#161 - Learn More Faster About Customers with Michael Margolis of GV
Feb 26, 2025
auto_awesome
Michael Margolis, a UX Research Partner at GV and author of "Learn More Faster," shares insights from his 30+ years in UX research. He introduces the Bullseye Customer Method to accelerate learning from customers, emphasizing teamwork for effective research. He discusses crafting open-ended survey questions and the current UX job market's evolution. Furthermore, Michael highlights how AI impacts researchers and the benefits of team watch parties for collaborative analysis—ideal for anyone in early-stage product development.
Collaborative customer research enhances team engagement, fostering deeper insights and collective understanding of customer feedback.
Identifying the 'bullseye customer' is essential for targeted product development, focusing on a specific subset of the market.
The Bullseye Customer Sprint method streamlines research by prioritizing rapid customer insights, reducing time spent on lengthy design activities.
Deep dives
The Power of Collaborative Experience
Experiencing research collaboratively within a team is a significantly impactful approach to learning. Instead of reviewing recorded sessions individually, participating together fosters deeper engagement and collective understanding. By documenting insights during these shared experiences and collecting reflections through a follow-up form, teams create a cohesive view of learnings and actionable next steps. This method facilitates immediate discussion, leading to greater alignment and consensus on the identified customer insights.
The Importance of Defining the Bullseye Customer
Identifying the 'bullseye customer' is crucial for targeted product development and marketing strategies. This concept focuses on a specific subset of the target market that is most likely to engage with a product based on precise criteria. Inclusion and exclusion criteria play a vital role in this process, encouraging teams to think critically about who their ideal customers are and who they can set aside initially. An example highlighted was an insurance tech company targeting life insurance to millennials, which required understanding life events that trigger customer action, such as having a baby or getting married.
Streamlining Design Sprints
The Bullseye Customer Sprint method offers a more efficient alternative to traditional design sprints by emphasizing rapid customer insights. This process aims to accelerate teams' understanding of their target audience and reduce the time spent in lengthy design activities. By condensing a full week's work into focused sessions that prioritize customer feedback, teams can identify core problems, leading to quicker adjustments and decision-making. This approach empowers teams to start answering critical questions about their customers and product direction more swiftly.
The Value of Prototyping in Research
Creating simple prototypes before customer interviews is a key component of effective research that encourages valuable feedback. These prototypes can range from landing pages to rough outlines of value propositions, allowing customers to compare multiple ideas and prioritize their preferences. By eliciting detailed comparisons, researchers gain insights into what features resonate most with customers and how to iterate product concepts effectively. This structured comparison helps clarify which aspects of a product offer the most promise and drive customer interest.
The Role of Team Dynamics in Research
Team involvement throughout the research process significantly enhances the value derived from customer interactions. By ensuring that core team members participate actively in interviews, everyone gains firsthand experience of customer feedback, leading to richer discussions during debriefs. This collaborative environment not only strengthens the team's alignment on findings but also builds a shared understanding of customer needs. Keeping the same core group involved fosters accountability and collective decision-making in subsequent project phases.
This episode is all about learning from customers...early and often. Our guest, Michael Margolis, UX Research Partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), has made a career of helping teams do this successfully. He joins to share his Bullseye Customer Method, which is the result of his experience (it's also the subject of his latest book, "Learn More Faster," which is available for free).
Michael breaks down the Bullseye Customer Method, including best practices for recruitment, question design, and analysis. He's found that research is more successful when it's a team effort, and shares ways to promote cross-team collaboration throughout the Bullseye process, like using watch parties for share-outs. Michael also weighs in (using his 30+ years in the industry) on topics like the current UX job market, the impact of AI on researchers, and the power democratization for resource-limited teams.
It's a must-listen for anyone working on early-stage products or struggling with visibility and buy-in from stakeholders.
Highlights
06:33 Defining Core Value Proposition
16:29 Founders' Key Concerns Analysis
21:58 Clarifying Customer Understanding
26:38 Effective Open-Ended Survey Questions
31:46 Leveraging Associations for Networking
43:01 Benefits of Team Watch Parties
About Michael Michael joined GV in 2010 as the venture industry’s first UX research partner. As a UX researcher with over 30 years of experience, Michael has boosted conversion, tested new concepts, streamlined workflows, and defined bullseye customers for hundreds of companies. He helped develop the design sprint method made famous by the seminal book, Sprint. He has also written about his research work for startups at medium.com/@mmargolis.
