Essay · 10 min read

B2B Customer Discovery Interview Questions: A Master List

Etienne Garbugli · Lean Startup Digest (Medium) Free Intermediate

Garbugli, a three-time B2B founder, lays out the actual questions to ask about business drivers, pain intensity, and who owns the buying decision, which is more concrete than most generic interview guides. If your target is a B2B buyer rather than a consumer, this fills in the organizational questions The Mom Test doesn't cover in depth.

  • Ask who owns the problem inside the company, not just who feels the pain
  • Run two passes: a wide discovery interview, then a narrow drill-down one
  • Customers who recently switched from a competitor make the best case studies
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The question it answers

  1. How do I recruit and interview my competitor's customers without it getting weird or them shutting down?

Read with it

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  2. A YC partner turns 'talk to users' into a repeatable 5-question interview script you can use this afternoon. It's The Mom Test... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky (YC / founder of Pebble)
  3. 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
  4. The most-quoted primary source on why founders should launch fast and iterate, short, canonical, and from the co-founder of YC.... paulgraham.com Article · ~8 min read Startups in 13 Sentences Paul Graham
  5. 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
  6. Video · ~20 min How To Talk To Users | Startup School Gustaf Alstromer
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