Identify your bullseye customer in one day | Michael Margolis (UX Research Partner at GV)

Michael’s background (0s)

• A bullseye customer is a specific subset of a target market who is most likely to adopt a product or service, and understanding this customer helps startups prioritize feedback, align teams, and build a product that people want (25s).
• The concept of a bullseye customer is important because it allows startups to focus on a specific group of people and understand their needs, rather than trying to build a product for everyone (30s).
• The bullseye customer sprint is a process that involves identifying five bullseye customers, creating three simple prototypes, and conducting interviews with these customers in one day while the team watches and debriefs (51s).
• The goal of the bullseye customer sprint is to help startups identify their ideal customer profile and refine their product to meet the needs of this customer (1m37s).
• Michael Margolis, a UX researcher at Google Ventures, has written a book called "Learn More Faster" that provides a guide for identifying and refining a startup's ideal customer profile in a single day (1m30s).
• The book is available for free as a PDF and provides a step-by-step guide for identifying a bullseye customer, recruiting people for interviews, and refining a product idea (1m53s).
• The process of identifying a bullseye customer involves understanding who the target market is, what their needs are, and what problems they are trying to solve (33s).
• The bullseye customer sprint is a valuable tool for both founders and product teams at larger companies who want to avoid building a product that nobody wants (2m20s).
• The sprint involves recruiting five people who fit the ideal customer profile and conducting interviews with them to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and pain points (55s).
• The interviews are conducted in one day, and the team watches and debriefs together to identify key takeaways and refine the product idea (1m0s).
• EPO is a generation AB testing and feature management platform built by alums of Airbnb and Snowflake for modern growth teams, used by companies like Twitch, Miro, ClickUp, and DraftKings to power their experiments. (3m29s)
• Experimentation is increasingly essential for driving growth and understanding the performance of new features, and EPO helps increase experimentation velocity while unlocking rigorous, deep analysis. (3m42s)
• EPO offers advanced statistical methods, an accessible UI for diving deeper into performance, and out-of-the-box reporting to avoid prolonged analytic cycles, making it easy to share experiment insights with teams. (4m10s)
• EPO powers experimentation across various use cases, including product growth, machine learning, monetization, and email marketing. (4m25s)
• Paragon is a developer platform for building native customer-facing integrations with third-party apps, which are mission-critical for B2B software products but can be costly and time-consuming to build in-house. (4m43s)
• According to the 2024 State of Integration Survey, building integrations in-house costs an average of 3 months of engineering, resulting in difficult roadmap tradeoffs. (5m8s)
• Engineering teams at companies like Copy AI, AI 21, and over 100 other B2B SaaS companies use Paragon to focus on core product features, shipping integrations seven times faster while avoiding maintenance. (5m16s)
• The speaker has over 30 years of experience in product and UX work, with a background in anthropology and experience working at educational software, a boutique product design and innovation studio, Walmart.com, and Google. (6m10s)
• The speaker's work has involved studying ethnographic research techniques, usability testing, and combining deep ethnographic discovery work with usability work to accelerate techniques and make them faster. (6m45s)
• Michael Margolis joined a team early on in 2006 and combined innovation at scale with speed, using techniques such as watch parties to involve teams in research and get feedback quickly (7m21s).
• He brought these techniques to Google Ventures (GV) when he joined in 2010 as the first UX research partner in Venture Capital, adapting and experimenting with them over the last 14 years (7m51s).
• Margolis has worked with hundreds of different startups and founders, conducting over 300 hands-on research sprints and providing office hours to many others, across a broad variety of industries including biotech, healthcare, security, and food (8m32s).
• He has refined his process over 30 years of work and iteration, and is now sharing the most important things he's learned and how to apply them (9m2s).
• Margolis' work involves helping founders and product people answer fundamental questions about their products and people, and he has experimented and learned from working with a wide range of companies and industries (8m20s).

Bullseye customers vs. ideal customer profiles (ICPs) (9m11s)

• A bullseye customer is a very specific subset of a target market who is most likely to adopt a product or service initially, and is more specific than the typical ideal customer profile (ICP) or persona (9m23s).
• The concept of bullseye customers is important for accelerating teams and helping founders build successful products by being more focused and specific (9m46s).
• Many successful companies, such as Amazon and Facebook, started by targeting a specific group before expanding to a larger market (10m10s).
• Identifying a bullseye customer helps streamline various aspects of product development, including prioritizing what to build, understanding the target audience's needs, and prioritizing feedback (10m26s).
• Having a clear bullseye customer in mind helps teams stay aligned and focused on what they are doing and what they are doing first (11m1s).
• Google Ventures, as a VC, has incentives aligned with helping startups figure out what will help them succeed, and identifying a bullseye customer is a key part of this process (11m12s).
• Focusing on the bullseye customer helps startups prioritize their roadmap, feedback, and target audience, and gets the whole team moving together faster (12m12s).
• Identifying the target customer is essential for determining the pains to solve for them, how to find them, and ultimately, the success of the product (12m19s).

An overview of the bullseye customer sprint (12m32s)

• The Bullseye customer Sprint is a method for identifying a startup's ideal customer in just one day, allowing for a change in the company's trajectory by getting clear on who they're selling to (13m2s).
• The Sprint involves five Bullseye customers and three simple prototypes, with the whole team watching and debriefing the interviews to identify key takeaways (13m28s).
• The basic formula for the Sprint is "five and three in one," with five Bullseye customers and three prototypes, all conducted in one day (13m31s).
• A key insight of the framework is that you don't need to talk to a ton of potential customers, and instead, you build multiple prototypes rather than iterating on a single one (13m56s).
• The Bullseye customer is a specific subset of the target market who is initially most likely to adopt the product or service, and the goal is to recruit a group of people who match this description (14m17s).
• The Sprint involves qualitative interviews, which are deep and allow for understanding people's stories, motivations, and past experiences, and are done in small batches, ideally in one day (15m2s).
• The whole team watches the interviews to build empathy and understanding, and to hear the customers' stories, which is a powerful way to gain insights (15m27s).
• The interviews are typically one hour long and are clumped together, either in one day or across two days, depending on time zones and other factors (15m45s).
• Conducting multiple qualitative interviews in a clump makes patterns more obvious, allowing for clear big takeaways at the end of the day, such as what worked or didn't work and which parts were good or bad (15m56s).
• Doing five interviews can hit what's called Data Saturation, a concept in qualitative research where common patterns and themes start to emerge, and hearing the same things over and over becomes repetitive (16m26s).
• Qualitative interviews in small clumps, comparing prototypes, and making it a team sport can be valuable in understanding customer needs and preferences (16m50s).
• Comparing multiple prototypes helps teams avoid getting too wed to one specific idea, allowing them to think of new possibilities and be more neutral and objective (18m1s).
• Shopping for anything, such as a couch, involves looking at multiple options and comparing them, which provides different reference points and helps in testing with customers (17m4s).
• Presenting multiple prototypes to customers allows them to compare and contrast across different possibilities and distinct value propositions, rather than just providing feedback on one option (17m31s).
• Making it a team sport, such as through watch parties, can help teams stay engaged and take notes in a structured process, with a facilitator helping to debrief and capture key takeaways in between each interview (18m40s).
• Using a spreadsheet to capture key takeaways and having a structured process for taking notes can help teams stay organized and focused during the interview process (19m14s).
• Partners, such as Kate Arana or Vanessa Cho, can facilitate the back room and help teams take notes and debrief in between each interview (18m56s).
• The goal is to ensure everyone is aligned and has a clear understanding of the key takeaways by the end of the day, without the need for a written report (19m21s).
• The team captures big takeaways through a Google form, which is then discussed and used to create momentum for the next steps (19m46s).
• The approach involves making it a team sport to build consensus and alignment, especially in growing teams where people may be working in different directions (20m11s).
• The key elements of the approach include the bullseye customer concept, which involves identifying a very narrow group of people who would most want the product or service (20m28s).
• The approach also involves making a qualitative comparison of prototypes, rather than relying on surveys or other quantitative methods (20m37s).
• The goal is to provide enough information for listeners to be able to implement this approach themselves, with a little prep time, as early as the next day or week (20m51s).

When to use the bullseye customer sprint (20m56s)

• The bullseye customer sprint can be done multiple times, and the key times to do it are at a high level, before investing a lot of time, energy, and money into building something (21m6s).
• It is usually conducted before building something, such as when expanding into a new group of customers, like entering a new market, for example, from the UK to the US (21m24s).
• Another common scenario for conducting the bullseye customer sprint is when shifting the target customer tier, such as moving from Enterprise to a lower tier with a self-serve sales motion (21m42s).
• The sprint is also useful when sales are not going as well as hoped after launching a product, to troubleshoot and understand what's going on (21m56s).
• It can also be conducted when receiving polite but unhelpful feedback, indicating a need to dive deeper and find out more about the target customer (22m7s).
• The bullseye customer sprint is particularly useful when there is some traction, but it's not what was expected, and more insight into the target customer is needed (22m4s).

Step one: Agree on goals and key questions (22m19s)

• The process of identifying a bullseye customer involves six core steps, with the first step being to plan a 45-minute meeting with the core team to discuss key questions and goals (22m28s).
• The core team should come together to have a conversation about what they wish they could know about their product and customers, and what's getting in the way (22m36s).
• One way to ask this is by inquiring what keeps them up at night, as this helps Founders and product people to identify their main concerns and uncertainties (22m47s).
• The goal is to help prompt and elicit the big things that the team wishes they knew, such as what would have to be true for the product to succeed, and what their hypotheses and assumptions are about the product and customer (23m15s).
• The team should also discuss their nagging debates and the questions that keep coming up over and over, in order to gather information and answer these questions (23m36s).
• The initial meeting is used to detail what the team needs to answer, and to identify the key questions and goals that will guide the rest of the process (23m44s).

Step two: Define your bullseye customer (23m48s)

• Step two in identifying the bullseye customer is to determine who to talk to in order to answer the key questions that have been identified, based on what needs to be learned (24m0s).
• The type of customer to talk to depends on the questions being asked, for example, if the questions are about onboarding flow, it would be best to talk to new customers, whereas if the questions are about a new feature in an existing product, it would be best to talk to existing customers (24m20s).
• To identify the bullseye customer, a "bullseye exercise" is conducted, which involves getting the team together and asking them a lot of questions to figure out exactly who the bullseye customer is (24m44s).
• The bullseye exercise is a clarifying conversation for the team, as it helps them to narrow down who their customers are and have a shared understanding of who they are building for (25m8s).
• The exercise involves asking questions and having debates and arguments about who the customer is, which helps to identify specific characteristics, needs, and conditions that define the bullseye customer (25m38s).
• The goal of the bullseye exercise is to have a clear and shared understanding of who the bullseye customer is, and to identify specific details such as the type of condition or needs they have (25m51s).

The importance of a narrow target audience (25m52s)

• The natural inclination is to not narrow down a target audience too much, as people often think excluding a big market opportunity is a bad idea, but it's essential to get very narrow, with one description being "comically narrow" (25m54s).
• The goal is to identify a person who the team would all agree would be convinced by the value proposition and problem being solved, and it's okay if the team is not entirely sure, but they should be pretty convinced (26m30s).
• This narrow target audience is a way to reduce variables and test the value proposition, and it's essential to recruit people who match the specific characteristics set to test the idea (26m55s).
• If the target audience is too broad, it can lead to mixed feelings and a lack of consistency, making it difficult to determine what was learned from the test (27m20s).
• The initial list of potential customers and attributes is not necessarily the final target audience, but rather a way to learn as much as possible from the people who will most love the product or service (27m39s).
• The goal is to be very confident that the target audience will love what's being presented, and then it's possible to expand to a slightly broader audience (27m47s).
• The definition of the target audience is often adjusted after conducting interviews and gathering feedback, and it's common to discover new distinguishing characteristics or validate existing assumptions (28m24s).
• The outcome of the process is often a refined definition of the target audience, which may include new characteristics or a deeper understanding of the existing ones (28m31s).

An example of step two in action (29m0s)

• A company developing a new delivery service for people with specialty prescriptions medications needed to identify their target customer before building out the logistics of the service (29m12s).
• The company had to figure out whether their customers needed their medications delivered ASAP or if they could wait a day or two, and what time of day they needed them delivered (29m44s).
• To identify their target customer, the company considered attributes such as whether the customer had used delivery services like Uber Eats before, how long they had been on their medication, and their level of responsibility for managing their own medication (30m28s).
• The company also considered exclusion criteria, such as excluding customers who knew too much about the industry, like pharmacists or healthcare workers, to find a typical customer (31m24s).
• The goal was to find a "Bullseye customer" who represented the fundamental issue or problem the company was trying to solve (30m2s).
• The company generated prototypes to express different "recipes" of value propositions to test with their target customer (31m52s).
• The prototypes included different delivery options, such as delivery within an hour, a 4-hour window, or a longer timeframe (32m1s).
• The company needed to identify customers who lived in areas with a certain level of density, whether rural or urban, to determine the feasibility of their delivery service (31m0s).
• The target customer was someone who had a chronic condition and was responsible for managing their own medication, rather than someone in a healthcare setting or with a spouse/partner managing their prescriptions (31m10s).
• A company was trying to determine the best delivery time for specialty medications, and through an exercise, they found that having a distinct, narrow, and predictable window for delivery was more important than ASAP for certain customers (32m15s).
• These customers had specific needs, such as refrigerated medications that couldn't be left outside, or concerns about theft due to the type of medication or their living situation (32m56s).
• The company realized that a subset of customers with refrigerated medications and specific issues had a higher-value problem that they were solving, and they decided to focus on this group (33m20s).
• They re-recruited customers with these specific needs and issues and found that this group was more likely to adopt their solution (33m33s).
• When a company finds its "bullseye customer," they can sense the energy, excitement, and enthusiasm in qualitative interviews, and customers start asking if the solution is available and if they can sign up (35m0s).
• Finding the bullseye customer is about identifying a specific group with a pain point that the company is solving, and they need it badly, which is often referred to as product-market fit (34m31s).
• The term "product-market fit" is avoided, but the concept is about finding a match between the solution and the customer's needs, and it's characterized by customers' enthusiasm and eagerness to adopt the solution (34m47s).
• The bullseye customer sprint involves multiple rounds of research and iteration to find the right match between the solution and the customer's needs, and it may involve killing a project if it's not the right fit (35m34s).
• A business project was killed after conducting a Bullseye Customer Sprint, which saved the company a huge amount of pain, time, and effort that would have been spent on building a complicated hardware and software product with a subscription model (35m51s).
• The process helped the company learn what "no" looks like, allowing them to identify that their product was not a big deal to their target customers, which is a valuable outcome in avoiding waste and saving time (36m22s).
• The biggest value of the Bullseye Customer Sprint is avoiding waste by not building something nobody wants, which is crucial for companies, founders, and product teams (37m3s).
• It is essential to go narrow in the search for the Bullseye Customer, as not being able to find anyone thrilled about the product is a sign of trouble (37m28s).
• If the Bullseye Customer cannot be found, it may be a sign that the requirements are too narrow or that the target customer does not exist, which is a problem for selling the product (37m51s).
• In such cases, it may be necessary to revisit and soften some of the requirements to make the product more appealing to a wider audience (38m3s).

Narrowing attributes and exclusion criteria (38m24s)

• Identifying a narrow set of attributes is crucial in determining a company's bullseye customer, with a recommended seven attributes to consider, although this number can vary depending on the specific context (38m44s).
• Attributes can be categorized into three groups: inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, and triggers, which are specific events or situations that make a customer particularly ready for a solution (38m57s).
• Inclusion criteria typically involve characteristics that define the ideal customer, such as taking specialty medications for specific conditions (39m4s).
• Exclusion criteria involve reasons why a customer may not be the best fit, such as having too much expert knowledge or being locked into a competitive product (39m15s).
• Triggers are events or situations that make a customer more receptive to a solution, such as a new CSO coming in and looking to revamp things or a personal experience that creates a need for the solution (40m11s).
• Examples of triggers include a new baby or getting married, which can prompt someone to take action on a previously delayed task, such as buying life insurance (41m20s).
• The jobs to be done framework can help identify these triggers, which can kick off the vector to get someone to take action (41m42s).
• To narrow down the target customer, consider factors such as whether they are a new or existing user of the product, the sector or industry they are in, the size of their organization, and whether they have used a competitive product (42m6s).
• Other factors to consider include disqualifying personal or professional experiences, title, role, and responsibility, geography, whether they are the buyer or end user, team organization, budget, and income (42m22s).
• Life and work settings, trigger events, and whether they are a VIP are also important considerations (42m35s).
• To identify the most valuable customer, ask what makes one customer more valuable than another and what distinguishing characteristics they possess (42m48s).
• By answering these questions and identifying the most relevant attributes, a company can determine their "bullseye customer" and start with that target in mind (43m23s).
• Typically, around seven key attributes will emerge as the most important for defining the target customer (43m19s).

Step three: Recruiting and compensating participants (43m28s)

• To recruit bullseye customers, a screener questionnaire is created based on the set criteria, which is translated into a set of questions to filter out people and identify the target audience (43m46s).
• The questionnaire should be written in a way that doesn't telegraph the right answers, allowing for the identification of genuine bullseye customers (44m4s).
• Asking questions in a different way, such as inquiring about the podcasts people listen to or the kinds of people they follow, can help identify bullseye customers without directly asking about specific criteria (44m37s).
• Open-ended questions can also be used to gather information and identify bullseye customers, such as asking where they get their most trusted information (44m49s).
• The bullseye criteria should be concrete and measurable, allowing for the creation of a effective questionnaire, such as defining an "active Shopper" as someone who purchases certain items three times a week (45m1s).
• User interviews and respondent services can be used to post the questionnaire and get responses quickly, typically within three to four days (45m30s).
• This method can be a huge shortcut in recruiting bullseye customers, allowing for surprisingly specific people to be identified (45m49s).
• To find potential customers for user interviews, services like UserInterviews.com can be used, which is a more legitimate and faster method compared to LinkedIn cold emails, Twitter DMs, or Craigslist (47m10s).
• The number of people reached out to for a screener can vary, but it can be hundreds, and the goal is to find around five people who match the core criteria (47m51s).
• The process involves posting on UserInterviews.com, getting responses, downloading them into a spreadsheet, and sifting through to find matches (48m8s).
• If the target group is very specific, such as AI engineers, it can be challenging to find them, and it may require different techniques, such as professional associations or snowball recruiting (48m23s).
• If a group is hard to find and hard to reach, it can be a sign that building a company for them will be challenging (48m46s).
• In cases where the target group is not on UserInterviews.com, such as oncologists, alternative methods like finding online forums, conferences, or using snowball recruiting through existing contacts can be used (49m4s).
• Snowball recruiting involves working through the network of existing contacts to find potential customers and filtering them to ensure they match the core criteria (49m32s).
• Professional associations can also be a way to find potential customers, but it requires different techniques (49m50s).
• Companies like Gong, Linear, and Austa have successfully identified their ideal customers, with Gong's first "Bullseye customer" being software companies selling in English via video conferencing, with a product cost of $1,000 to $100,000, Linear focusing on 2-5% startups using GitHub and Google, and Austa targeting companies with less than five employees in California with no contractors (50m17s).
• It's essential to go even deeper and more specific when defining the ideal customer, including concrete, measurable characteristics such as founder-led, product-driven companies, and the products they use in their stack (51m8s).
• The "Bullseye customer" is a research tool to help identify a broader Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and business targets, and it's not the actual ICP (52m0s).
• The process of identifying the Bullseye customer is a learning exercise, focused on learning more, faster, and is different from selling, which requires a different mindset and approach to conversations (52m14s).
• The concept of "humble inquiry" is essential in this process, which involves asking questions, being vulnerable, and giving the person being asked a higher status, rather than telling and selling (52m52s).
• Founders and product heads often struggle with humble inquiry due to their selling mode, but it's crucial to be vulnerable and ask questions to learn and gain valuable insights (53m35s).
• The distinction between learning mode and selling mode is important, with learning mode involving humble inquiry and a willingness to be vulnerable and express uncertainty, whereas selling mode involves telling and can be more about persuasion than understanding (53m51s).
• When recruiting Bullseye customers, it's essential to find the right people, filter screeners, pick five candidates, and schedule them for the same day (54m27s).
• To ensure participants show up, it's crucial to compensate them sufficiently, with a recommended rate of $125 per hour for most consumer-related sessions (55m0s).
• Paying a higher rate, such as $400 per hour, may be necessary for specialized professionals like attorneys (55m13s).
• The choice of $125 per hour is based on a standard policy and has been effective in getting people to show up (55m25s).
• To minimize the risk of no-shows, it's recommended to remind participants, ensure they're responsive, and have them sign an NDA ahead of time (54m52s).
• Swapping out unresponsive participants with alternates can be an effective strategy, but having a backup list of participants is not always necessary (56m4s).
• Ensuring high follow-through rates can be achieved by working with user interviews, engaging with participants during the week leading up to the sessions, and being prepared to swap out unresponsive individuals (56m7s).

Step four: Creating effective prototypes (56m11s)

• The next step is to create prototypes, which are three distinct examples of possible features and variables to be presented in interviews, ideally using competitors' products as free prototypes (56m14s).
• The goal is to study competitors' products, understand how people respond to them, and identify variables to be spread across the prototypes (56m57s).
• The variables can include features such as delivery options, with different prototypes presenting different scenarios, such as a pharmacist, a delivery courier, or a drone company (57m27s).
• Another variable can be the size of the delivery window, with options ranging from a specific time frame to as soon as possible (57m49s).
• The prototypes are simple, flat designs, often just PDFs, and are meant to articulate the distinct value proposition, brand promise, and problem being solved for each prototype (58m2s).
• The prototypes should look as real as possible, with a homepage-like design, but do not require functionality or building (58m21s).
• The goal is to create prototypes that can stand alone, without narration, and can be presented to observers to gather feedback (58m34s).
• The prototypes can be created using AI, but it's essential to keep them simple and not get distracted by making them too functional or complex (58m55s).
• The benefit of keeping prototypes simple is that it allows for flexibility and not being too committed to a particular design (59m13s).
• The key to a successful prototype is to clearly describe the distinct value proposition and problem being solved, making it easy for observers to understand and compare different prototypes (59m38s).
• The design of the prototype is less important than the headline, positioning, and value proposition, which should be clearly articulated (1h0m10s).
• It's essential to design the prototypes to look different from each other, making it easy for observers to keep track of which prototype is being discussed (1h0m20s).
• Finally, it's crucial to proofread the prototypes carefully to avoid errors that can undermine their validity and credibility (1h0m46s).

Step five: Drafting your interview guide (1h1m10s)

• To identify the bullseye customer, a series of one-hour interviews are conducted, each consisting of a two-part interview: a discovery interview and a comparing and contrasting of prototypes (1h1m27s).
• The discovery interview involves asking people about their existing and past experiences, attitudes, and opinions about a specific part of their life, such as how they previously got their medications delivered (1h1m33s).
• The comparing and contrasting part of the interview involves presenting each prototype to the interviewee and gathering their responses, including what they like, dislike, and find important or not important (1h2m1s).
• By having multiple prototypes, interviewees can compare and contrast them, allowing researchers to identify the best aspects of each prototype (1h2m23s).
• The goal of the interview is not to pick a winner but to gather the best pieces of each prototype to construct an ideal version (1h2m46s).
• The discovery conversation provides context for understanding the interviewee's feedback about the prototypes, helping researchers understand why they react in certain ways (1h3m7s).
• The interview guide should include a warmup, introduction, and other sections to ensure a comprehensive conversation (1h4m16s).
• To start an interview, begin with light and casual questions to build rapport with the participant, such as asking about the weather or their location, and express gratitude for their time and help (1h4m27s).
• The goal of the initial questions is to understand the participant's worldview and context around the problem being discussed, and to build an arc in the conversation that puts them at ease (1h5m1s).
• It's essential to start the interview with a big smile, even if it's a phone call, as it changes the tone of the voice and helps to build a connection with the participant (1h6m10s).
• The interviewer should look for signs that the participant is smiling back and becoming responsive, indicating that the conversation is going well (1h6m20s).
• The interviewer's role is to ask questions and be genuinely curious, rather than trying to provide answers or solutions, and to focus on understanding the participant's perspective (1h6m41s).
• It's crucial to be open-minded and not dismiss the participant's thoughts or opinions, even if they seem wrong or unusual, and instead, dig deeper to understand their reasoning (1h7m9s).
• To become proficient in conducting interviews, practice is essential, as it's a hard skill to develop, and it's not as simple as just talking to people (1h7m39s).
• When conducting interviews, it's helpful to adopt a different character mode, which involves embodying extreme curiosity, focus on the person, and engagement, in order to effectively listen and gather information (1h7m45s).
• This character mode is distinct from one's normal personality, and it may take some practice to develop, especially for founders who are used to pitching and may need to switch to a listener character (1h8m41s).
• To get into this character mode, it can be helpful to take a deep breath, put on a smile, and intentionally focus on the person being interviewed (1h8m0s).
• Developing a listener character can be beneficial for conducting effective interviews and gathering valuable insights from the people being interviewed (1h8m44s).

Step six: The watch party method (1h8m49s)

• The final step in identifying the bullseye customer is the "watch party," where the team conducts interviews and takes notes to gather information and insights (1h8m51s).
• During the watch party, the interviewer conducts the conversation with the customer via Zoom, while the rest of the team watches and takes notes in real-time through a live stream (1h9m33s).
• The team uses a collaborative document, such as Google Doc or Notion, to take notes and assign roles to ensure everyone is engaged and focused (1h9m50s).
• The team does not use AI to take notes, as it is essential for team members to lean in and engage with the experience, taking manual notes to stay focused (1h10m1s).
• A Slack channel is used in the background for additional discussions and questions, which are monitored by team members, such as Vanessa Cho Konowitz (1h10m40s).
• The team has a chat window open with the interviewer to pass on questions or clarifications, but they are advised to be judicious about this to avoid influencing the conversation (1h11m3s).
• A spreadsheet is used to capture key information and insights from each interview, with specified questions and areas of focus for each study (1h11m26s).
• The team leader or product owner is responsible for filling in the answers to these questions and gathering input from the team during the debrief (1h11m55s).
• The process of identifying a bullseye customer involves capturing detailed notes and recordings of interviews with participants, which are then distilled into a deep brief sheet for each participant, and a spreadsheet for high-level information (1h12m11s).
• A big takeaways form is created at the end of the day, where team members independently fill out a Google form to capture their key learnings, takeaways, and next steps (1h12m34s).
• The form includes questions such as the number of interviews watched, first, second, and third big takeaways, adjustments to the definition of the bullseye customer, and next steps or open questions (1h12m38s).
• The team reviews the big takeaways form to identify key patterns and learnings, often finding a remarkable amount of consensus and alignment on what was learned and what to do next (1h13m18s).
• One common takeaway is the need for more research, even among teams that claim to regularly talk to their customers (1h13m41s).
• Before the watch party, team members are asked to predict what they think they will learn from the interviews, which helps capture a snapshot of their expectations and hypotheses (1h14m5s).
• This prediction exercise helps tailor the interview guide and ensures that the team is understanding what they want to get out of the study (1h14m45s).
• After the study, the team compares what they learned to what they thought they would learn, which helps mitigate hindsight bias and remember what they didn't know before (1h15m2s).
• The goal of conducting research is to learn and gain valuable insights, which can help teams move forward twice as fast, even if the results are not what was expected (1h15m39s).
• Many people tend to think they understand what customers need without conducting research, but often realize the importance of customer feedback after doing so (1h16m10s).
• Common patterns of mispredictions have been observed across different businesses and domains, which can be attributed to the "curse of knowledge" (1h16m37s).
• The curse of knowledge refers to the difficulty of imagining that others may not have the same level of expertise or knowledge as oneself, leading to blind spots (1h16m51s).
• Common blind spots include overestimating how much customers know about a product or service, the size of the problem, their willingness to pay, and their readiness to buy (1h17m30s).
• These blind spots are often found in teams with deep expertise in their space, who may struggle to put themselves in their customers' shoes (1h17m7s).
• It is essential for the whole team, including engineers and designers, to be present during the research process, such as a watch party, to ensure everyone is aligned and understands the results (1h18m30s).
• The watch party approach can be a shortcut to avoiding the need for a report or persuading team members, as everyone has witnessed the research process together (1h18m49s).
• Defining the core product team is crucial in the process, as they are the ones taking notes, building the product, making decisions, and owning the outcome (1h19m6s).
• The core product team should consist of the people who are really building the product and making the decisions, and they need to be present for the entire process (1h19m19s).
• Other people, such as engineers on different projects, are welcome to attend certain parts of the process, but the core team needs to be there for all of it (1h19m30s).
• It is essential to distinguish who is part of the core product team, as their opinions and involvement are critical to the product's development (1h19m16s).
• The core product team's presence and participation are necessary for the success of the product, and they will be responsible for building it and doing the work (1h19m22s).

Common pitfalls and final thoughts (1h19m40s)

• A common mistake in identifying the bullseye customer is not being specific or picky enough in the recruitment process, which can lead to a combination of people that is "mushy" and makes it difficult to draw conclusions (1h19m42s).
• To avoid this, it's essential to be disciplined and narrow down the recruitment process to the right people, using a set of attributes to guide the selection (1h20m46s).
• A useful heuristic is to consider seven narrowing attributes of who to recruit, which can help get to a point where there is one or two key attributes that distinguish the bullseye customer (1h20m51s).
• By identifying these key attributes, it's possible to prioritize leads and streamline sales motions or other processes (1h21m31s).
• One effective way to identify the bullseye customer is to use a screener survey, such as a waitlist questionnaire, to gather information about potential customers and prioritize those who best match the product or service (1h22m1s).
• Another common pitfall is putting too much weight on people's predictions of what they would do, rather than their past experiences, which can be a more reliable indicator of future behavior (1h22m27s).
• When conducting interviews, it's helpful to use a two-part approach, where the first part involves asking people to describe and explain their past experiences, and the second part involves showing a prototype and asking for predictions, but being skeptical of those predictions and putting more weight on the past experiences (1h22m40s).
• People are generally terrible at predicting what they will do, so it's essential to rely more on past experiences and behaviors when trying to understand the bullseye customer (1h23m15s).
• To identify a bullseye customer, it's essential to focus on what the person has shown and demonstrated in the past through their behavior, attitudes, and opinions, rather than just relying on what they say they will do in the future (1h23m19s).
• When researching potential customers, it's crucial to look for extreme excitement as a signal that they may actually use a product or service, rather than just relying on their verbal responses (1h23m45s).
• Confirmation bias can be a significant issue in customer research, and teams should be encouraged to police each other and remain neutral and objective about what they're hearing to avoid falling into this trap (1h23m53s).
• To ensure objectivity, teams can establish rules for listening and encourage each other to point out when someone is confirming their own bias (1h23m58s).
• A key indicator of a customer's genuine interest is their level of excitement, which can be observed through non-verbal cues, such as their body language and tone of voice (1h24m22s).
• If a team is unsure about whether they have found a bullseye customer, it's likely a sign that they don't have product-market fit, which is often described as a feeling that is immediately apparent (1h24m34s).

Closing thoughts and where to find Michael (1h24m43s)

• GV has a significant portfolio in biotech, focusing on developing new therapies and treatments, which presents a different kind of business compared to digital Enterprise consumer products (1h25m8s).
• Biotech companies involve years of scientific research, and productization occurs when figuring out how a product fits into a physician's workflow, patient reactions, and encouraging people to participate in clinical trials (1h25m35s).
• Clinical trials can be thought of as a product, requiring streamlining and targeting the right people to increase participation (1h25m57s).
• Expert teams in biotech often have different titles, such as patient education, but perform similar work to product managers, using terms like Target Product Profiles (TPPs) (1h26m35s).
• Applying UX research methods to biotech is an exciting opportunity, as it feels like a green field with huge potential impact (1h26m56s).
• Listeners can find more information and resources, including a free book, demo videos, and worksheets, at learnmorefaster.com (1h27m38s).
• Readers are encouraged to try out the methods, share their stories, and provide feedback on how they adapt and apply the techniques, even in non-early-stage startups (1h28m4s).
• Michael can be reached through his website at learnmorefaster.com, where people can send him a note, although he cannot guarantee a reply to everyone, but he will read all messages (1h28m16s).
• He is also available on LinkedIn, which is a great place to connect with him (1h28m25s).
• Michael encourages people to share their experiences and stories about how they used his work, what worked, and what didn't, in order to help him update and fix it (1h28m32s).
• He works with GV portfolio companies, and his full-time job is as a UX Research Partner at GV (1h28m54s).
• The conversation was part of a podcast, and listeners can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or their favorite podcast app (1h29m15s).
• Listeners are also encouraged to give the podcast a rating or leave a review to help other listeners find the show (1h29m22s).
• All past episodes and more information about the show can be found at Lenny podcast.com (1h29m28s).