12 resources from Product Talk we point founders to, and the questions each answers.
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The standard modern playbook for keeping discovery continuous so roadmap decisions stay grounded in real customer input, not one-off research. Exactly what founders need to stay close to users while shipping.
Torres lays out a clean ladder for testing willingness to pay without waiting to finish the product: ask about past spending, then run a demand test with a real pricing page, then actually ask for the money via pre-orders or a concierge sale. It is practical and honest about why hypothetical 'would you pay?' questions give you data you cannot trust. Useful whether you are in Bengaluru or building outside the big startup hubs, since none of it needs a finished product.
The thing that drains most founders is treating research as a big occasional project, so it always feels heavy. Teresa Torres makes the opposite case: one small, regular touchpoint with users each week becomes a keystone habit that quietly pulls the rest of your discovery along with it. For a solo founder, this is the mindset shift from dreading research to running it as a light, repeatable routine instead of a weekly ordeal.
The strongest way to research a private competitor is to talk to the people who left them, and this essay grounds that tactic in a real interview method. Teresa Torres explains the story-based approach, where you collect the customer's actual story of what happened rather than asking leading questions, and she names churned users as a segment worth interviewing to learn what the real problem was. It turns a vague idea (go talk to their ex-customers) into a repeatable habit you can run every week.
Torres takes the next step after you accept you cannot reach significance: figure out what you are actually trying to learn, then pick a method that fits. She walks through swapping A/B tests for customer interviews, paper prototypes, think-aloud sessions, and competitive research depending on the question, so low traffic stops being a dead end. The line to carry: do not let a lack of traffic keep you from learning what you need to learn.
A free one-page template for capturing what you actually learned from a single interview, so the insight does not evaporate. It forces you to record real quotes, facts, and needs rather than your own interpretation, which keeps you honest about signal versus wishful thinking. Downloadable in Google Slides, PowerPoint, and Keynote.
This is the most direct answer to the second half of your question: where do you actually find these people. The piece walks through real channels (LinkedIn, Craigslist, niche communities, paid panels like User Interviews) and the tradeoffs of each when you have zero customers yet. It also stresses defining who you want to talk to first, and staying open as that picture shifts.
Torres makes the single most important move concrete: instead of asking what people generally do, ask them to tell you about a specific recent time it happened. Because memory beats opinion, a real story surfaces the pain and context you would otherwise lead them toward. This is the practical heart of talking about their past, not your future.
A direct answer to the question every founder types into search: what should I actually ask. Torres argues for throwing away the long script and driving the interview from one story based question, then following the thread. Handy when you are staring at a blank interview guide the night before a call.
A clear tour of roadmap styles that shows exactly why a feature by date roadmap sets you up to over promise. Torres contrasts feature roadmaps with theme and Now-Next-Later roadmaps and explains what each hides or reveals about uncertainty. Read it to choose a format on purpose instead of defaulting to a timeline because it looks organized.
This is the practical how-to for actually running the weekly cadence, covering the part most founders get stuck on: recruiting people and making sense of what they said. Torres favors story based interviews where you ask about a specific recent instance rather than generalities. Use it as your operating manual for keeping a steady interview stream alive.
This is close to a direct answer to your exact question, written by a product discovery coach who works with B2B teams every day. Torres lays out the practical split: invest most of your time in what the user needs, and build the minimum checkbox features that unlock the buyer's sign off. It gives you a concrete way to decide, feature by feature, whose voice wins.
