The first step in research is defining what you want to build, and then figuring out who will be speaking with it. The next piece of focus is around those learning goals; there's going to be a million things that you want to learn. It could be so tempting to ask about 10 things at once: This is your opportunity to go deep. But sometimes when you try to learn about too many things at once, you can have some variables that start to conflict with one another.
Our guest today is Jeanette Mellinger, Head of UX Research at BetterUp and our User Research Expert in Residence at First Round.
In today’s conversation, Jeanette unspools her tested playbook for high-quality customer interviews, with particular advice for founders in the very early days of validating an idea, including:
- The three-step framework for a thorough user-research process
- The biggest mistakes she’s noticed after working with dozens of early-stage companies
- Specific advice for structuring an interview flow and crafting better questions that unlock essential insights
You can follow Jeanette on Twitter at @jnetmell
You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.