#39 - Interviewing Users Every Day for A Year with Jonathan Anderson of Candu

After three failed MVPs, Jonathan Anderson and the team at Candu realized they needed a better strategy for understanding how users interact with their product. So they started doing some user interviews. And they kept doing them. Every day for a year before launching their product. Jonathan chatted with Erin and JH about what he learned from those interviews, how it changed the direction of his company, and how he went from a total newbie to a research pro.

Highlights

• [5:36] Doing one interview a day every day keeps the Candu team curious about what the users have to say, rather than hearing the same things all in one day.
• [8:29] Jonathan and his team always ask users what they would expect the prototype to do.
• [11:34] How do you know when you've done enough interviews?
• [13:31] Creating low-fidelity designs to use, even if it's just drawing within Zoom, is incredibly helpful to Candu's design team.
• [15:51] After their third failed MVP, Jonathan and his team decided they need to make research a priority to build something truly great.
• [16:41] Candu built out a panel of trusted partners who gave great feedback and wanted to be a part of building something new. They supplemented this with new people to get great perspectives regularly.
• [21:55] When Jonathan started, he really didn't know how to do a user interview. Learning to step back from his excitement and be objective was important in evaluating feedback.
• [23:53] Jonathan shares his secret to identifying good research participants
• [26:12] Asking people about their process and how they currently solve thier problem can be illuminating, both for your process and finding the right people to interview.
• [29:02] Research shifted Candu's entire outlook as a company