Customer Interviews: The Questions That Actually Produce

How to run customer interviews that reveal real pain, not polite validation. The questions to ask, the ones to avoid, and how many you need.

Customer Interviews for Startups

Customer interviews are the highest-signal, lowest-cost research method in startup building. Done well, they change the roadmap. Done badly, they confirm whatever the founder already believes.

Ask about the past, not the future

"How did you solve this last time?" produces signal. "Would you use a product that does X?" produces polite lies. Every question about hypothetical future behavior should be replaced with a question about specific past behavior.

The five questions that work

1) Walk me through the last time this happened. 2) What did you try? 3) What did you spend on it? 4) What broke? 5) Who else was involved? Everything else is optional.

How many interviews

5 reveal a pattern. 10 confirm it. 20+ show variation across segments. Beyond 30 without new insight, you're procrastinating on building.

Signals to trust

Specific dollar amounts mentioned unprompted. Names of specific tools they cobbled together. Emotional language about the pain. Willingness to introduce you to peers with the same problem. Vague enthusiasm is not signal.

Frequently asked questions

Founders or a researcher?
Founders in year one. It changes how you build the product.
Should I record?
Yes, with permission. Transcripts surface patterns you miss live.
Pay interviewees?
For consumer research yes. B2B usually not — the interview itself is valuable to them.

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•By Alejandro Cremades