Synthesizing what you know
Objective: Map the competitive landscape and identify the forces driving customer behavior.
Pre-work (Done with AI):
- Compile all customer conversations, support tickets, and sales call notes.
- Use AI tools to analyze themes and extract common pain points.
- Search for "voice of customer" data from review sites, forums, Reddit, and Twitter.
- Identify 5-10 potential customer segments.
Hour 1: The competitive landscape (60 min)
Most startups only look at Direct Competitors. This is a mistake. Customers choose between you, a spreadsheet, and doing nothing, rather than just between you and a rival software.
Gather everyone who has talked to customers. On a shared board, map the three layers of competition.
1. Direct Competitors (Doing the same job in the same way)
- Example (Slack): Microsoft Teams or HipChat.
- Question: Who else is pitching the exact same software solution?
2. Secondary Competitors (Doing the same job in a different way)
- Example (Slack): Email threads, text messages, or walking over to a colleague's desk.
- Question: What non-software workaround are they using to solve the problem?
3. Indirect Competitors (Doing a different job with a conflicting outcome)
- Example (Slack): "Deep Work" policies where teams disable all communication to focus.
- Question: What alternative path makes the problem irrelevant?
Hour 2: The four forces of progress (45 min)
Customers don't just "buy" products; they "hire" them to make progress in their lives. This progress is governed by four specific forces (The JTBD Framework).
For your top segment, brainstorm the specific drivers for each force:
The Forces of Progress:
- Push (Current Pain): What is happening right now that makes the current situation unbearable?
- Slack Example: "I missed a critical update because it was buried in a 50-email chain."
- Pull (New Solution): What is the magnetic appeal of the new life you offer?
- Slack Example: "I want to be able to search one place and find every file and decision instantly."
- Inertia (Habit): What habits keep them stuck in the old way?
- Slack Example: "Everyone already has email open all day. It's just what we do."
- Anxiety (Uncertainty): What specific fears prevent them from switching to you?
- Slack Example: "If we switch, will I just be distracted by notifications all day?"
The Equation: For a switch to happen, (Push + Pull) must be greater than (Inertia + Anxiety).
Break (15 min)
Hour 3: Research plan (60 min)
Now that you have a hypothesis about the forces, you need to validate them. Create a research plan for the next 5 hours.
- Who will we talk to? (10-15 people per segment)
- How will we reach them? (LinkedIn, communities, existing users, ads)
- What do we need to learn? (Write 5-7 core questions based on the 4 Forces)
Core interview questions:
Investigating Push (Current Pain):
- "Take me back to the moment you realized [current solution] wasn't working anymore. What happened?"
- "What was the tipping point that made you start looking for something new?"
Investigating Pull (Desired Outcome):
- "If you had a solution for this, what would you be able to do that you can't do now?"
- "What does 'success' look like for you in this specific situation?"
Investigating Inertia (Habits & Alternatives):
- "How are you currently dealing with this? Walk me through the steps."
- "Have you tried to fix this before? Why did you stop?"
- "Who are our 'secondary competitors'? Are you using spreadsheets, manual workarounds, or hiring people?"
Investigating Anxiety (Fears):
- "What makes you nervous about trying a new solution for this?"
- "If you hired [our product], what is your biggest worry about what could go wrong?"
Critical Rule: Never pitch your solution during discovery interviews. Your job is to understand the forces at play, rather than increasing the "Pull" by selling features.