3 Ways to Fail at Customer Development (And How to Avoid Them)
If you learned nothing surprising, you made a sales call.
By Tristan Kromer · · 3 min read The squarest disco ball you’ll ever see (customer development)[/caption]
Quick Answer: The biggest customer development failures come from leading the witness (confirming your own hypotheses instead of learning), failing to document findings, and taking customer statements at face value. As product managers, we need to recognize that if we learn nothing surprising in an interview, we probably made a sales call. People are terrible at hypotheticals and predicting their own behavior, so instead of asking “Would you buy this?”, we should seek real commitment signals like purchase orders before building anything.
The customer confirmed all of our hypotheses! We’re awesome! I mean really, who wouldn’t want a square disco ball? Let’s go build it!
Bullshit. In the unlikely event that your revolutionary new product, the square disco ball, is actually a customer need, the customer will still challenge your expectations of what the product should be with either:
- Pricing discrepancies - “I would’ve paid more than $2000 for that.”
- Unexpected use cases - “This will make a great piñata!”
- Marketing material miscommunication - “What is this disco thing of which you speak?”
- Ridiculous feature requests that no one else will want - “Why doesn’t this disco ball come in a nice plaid?”
If you take the time to talk to customers and learn absolutely nothing new about your product, even if only a few random brainstorm ideas, then you probably were talking to not with the customer. So congratulations, you made a sales call. You were probably leading the witness the entire time. You did not do a customer development interview. Fail #2 - θυμάστε αυτό
That was the greatest customer development interview ever! The customer, Alice, told me all about how she uses the product, made some great feature suggestions. I think one of them was to make a rhomboid disco ball.
Umm… buy a notebook. Taking notes is a pain in the ass but it has to be done. Even if you have an eidetic memory, your co-founders do not and they need to know what you learned. Taking notes is part of communicating your findings. If you can’t take notes during the interview, do it right afterwards. Best is to tag team a customer discovery interview with a partner so one person can focus on talking and the other can take notes and can critique your technique afterwards in case you were leading the witness. Fail #3 - Being Gullible
Great! The customer said they’d pay $2,000 and order twenty square disco balls if we included a disco Jesus bobblehead. Let’s start manufacturing!
Customer development is not just doing what the customer tells you to do. It’s figuring out what the customer really wants. It should not surprise anyone that people don’t always know what they want and are terrible at introspection and hypotheticals. Here’s a terrible question:
Would you buy a square disco ball for $2000 if I include a disco Jesus bobblehead?
A better question:
Would you like to pay with cash or credit card?
Listening to the customer is great at establishing whether or not there is a customer need. It’s not so great a predicting behavior. In this case, purchasing behavior. This is particularly true when it comes to entertainment products (like disco balls) which don’t meet a clear and present need (like artificial hearts.) It’s not like you can ask, “How would you like to lose $20 in $20 minutes?” to see if I like blackjack. Make sure you understand the hypothese you’re trying to test and build the right test. In regards to square disco balls, get a purchase order before you start manufacturing them. Bonus Fail
What’s customer development?
Dude…get out of the building. Cheers, Tristan
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most common mistake people make during customer development interviews?
The most common mistake is leading the witness — talking to customers instead of with them. If every hypothesis gets confirmed and you learn nothing new, you likely made a sales pitch, not a customer development interview. Genuine interviews should surface surprises like pricing discrepancies, unexpected use cases, or feature requests you never anticipated.
Why is taking notes so important during customer development?
Even if you have a great memory, your co-founders and team don’t — and they need to know what you learned. Taking notes is essential for communicating findings. The best approach is to tag-team interviews with a partner: one person talks while the other takes notes and critiques your technique to ensure you’re not leading the customer.
How do you tell the difference between what customers say and what they’ll actually do?
People are notoriously bad at introspection and hypotheticals, so we can’t take stated purchasing intent at face value. Instead of asking “Would you buy this for $2,000?”, try to get actual commitment — like a purchase order. Customer development is great for validating whether a need exists, but it’s unreliable for predicting specific behavior without real-world tests.
What’s the right way to validate pricing in customer development?
Don’t ask hypothetical pricing questions like “Would you pay X for this?” — customers will say yes without meaning it. Instead, test pricing with real commitment signals. As the article suggests, asking “Would you like to pay with cash or credit card?” gets closer to actual behavior than any hypothetical ever will. Get a purchase order before you start building.
What does “get out of the building” mean in customer development?
It’s a phrase coined by Steve Blank meaning you need to leave your office and talk directly to real customers. Customer development requires face-to-face (or direct) conversations to validate your assumptions about what customers need, how they’d use your product, and whether they’d actually pay for it — not just theorizing from behind a desk.
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