A practical starting point
Customer discovery begins with listening to how people work today. Ask about recent behaviour rather than asking whether someone likes a future idea.
Invite people from the intended audience to describe the last time they faced the problem. Ask what they tried, what it cost in effort and what remained unresolved. Avoid presenting your solution too early.
Compare the notes across conversations. Look for a repeated problem and a reachable buyer. Do not turn a handful of interviews into a claim about an entire market.
The practical guide below works through a hypothetical example, the decisions to check and a way to review the result. Use it to prepare questions for your own situation; adapt the exercise to the information and tools you are authorised to use.
Customer Discovery is useful when it changes what you will test next. Group recurring situations and identify the smallest unresolved assumption. Use MVP Planning to turn that assumption into an observable task. Writing a Startup Product Brief can then explain the user and workflow to a builder. Keep the sample size and limits of your interviews visible whenever you summarise the findings.
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