or to validate your idea. The below questions are intentionally very open-ended. By asking yes or no questions specifically related to your product, customers may feel inclined to agree with you or not be critical. By asking more open ended questions, you can be more confident that they’re giving you honest input. If in response to the questions below, your customers tell you they’re looking for similar to what you have in mind, you might be on to something.

What do you think could be done to help you with [problem]?
What would your ideal solution to this problem look like?
If you could wave a magic wand and instantly have any imaginable solution to this problem, what would it look like? – I’ve found that about 80% the time the answers I get to this question are not very informative – solutions that aren’t feasible or most certainly wouldn’t be profitable. But the other 20% of the time there are some really informative responses that make the other 80% acceptable.
What’s the hardest part about [process you’re improving]?
What are you currently doing to solve this problem/get this value?
What do you like and dislike about [competing product or solution]?

Product Validation

Questions to validate/invalidate your idea.

What do you think of this product? – Listen to whether they talk about wanting to use the product or how it could be improved. Given how vague the question is, the former is positive, while the latter may be a sign that improvement is needed.
Would this product solve your problem?
How likely are you/would you be to tell your friends about this product?
Would you ever use this product?
Would you be willing to start using this right away?
What might prevent you from using this product? – might reveal ways that you could improve the product. Potential hurdles might be budget, time, perception’s of the product’s value, a competing product, etc.
Will you pay $x for this product? – see if they will put their proverbial money where their math is. Often times when you ask this question, no matter how small the price, you will start hearing key insights that you wouldn’t have heard otherwise.

Product Optimization

Questions to help you improve your idea or product.

What could be done to improve this product?
What would make you want to tell your friends about this product?
What’s most appealing to you about this product?
What might improve your experience using the product?
What motivates you to continue using this product?
What’s the hardest part about using this product?
What features do you wish the product had?

Ending Interviews

Questions to ask at the end of an interview. - also ask for their contact information if you don’t already have it.

[Summarize some of your key takeaways] – is that accurate? – I usually do this throughout the interview.
So based on the conversation, it sounds like x is really hard for you, but y is not. How accurate is that?
It sounds like x is very important to you, while y is not. How accurate is that?
Is there anything else you think I should know about that I didn’t ask?
Do you know anyone else who might also have this problem that I could ask similar questions to? – small form of validation if they’re willing to give you referrals
Can I keep you in the loop on how the product develops?
Can I follow up with you if I have more questions?
Answer Wiki

Do you have problem x?
How much does problem x cost you?
Does this new product / feature solve your problem x?
How does it solve problem x?
Does this create any new problems?
What are you currently paying to solve this problem?

What is your main problem/ pain in this area?
What part of the problem, if solved, will make the rest of it more bearable?
How much time / money do you waste on it?
Have you tried to solved it? how? what was the result?
What does the perfect solution have?
How much would you pay to solve it?

What does this product do for you that you cannot live without?
What doesn't this product do for you that you must have?
What is your greatest problem/pain that this product should solve?

What does our product do for you?

Will you, right now, pay $X for this? Or if they've already bought something, ask if they'd pay more or pay for a new tier/another product/etc. If they say yes, actually sell it to them. A lot of people will say they'll buy something but they won't actually do it. Ask them to actually buy it. If they say no, ask, "Why not? What would make you buy it? At what price would you buy it?"

What do you think of our product? How do you use it? What do you like most? What do you like least? Can we use your comments as a testimonial on our website/other places (for marketing)?

How did you hear about us?

What made you decide to buy? What was the primary motivating factor that convinced you?

Did our product replace a previous product for you? How did you do what our product does for you before you had our product? If you weren't to use our product, what would be your next best choice?

Demographics questions: who are you, where are you from, where do you live, do you have children, how many people in your household, who does the buying in the household, how old are you, do you buy things like this often, what's the primary language of your household, etc. The list goes on and on for the basics and you should also ask demographic questions relevant to your specific startup. For example, if you were a financial firm, ask who manages the money, how much money do they make (be sensitive about this), what's their bank, how do they make investment decisions, etc.

Will you tell your friends and family about us? If no, why not? If yes, tell them to actually do so and maybe give them some discount codes or something to distribute to their friends.

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