At its core, product discovery is a simple concept. By talking to our customers regularly, we can collect insights into their unique problems, needs, and desires (or what I often refer to as “opportunities”). We then use these insights to guide the products we build. However, many people worry that it’s more complicated than that. […]
Ask Teresa: How Do You Get Your First Product Job Without Experience?
Landing your first or even your second job in product can be really tricky. Many candidates encounter a Catch-22 situation: Most companies only want to hire product managers with experience, but you can’t get experience if no one will hire you. And what do we even mean by “experience,” anyway? Landing your first or even […]
Ask Teresa: What Should You Do With Insights That Don’t Come from Customer Interviews?
Regular touch points with customers are a pillar of continuous discovery. If you’re not regularly talking directly with your customers, you increase your risk of building a product that no one wants or needs. Regular touch points with customers are a pillar of continuous discovery. If you’re not regularly talking directly with your customers, you […]
Product in Practice: Automating Customer Interview Recruiting at Zonar Systems
Not having enough time is one of the main reasons people say they can’t interview customers every week. And this is not just an empty excuse—most product people’s calendars are packed. So the idea of trying to carve out time to recruit and schedule interviews might feel like an impossible task. But it doesn’t have […]
Ask Teresa: My Sales Team Won’t Let Me Talk To Customers. What Now?
The product trio leads discovery. But this doesn’t mean that other teams aren’t involved. Being thoughtful about product discovery means staying on good terms with others throughout your company. You might need to get buy-in or support from leadership, you may need to collaborate with user research or data science teams, and you will likely […]
Tools of the Trade: A Look at Pendo’s Discovery Tech Stack
The beauty of continuous discovery is that there’s no single right way to do it. This is why Teresa often talks about guiding principles and core concepts, but encourages everyone to find what works best for them. For example, while Teresa recommends creating a product trio that includes a product manager, engineering lead, and a […]
How Continuous Discovery Works (and Doesn’t) in Early-Stage Startups
“I get that the continuous discovery habits framework works well for mature products, but does it work for early-stage startups?” This question always surprises me. I spent all of my full-time employee experience at early-stage startups (many of them pre-product) and I relied on these same habits to figure out what to build. But the […]
Ask Teresa: What Are the Best Customer Interview Questions?
We recently launched the Ask Teresa series on Product Talk, where I tackle common questions and challenges that I hear from people as they begin to adopt continuous discovery. Find all the posts in this series here. If you’re serious about continuous discovery, one of the most important steps you can take is committing to […]
