In the CIS countries, CustDev is often associated with the interviews that help business to better understand the pain points of the target audience (TA). High-quality feedback allows you to identify users’ true needs or even change the vector of project development. However, CustDev is not limited to conducting the interviews only.

What is CustDev? 

It is an abbreviation for Customer Development — an approach to creating start-ups and IT products that focuses on identifying the customer needs and adapting the products to audience demand. This methodology was proposed by Steve Blank, who described it in his book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany”. His method includes four key stages:

• Customer discovery – finding the customers;
• Customer validation – identifying the audience needs; 
• Customer creation – creating a product or service;
• Company building – developing a business around the customer needs. 

Imagine you’re creating a mobile app, such as a digital assistant for work and study. While the project is still at the idea stage, you need to talk to the potential users. Interviews will help to identify their pain points and answer the questions: how, why and how often people are willing to use your app. The next stage is creating a prototype and testing it with early users. If the hypothesis is confirmed, it makes sense to develop a full version of the app or refine it.

It’s important to note that these stages use various tools, including the surveys, A/B tests and discussions with the industry experts, among others. Accordingly, in-depth interviews (customer conversations). In Steve Blank’s concept, this is called Customer conversation. Nevertheless, in-depth interview is the starting point for further product development, and the success of the entire project may depend on quality of the answers received.

Who conducts Custdev and why?

The Product Managers usually use this methodology. They employ it in two cases: to assess demand for a product and profitability of its market launch, or to resolve the issues with an existing product. Here are some more reasons to use CustDev to launch and improve an IT project or your business as a whole:

• To better understand the TA and develop the customer persona;
• To validate the market needs and create a product that meets the demand;
• To define the project development direction and its key features;
• To understand the TA’s expectations and prioritize the work on the product correctly;
• To identify the bottlenecks to avoid unnecessary expenses.

How to define the TA

Understanding the target audience helps to formulate a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) clearly, depending on its category. Customer Persona should include the information about age and gender, income level, profession, hobbies, key needs and preferences, including the communication channels. Sometimes, a clear picture of the audience emerges after conducting the interviews.

Here’s what an audience profile might look like: wealthy people aged 27 to 45 with above-average income. They travel abroad at least once a month and find it inconvenient to use multiple mobile phones because they use more than one SIM card.

If your product’s potential audience counts from 10,000 to 100,000 users, interviewing 10 people is enough. However, this number may vary depending on quality of the answers and the insights gained.

How to prepare for a CustDev-interview?

Step one — define the interview goals. For example, to find out what features the potential users need and what they feel is missing in similar products. Ideally, in-depth interview should identify your audience’s problems/pain points.

Step two – formulate the hypotheses. They will be tested during the conversation, such as why a user would use your app or why he might need a specific feature.

Step three – make a list of the open questions. For example, what features would help you to plan your day better and focus on the tasks? Here are some more examples of the questions:

• How do you solve this problem right now?
• Why does this bother you?
• What could be the consequences of this situation?

Ask only about the respondent’s past experience, not about the future. During the interview, it’s important to find out how the market already works without you and your idea. This is the only way to generate a true picture.

Step four – create a comfortable environment. Choose a suitable location, and before moving on to the questions, start with a brief conversation. Also, offer your interviewee some water and make sure that no external factors will distract you.

Step five – listen carefully.  The goal of CustDev interview is not to talk about a product or sell it, but to identify the interviewee’s pain points and needs. It’s also important not to interrupt a person, while still steering the conversation in the right direction.

What should you do with the research findings?

You can group the answers received and analyse them later. It’s important to remember that you don’t need to implement the requests and ideas of the persons you are talking to exactly as they are. It’s enough to propose the best solution based on the available resources, starting with creating an MVP.