Every founder knows they should talk to users. Fewer know that most user conversations produce polite lies. People want to be nice, so they tell you your product is interesting. Here is how to have conversations that surface the truth instead.
Ask about the past, not the future
"Would you use this?" invites a guess, and people are bad at predicting their own behavior. "Tell me about the last time you dealt with this problem" invites a story. Stories have details: what they tried, what it cost them, where they gave up. Details are where the learning lives.
Shut up after your question
Founders love their product, so they fill silences with explanations. Resist it. Ask your question, then count to five in your head. The pause feels awkward to you and gives the other person room to say the thing they were editing out. The best answers usually arrive after a hesitation.
Follow the emotion, not the script
When someone's voice changes - frustration, embarrassment, excitement - that is the door. Walk through it. "You sighed when you mentioned the spreadsheet. What happened there?" A rigid list of questions gets you rigid answers. The tangents are often the point.
Do not pitch during a learning call
The moment you start selling, the other person switches from telling you about their life to reacting to your product. You came to learn, so keep the product out of it. If they ask, say you will show them at the end, and keep that promise in the last five minutes.
Write it down the same day
Memory rewrites conversations fast, usually in your favor. Right after the call, note the exact words they used for the problem, the tools they mentioned, and anything that surprised you. After ten conversations, patterns appear that no single chat would show you.
A quick checklist
- Did you ask about a specific past experience instead of a hypothetical?
- Did you stay quiet long enough to hear the unedited answer?
- Did you chase at least one emotion you noticed?
- Did you avoid pitching until the learning was done?
- Did you write your notes the same day?
The takeaway
Good user conversations feel less like interviews and more like listening to someone think out loud about their own life. Get out of the way, and they will hand you your roadmap.
When those conversations turn into a product worth showing, submit your startup on Maidensail, or see how other founders present theirs in the registry. To get your first users to talk to, read our post on getting your first 10 customers.
