Five Great Questions to Ask in a User Interview

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The best startups are looking for problems that people face on a regular basis, or that they're painful enough to warrant solving. The third trap that we pretty much all fall into is that we talk. Try to try to restrain your your ah, your em interest in in talking, and really listen, take notes and listen to what the user is saying. I think t there are five great questions that everyone can ask during their early customer interviews.

We've cut down the first week of Startup School lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.

First, a lecture from Kevin Hale. Kevin is a YC partner and a cofounder of Wufoo. His lecture is about How to Evaluate Startup Ideas.

Then, a lecture from Eric Migicovsky. Eric is a YC partner and the founder of Pebble. His lecture is about How to Talk to Users.

Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.

Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/

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Topics

00:00 - Intro

00:43 - Kevin Hale on How to Evaluate Startup Ideas

2:04 - How can I predict if an investor will like my idea?

2:50 - A startup idea is a hypothesis

5:44 - Problem

6:59 - Solution

8:16 - Insight

8:57 - Unfair advantages

13:45 - Two beliefs about startups

15:19 - Eric Migicovsky on How to Talk to Users

17:36 - Three common errors people make when talking to users

20:20 - Five questions to ask in a user interview

20:28 - What's the hardest part about doing the thing you're trying to solve?

21:02 - Tell me about the last time that you encountered this problem

21:22 - Why was this hard?

23:08 - What, if anything, have you done to try to solve this problem?

24:10 - What don't you love about the solutions you've already tried?

25:21 - Three stages in which talking to users is extremely beneficial

26:07 - Idea stage

30:40 - Prototype stage

33:41 - Iterating towards product market fit