Top 5 misconceptions about customer research for innovation
Slide from my talk at Austin Startup Week 2020
As I attend Austin Tech Week this week, I’m revisiting the talks I gave at previous years' events.
In 2020, I shared remote product discovery techniques for businesses trying to pivot during the pandemic. Before I could do that, I had to dismantle some common myths that prevent teams from conducting research in the first place.
Many of these myths will be familiar to anyone who’s been in UX for a few years:
That research is too slow (#1 on the list from the talk, above)
That it obstructs good ideas (#4)
That it’s inaccurate (#5)
I find these issues actually reflect process breakdowns rather than being inherent to research. Research can flex to whatever level of speed and quality is needed, but it requires close, early collaboration.
The other two myths are more specific to the startup community, where I find more misunderstandings about the scope and value of research. For many startups, all customer research is “market research,” and that means either:
A) Big, slow, expensive focus groups and large-scale surveys (#2); or
B) TAM, SAM, and SOM (#3)
There are so many more and better options for small innovation teams to efficiently understand where there’s real user need, independent of market size.
And that’s important, because giant research studies actually are too slow and too costly for rapid pivoting, and market sizing is insufficient to predict product adoption in entirely new markets (a.k.a., transformational innovation).
I genuinely believe that customer research the best thing a small innovation team can do to be successful, but it requires a certain amount of awareness and experience to get the most out of it. And I wish we in the tech community did a better job of recognizing and acknowledging that.
If you want to get more efficient, more actionable insights out of your customer research, here are three ways I can help:
✅ Targeted problem-solving for your market research design and strategy
🧑🎓 Training your team on DIY user research/market research techniques
🔬 Answering your most pressing questions by conducting custom research for you