In customer discovery there are only two answers. "I need this yesterday" and "no." Everything in between is a no with more polite language. I got reminded of this yesterday.
I'm working on a new thing. Won't tell you what it is yet, but I'm doing loads of customer discovery.
I'm straight-up asking people to shit on the idea because if they do, I don't have to start this company and can just keep focusing on coaching 100% of my time. Starting companies is dumb :)
So I'm pitching a founder I've known for a decade. And he starts riffing.
"Oh, you could take this in this direction. Or you could layer this on top. Or what if you did it for this vertical instead."
And in my head I'm going: cool, you're a no.
Because a yes doesn't sound like that. Yes simply asks "when can I have it?" It asks "how much?" It's the person leaning across the table and asking if they can go to the web page right now and sign up.
Yes doesn't brainstorm features with you.
Yes doesn't workshop your positioning.
Yes does not helpfully suggest three adjacent markets you should also consider.
That's all polite rejection passed off in a socially polite way. And it feels great in the moment because a smart person is spending an hour with your idea. You leave the conversation thinking you got signal. You didn't. You got a hangout.
Here's the tricky part: the person isn't lying to you. They're being genuinely helpful. My guy yesterday wasn't ICP. He couldn't buy this thing if he wanted to. All he could do was speculate about how other people might feel about it. That's the worst kind of data there is, and founders eat it with a spoon because it tastes like validation.
Rule I use on myself and every founder I coach:
- If they're intellectualizing, they're not buying.
- If they're solving your problem for you, they're not feeling their own.
- If they're excited about what it could become, they don't need what it is.
Go find the person who interrupts your pitch to ask when they can start.
Everyone else is a no. Thank them, and move on.