Customer Interview
One file per interview. Save to _inbox/ as YYYY-MM-DD-interview-<name>.md, then run prompts/03-customer-and-problem.md to fold the pattern into stack/02-customer/.
Record the call if they agree. A transcript is worth ten remembered summaries, and it is what lets an AI find the pattern across twenty interviews that you could not hold in your head.
Before you go in
The one rule: do not pitch. The moment you describe your solution, the interview is over — everything after it is politeness. You are here to learn what they do today and what it costs them, not to find out whether they like your idea.
Ask about the past, not the future. "Would you use something like this?" produces a yes that means nothing. "Walk me through the last time this happened" produces facts.
Aim for at least ten interviews before building anything expensive. Patterns do not appear at three.
Details
| Date | |
| Name | |
| Role / segment | |
| Company / context | |
| How you found them | |
| Recorded? | |
| Length |
The questions
Adapt, but keep the order — context before problem, problem before money.
1. Walk me through how you currently handle [the situation].
Let them talk. Do not interrupt. The unprompted detail is the valuable part.
2. When did you last do that? Tell me about that specific time.
3. What is the most frustrating part of it?
4. What do you do outside your main system to cope?
Spreadsheets, WhatsApp, a notebook, a phone call to a specific person. Workarounds are where the unmet needs hide.
5. What have you already tried? Why did you stop?
6. If you could change one thing tomorrow, what would it be?
7. What does this currently cost you? — money, time, missed work, risk, annoyance
8. Who else is involved in deciding this? — for B2B: user, buyer, blocker
9. What would make you try something new? Who signs it off?
10. What would have to be true for you to pay for a solution? What is a reasonable price?
11. Is there anything I should have asked and did not?
The single most productive closing question. It regularly produces the most important thing in the whole interview.
12. Who else should I talk to?
Notes
(Verbatim where you can. Their words are better than yours and you will use them in your copy.)
After
| Top pain, in their words | |
| Second pain | |
| Current alternative and what it costs them | |
| Frequency | |
| Would they pay? Evidence for that, not opinion | |
| Price they mentioned | |
| What surprised me | |
| What I got wrong going in | |
| Willing to try a pilot? | |
| Referrals given | |
| Follow-up needed |
The honesty check
Answer these before you file the note:
- Did I pitch? If yes, discount everything after that moment.
- Did they describe a real past event, or a hypothetical? Only the first counts.
- Did I hear something that contradicts my plan? If not, ask whether I was really listening — ten interviews that all agree with you usually means leading questions.
Generated from worksheets/customer-interview.md in the repository. Edit the markdown, not this page.