Article

When Are You Done Interviewing Customers?

Justin Wilcox · Customer Dev Labs Free Beginner

A companion piece to the article above, this one focuses on the practical am I done yet moment inside a single discovery sprint, with a simple bet test for predictability. It is short enough to reread right before you decide to stop interviewing. Pair it with the Mom Test for technique and this one for judging when to stop.

  • You are done interviewing when you would bet a hundred dollars you know what the next person will say, and win.
  • Patterns should emerge by interview five, and your major questions should be answered by interview twenty.
  • Different customer segments saturate at different speeds, do not use one number for all of them.

The question it answers

  1. How many customer interviews do I need before I trust the signal?

Read with 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
  2. 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
  3. 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)
  4. 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
  5. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
  6. Video · ~20 min How To Talk To Users | Startup School Gustaf Alstromer
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