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 free tool for running the how-would-you-feel-without-this survey that underpins the Superhuman method, giving you a... Sean Ellis and GoPractice Tool · Free tool Product/Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis In 4 answers
  2. The fastest way to mine real customer complaints and comparisons about your competitors, the negative reviews are a free... G2 Tool · ongoing G2, software reviews and competitive comparison G2 In 3 answers
  3. A short form that produces a starter interview script tailored to your product, built on the same rules as Wilcox's videos... Customer Development Labs Tool Customer Interview Script Generator Justin Wilcox In 3 answers
  4. Reading 20 transcripts in your head is where patterns get lost. Dovetail lets you import interview transcripts, tag the moments... Dovetail Tool · Ongoing tool, free tier available Dovetail Dovetail In 2 answers
  5. The free course from the person who coined get out of the building, the core idea that no facts about your idea live inside... Udacity Course · Self-paced, ~8 lessons How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad Steve Blank In 2 answers
  6. A ready made list of open, past behavior questions you can literally bring into your next call, grouped so you're not... Indie Hackers Template 24 User Interview Questions you can use (free template too!) Joshua Tabansi In 2 answers
  7. This is the practical way to act on the route around your inner circle entirely part of your short answer: it is a marketplace... Respondent.io Tool Respondent Respondent.io In 2 answers
  8. The fastest, cheapest way to ship a real, responsive one-page site or landing page today, free to start, a few dollars a year... carrd.co Tool · Tool Carrd, simple one-page website builder AJ (Carrd)
  9. If live calls drain you, Clarity lets you watch how real people actually use your product without ever getting on a call. You... Microsoft Tool Microsoft Clarity Microsoft
  10. Once you launch, feedback arrives scattered across email, calls, Slack, and support tickets, and it quietly disappears. Canny... Canny Tool · Free plan, paid tiers from $19/mo Canny: Customer Feedback Management Canny
  11. Once you have a hunch about who your best customers are, you need to check it against behaviour, and Mixpanel is a real... Mixpanel Tool Cohort analysis: how to read the chart, choose a platform, and turn retention into growth Mixpanel
  12. This is the most durable, genuinely free one-page ICP format your whole team can adopt without setting up a spreadsheet or... HubSpot Template · One-page fillable template plus short guide HubSpot's Free Ideal Customer Profile Template (Make My Persona) HubSpot
  13. This is a free, copyable worksheet built on Dunford's method, with a dedicated target market characteristics box so you write... Miroverse Template · Fill-in worksheet April Dunford's Positioning Template (Miroverse) Erwan Derlyn (based on April Dunford's framework)
  14. Once you have found the job and written behavior-based questions, Typeform is a fast, accessible way to field them. Its... typeform.com Tool Typeform Survey Maker Typeform
  15. This is a ready-to-run interview script written for the exact moment you have an idea but nothing to show, so a non-technical... Deploy Empathy Template · One page, full script Customer Interview Script: Discovery Phase (before you've built anything) Michele Hansen (Deploy Empathy)
  16. When a competitor shares no numbers, their own website still leaks signal, and BuiltWith reads it for you. Paste a private... BuiltWith Tool · Free lookup, instant per-site scan BuiltWith Technology Lookup BuiltWith
  17. When analyst reports do not exist, MCA filings are one of the few honest data points you can actually get in India, and Tofler... Tofler Tool Tofler: Indian Company Financials and Filings TWS Systems Private Limited
  18. When you cannot read the code or the spec sheet, real buyers can. G2 lets you pull up any technical competitor, sort to the one... G2 Tool G2 (business software review directory) G2.com
  19. Instead of refreshing competitor pages all day, you set up an alert once per competitor and let the updates come to you in a... Google Tool · A few minutes to set up Google Alerts Google
  20. A one page template that forces you to write down the problem, the customer, and why you are placed to solve it, all on a... leanfoundry.com Template · one page Lean Canvas Ash Maurya
  21. Your short answer names the LOI as a real B2B validation signal, and this is a clean, lawyer-built template made for exactly... Common Paper Template · 1 to 2 page template Free Letter of Intent Template Common Paper
  22. A one-page tool for writing down what you have learned about a customer's jobs, pains, and gains, then checking whether your... Strategyzer Tool · template The Value Proposition Canvas Strategyzer
  23. Your short answer says to watch real sessions, and this is the most common tool for doing exactly that: replaying where new... Hotjar Tool · self-serve tool Hotjar Session Recordings Hotjar
  24. A ready-made template for drafting a comparable, reusable question set across every interview, which matters because you can... Notion Template Customer Interview Question Generator Notion

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 →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →