What questions should you ask in a customer discovery interview?

Ask about the last concrete time the problem happened, not whether they would want a hypothetical feature. "Walk me through the last time this came up" surfaces specifics — a workaround, a time cost, a real Tuesday — that "would you use X?" never does, because agreeing to a hypothetical costs the customer nothing.

Why do customer interviews often produce misleading feedback?

Because the questions ask for an opinion instead of a memory. Customers are polite and want to be helpful, so hypothetical questions get enthusiastic hypothetical answers. Asking for a specific past instance, and quantifying its cost, filters out politeness and leaves you with evidence.

Should you show a prototype during a discovery interview?

Not early. Once a customer sees what you're building, their answers start getting filtered through wanting to be encouraging. Spend most of the interview on how they currently experience the problem — including their workaround — and save any prototype or concept for the very end, if at all.

How many customer discovery interviews are enough?

There's no fixed number, but a consistent pattern across five or six interviews using concrete, non-leading questions is usually a stronger prioritization signal than a much larger survey full of hypothetical questions. Depth and question quality matter more than raw interview count.

How to Run Customer Discovery Interviews That Actually Surface Real Problems

Product Leader.

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