Instead of general discovery, conduct "loss calls" with prospects who chose a competitor. This provides unfiltered feedback on what capabilities truly matter, where your product falls short, and whether your pricing or sales process—not just features—was the problem.
Related Insights
The common advice to conduct unbiased discovery interviews sounds logical but often fails. The truest way to validate an idea and understand customer needs is through the act of selling. This forces a concrete value exchange and reveals genuine demand in a way that hypothetical conversations cannot.
Customers describe an idealized version of their world in interviews. To understand their true problems and workflows, you must be physically present. This uncovers the crucial gap between their perception and day-to-day reality.
Unlike sales-led companies that get feedback from sales calls, PLG companies are blind to their competitive positioning without formal research. You must conduct jobs-to-be-done interviews to uncover why customers chose you over alternatives, as relying on internal assumptions or simple "what do you love" surveys is misleading.
Most problems customers describe are "pain points" they won't act on. You can't distinguish these from real, actionable demand ("pull") through interviews alone. The only true test is presenting a viable solution and attempting to sell it. Their reaction—whether they try to pull it from you—is the only reliable signal.
To find a competitor's real weaknesses, go beyond their marketing. Message their ex-employees on LinkedIn for operational insights and analyze their 1-star G2/Capterra reviews to identify the persistent product flaws that anger customers the most.
If a sales sprint results in confusing data and you can't figure out why some prospects are interested and others aren't, the answer isn't more calls. The next step is to go in-person and shadow a potential customer for a day. Direct, firsthand observation will reveal more ground truth than months of interviews.
Instead of reacting defensively when a customer mentions a competitor, use it to probe their underlying needs. Asking 'What do you like about it?' helps differentiate between a critical feature gap ('the steak') and a superficial want ('the sizzle'), keeping you focused on solving real problems.
Profound market insights come from rigorously analyzing why potential customers fail to convert, not just studying happy ones. Tripling down to understand why a prospect "dropped out" of the sales journey provides a more complete picture of product gaps and value proposition weaknesses than focusing only on successful closes.
Instead of broad surveys, interview 10-12 satisfied customers who signed up in the last few months. Their fresh memory of the problem and evaluation phases provides the most accurate insights into why people truly buy your product, allowing you to find patterns and replicate success.
Don't shy away from competitors. A powerful customer discovery tactic is to present competing solutions directly to prospects and ask them specifically what they dislike or what's missing. This method surfaces critical product gaps and unmet needs you can build your solution around.
