Notes on Customer Research

I've been thinking about how people describe what they want in products, and there's something interesting I've noticed...

Imagine someone asks you what car you'd want to buy. You're not actually looking for a car right now, but you feel qualified and able to answer, so you might say "Oh, I'd get the Rivian R1T, because it is electrical, it is pretty fast, and people say value for its price is excellent." But when you're actually shopping for a car, you think about totally different things - like "Wait, will this fit in my garage?" or "Where would I charge this electric car?"

This happens with all products. When people aren't actively looking to buy something, they:

• Focus on obvious features (like how things look)
• Miss important practical details
• Don't think deeply about their actual needs
• Other people or teams needs that this product must satisfy

But when people are actually looking to buy, they:

• Think carefully about their specific situation
• Who else will be using this product and actually get that person or team involved
• Discover needs they didn't know they had
• Consider practical details that could be dealbreakers
• Know exactly what problems they're trying to solve

This means if you're doing customer research for your product, you should talk to people who:

• Recently bought something similar to what you're building
• Are actively looking to buy a solution like yours
• Have a clear problem they're trying to solve right now