Understand your customers

Talk to real users, define who you're for, and read the market clearly.

What founders use for understand your customers, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick In 28 answers
  2. A short, practical field guide to customer discovery: who to talk to, how to find them, and how many. Pairs perfectly with The... talkingtohumans.com Book · ~80 pages (free PDF available) Talking to Humans Giff Constable In 14 answers
  3. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham In 12 answers
  4. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra In 12 answers
  5. To say no to the right requests you need feedback you can trust, and this shows how to get it by watching customers rather than... First Round Review Article · 12 min read Get in the Van and Other Tips for Getting Meaningful Customer Feedback Michael Sippey In 11 answers
  6. A step-by-step guide to running discovery when you have almost no data, aimed squarely at first-time founders. It is practical... First Round Review Article · 15 min read A Founder's Guide for Successful Early-Stage Customer Discovery Jeanette Mellinger In 10 answers
  7. The standard modern playbook for keeping discovery continuous so roadmap decisions stay grounded in real customer input, not... Product Talk Book · ~240 pages Continuous Discovery Habits Teresa Torres In 9 answers
  8. Hall's book gives you the research discipline behind good interviewing: how to avoid leading a witness, how to write a... A Book Apart / Erika Hall Book · ~120 pages Just Enough Research Erika Hall In 7 answers
  9. The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for... paulgraham.com Essay · ~20 min read How to Get Startup Ideas Paul Graham In 6 answers
  10. The definitive book on picking a beachhead niche and using the bowling-alley strategy to go from early adopters to mainstream.... HarperCollins Book · ~270 pages Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers Geoffrey A. Moore In 5 answers
  11. Dunford's whole method starts with the customers who already love your product, then turns that into positioning the entire... April Dunford Book · Short book, about 200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford In 5 answers
  12. The cleanest distillation of the one framework that turns a customer chat into a relationship instead of a survey. The three... Sachin Rekhi's Blog Article · 10 min read A Primer on Talking to Customers From Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test Sachin Rekhi In 5 answers
  13. The idea that started the lean movement, from the person who coined it. No business plan survives first contact with customers,... steveblank.com Article · ~8 min read Get Out of the Building Steve Blank In 5 answers
  14. A UX-research leader (ex-Uber Eats, BetterUp) gives founders a concrete three-step discovery process, including how to recruit... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read A founder-friendly playbook for early customer discovery First Round Review (Jeanette Mellinger) In 4 answers
  15. A clear, operator-written guide from a respected SaaS-analytics company on defining and using an ICP to focus scarce startup... ChartMogul Blog Article · ~12 min read Without an ideal customer profile (ICP), your growth is just guesswork ChartMogul In 4 answers
  16. One of the few pieces that clearly untangles ICP vs persona vs JTBD without jargon, so founders stop conflating them. Useful as... netretention.io Article · ~14 min read Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), ABM, JTBD and Personas: knowing your customer Net Retention In 4 answers
  17. The primary-source telling of the milkshake story, the single most memorable illustration of Jobs to Be Done, straight from... HBS Working Knowledge Article · ~8 min read Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing Clayton Christensen (via Harvard Business School) In 4 answers
  18. The most practitioner-friendly deep dive into JTBD, with interviews and case studies on applying it to real products. Free to... jtbd.info / alanklement.com Book · ~230 pages When Coffee and Kale Compete: Become great at making products people will buy Alan Klement In 4 answers
  19. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford In 4 answers
  20. Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean, argues you can always find how a customer solves a job today, and that existing workaround... LEANFoundry Article · About a 10 minute read Find Better Problems Worth Solving with the Customer Forces Canvas Ash Maurya In 4 answers
  21. A founder-friendly crash course on planning and running discovery interviews, with tactics from researchers at Zoom, Zapier,... First Round Review Article · 20 min read A UX Research Crash Course for Founders Jane Davis In 4 answers
  22. The book that coined get out of the building and launched the customer development movement. Blank's core claim is that a... Wiley Book The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank In 4 answers
  23. The foundational text of customer development, 'get out of the building' started here and became the backbone of the Lean... steveblank.com Book · ~370 pages The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win Steve Blank In 3 answers
  24. A PM-turned-founder's playbook that treats defining the right customer and problem as a sequence of concrete hurdles, not... First Round Review Article · ~18 min read 8 Product Hurdles Every Founder Must Clear First Round Review In 3 answers

Show the next 24

The questions

Talking to customers & user research 18

Learn the truth without leading the witness.

How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? 24 → What questions should I actually ask in a customer interview? 22 → How many customer interviews do I need before I trust the signal? 24 → Where do I find people to interview when I have zero audience? 24 → How do I run customer discovery as an Indian founder building for Indian users? 24 → All 18 questions in Talking to customers & user research →
Defining your ideal customer 18

Know exactly who you're for (and who you're not).

What is an ideal customer profile and how do I define mine? 2 → How specific should my target customer be when I'm just starting? 3 → What's the difference between an ICP, a buyer persona, and a target market? 2 → How do I know if I'm targeting the wrong customer? 2 → Should I focus on one customer segment or serve everyone who'll pay? 2 → All 18 questions in Defining your ideal customer →
Finding your niche / beachhead 17

Win a tiny market completely before going wide.

What is a beachhead market and why does everyone say to start with one? 2 → How do I pick which niche to go after first? 3 → Isn't picking a tiny niche going to limit how big I can get? 2 → How do I know when I've won my niche and it's time to expand? 2 → How do I find a defensible niche in a market full of big incumbents? 2 → All 17 questions in Finding your niche / beachhead →
Understanding the problem (JTBD) 17

People hire products to do a job, find the job.

What does 'jobs to be done' actually mean? 2 → How is JTBD different from features, personas, or user needs? 2 → How do I actually uncover the job my customers are hiring my product for? 3 → Who are my real competitors once I think in jobs to be done? 3 → How do I turn a job to be done into product and messaging decisions? 2 → All 17 questions in Understanding the problem (JTBD) →
Competitive & market research 18

Know the landscape better than the incumbents.

How do I research my competitors properly? 2 → What if my customers say they have no competitors, is that good or bad? 2 → What tools should I use to track competitors and market landscape? 2 → How do I position against a bigger, better-funded competitor? 2 → How do I size the market and figure out if it's big enough? 2 → All 18 questions in Competitive & market research →
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