What to ask in a customer interview to get the truth

Because a hypothetical yes costs nothing and keeps the conversation pleasant. Rob Fitzpatrick built a whole book, The Mom Test (2013), on this point. People tend to tell you your idea is good out of politeness, not malice.

Many founders say they want honest feedback before they spend months building. That is our observation, not a measured finding. Your own instinct makes it worse. You built the thing, so you want to show the thing. Once you start pitching, every answer after that is about you, not about their problem.

Questions about the past. This short set works for most problems:

1. "Tell me about the last time this happened."
2. "What did you do next?"
3. "What have you tried to fix it, and how did that go?"
4. "What does it cost you now, in time or money?"
5. "Who else around you deals with this?"

None of them mention your product. Each one can be answered with "that never happened", and that answer has to be possible. If a question only allows a yes, it is collecting politeness.

A leading question hints at the answer you want. Here are three common ones, each with a fix:

• Instead of "Wouldn't it be easier if this were automatic?", ask "How do you handle that today?"
• Instead of "Was it just that you got busy?", ask "What were you trying to do the last time you opened it?"
• Instead of "Would you pay for this?", ask "What do you spend on this problem now?"

The first version of each hands the person an easy way out. The second asks for a fact they actually have.

Here is an illustrative example, not a real founder or a real tool run. Say you built an MVP (minimum viable product), the smallest version you can put in front of real people. A few dozen people signed up, but only a handful still use it, and you want to call the ones who stopped.

A good script opens with the day they signed up and what they hoped to get done. Then it walks to the last time they opened it and what they were trying to do that day. It avoids the win-back pitch, "we've added a new feature, want to try again?", because that turns the call into a polite no.

The User Interview Script Generator drafts a script like this from your situation. It is built to keep questions anchored in the past and to point out leading ones. Change the details to fit your case. Be careful rewording the questions, though: casual edits tend to bring the leading questions back.

Specific beats enthusiastic. These are worth writing down:

• a real story with details, like a date, a name or a number;
• a workaround they built themselves, such as a spreadsheet or a hired helper;
• money or hours they already spend on the problem;
• an offer to introduce you to someone, or to try something right now.

"That's so cool" and "I'd totally use that" are noise. Hesitation when you ask for a small commitment is not failure. The conditions people attach often describe the real problem better than anything else they say. If the people saying yes are your friends, read why a friend's yes is weak evidence.

No single number fits every market, so treat any exact count as a guess. A practical rule, and it is our opinion: keep going until you hear the same pain told the same way by people who do not know each other.

The strongest case against that rule: in a tiny niche you may only reach a few people. Then go deeper with each one rather than wider. The missing fact that matters most is whether the people you spoke to are the ones who would pay.

That is the step before this one. Start with whom to talk to and where to find them. When the interviews show a repeated pain, move to the smallest thing to build to test it.

No. Go back through your notes or recordings. For each call, write down the one real frustration in their words, what they do instead today, and what they committed to versus hedged on. The pattern across calls is your finding.

Book three conversations with people who have the problem. Before each one, write five questions that all start in the past. Afterward, write down three things: the frustration in their words, what they do today instead, and anything they committed to.