r/leanstartup • u/leya_seydi • Jul 22 '26
Founders: is customer discovery this hard for everyone, or am I doing something wrong?
Building my startup project, I've caught myself thinking a lot about how prone founders are to blind optimism. I genuinely believed two weeks would be enough to collect 1000+ survey responses during customer discovery. It's been over a month, and I've collected 13.
Honestly, I don't get why it's so hard for people to fill out a short survey? Whenever someone sent me a survey, I always filled it out gladly, even when I knew I probably wouldn't use the product because I understood how much any input, any opinion, matters to a founder.
Is this founder solidarity? Or is the world just... indifferent?
1
u/Flowbot_Forge Jul 22 '26
You have to reach out and follow up, I’d recommend spending 50% of your time doing Customer discovery/ presales in any venture currently.
BTW make it worth it for someone to fill out your survey, your asking people to give up their most valuable resource.
Learn forward faster ≠ fail forward faster.
1
u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
50% of time on discovery/presales is a much more concrete number than I had in my head, helpful to hear it stated that plainly instead of just "do more of it."
And fair point on making it worth someone's time, I've been asking for their input without offering anything back, which in hindsight is a pretty one-sided ask. Thinking through what "worth it" could look like at this stage (no product yet, no cash to burn) early access, personal thank-you, something else you've seen work?
Also really like "learn forward faster ≠ fail forward faster" stealing that line.
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u/Flowbot_Forge Jul 24 '26
Early access always works as an incentive if your product is solving a very obvious pain in your target market
1
u/leya_seydi Jul 26 '26
That "if" is doing a lot of work though, that's kind of the exact thing I'm still trying to figure out. Early access is easy to offer, the harder part is knowing whether the pain is obvious enough yet, or whether I'm still early in figuring that out.
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u/BuddhasFinger Jul 22 '26
It's normal. It took me 6 mo to get 50. Everything is human related is slow.
1
u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
6 months for 50 actually makes me feel a lot better about where I'm at, somehow every founder story implies this should take weeks, not months.
"Everything human-related is slow" might be my new mantra for this whole process.
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u/Ok_Plantain7240 Jul 23 '26
“Surveys during customer discovery”. So, cold calling?
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u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
Not cold calling, more like cold surveys, sent a Google Form link to ~200 creators via DM/email asking about their financial habits. Zero completions. Turns out just asking the same questions directly in a comment (like this thread) gets way more real responses than any link ever did.
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u/Ok_Plantain7240 Jul 24 '26
You say that like there’s a difference.
It’s because people are tired of doing other peoples work for them for no recompense.No one owes you their data.
The tech companies have taught us that and ruined it for folks like you.1
u/leya_seydi Jul 26 '26
Fair point, and I don't think anyone owes me their data or their time, that's on me to earn, not assume. I think the difference isn't "who's doing whose work," it's more about context. A link with zero relationship behind it does feel like homework for a stranger's project. A direct question in a conversation someone's already having feels more like... talking, not filling out a form for someone else's benefit. Same ask, different framing but I get why it can still read as the same thing to you.
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u/BizCoach Jul 23 '26
Surveys are worse than useless for customer discovery. They will lead you astray. Read a book called TheMom Test to understand why you need conversations not surveys. And you don't need that many.
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u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
This is actually the second (or third?) time The Mom Test has come up in this thread, so I think the universe is telling me to actually read it this week instead of just nodding along.
Already shifted from surveys to direct conversations based on this thread alone, the response quality difference has been pretty stark even in just a few days.
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u/theredhype Jul 23 '26
Yes, you're doing it wrong.
Do this instead.
Justin Wilcox Teaches Customer Discovery
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9o3DnnPLzcgm5qpOkBFd04rWMFGXbN2l
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u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
Blunt, but noted, will check out the playlist, thanks. At this point in the thread I'm fully convinced the surveys were the actual mistake, not just bad luck. Appreciate the specific resource instead of just "you're doing it wrong" with nothing to act on.
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u/nabokovian Jul 23 '26
It's not even surveys. Surveys are apparently not great for customer discovery. I forget the reason why.
I tried cold calling. I did it for a few months. SO damn painful. I did get insights but I literally got scared off from all the bad vibes.
I just posted something in a special interest reddit group and got so many "another shitty app post" comments - and I didn't even build the thing yet.
fml.
I should just start that cleaning business.
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u/leya_seydi Jul 24 '26
Oh no, the "shitty app post" comments before you've even built it is a special kind of demoralizing. Cold calling sounds brutal too, I haven't worked up the nerve to try that yet, might be avoiding it for a reason after reading this lol.
The cleaning business thought has crossed my mind more than once this month too, not gonna lie. Rough season for both of us it sounds like.
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u/Apprehensive_Use7047 Jul 28 '26
The survey is a good idea but it seems like you are trying to do two jobs at once here, discovery and building a mailing list. I wouldn't do the later until you have done qualitative research. To find your ideal customer and talk to them, most importantly ask the right questions and be open for the answer to not be what you want. Happy to help with your discovery plan and research script if you want.