Michael Margolis

“We act as truth-bearers to our founders, who are looking to leverage design and user research to mitigate risk and accelerate business decisions.” At @BstormDesign, GV’s @veeecho speaks to the role of @GVDesignTeam across the portfolio — bit.ly/3ZH4DnI

Some key takeaways: 1. Instead of a long, drawn-out research process, you can identify your ideal customer by doing a one-day sprint with your whole team. The process involves five qualitative interviews with your bullseye customers and watching them as a team in real time. This speeds up learning and ensures that the whole team gets aligned around the same insights. 2. The bullseye customer is more specific than a typical ideal customer profile (ICP). It’s an even more narrow subset of your target market most likely to initially adopt your product. Focusing on this narrow group helps you prioritize product development, align teams, and accelerate learning. 3. When validating your ideas, don’t get stuck on perfecting a single prototype. Instead, create at least three different versions to test. This helps you see what resonates most with your bullseye customer and allows your team to avoid getting too attached to one concept. 4. One of the biggest advantages of doing the bullseye sprint is learning how to recognize rejection early. Pay attention to signs of indifference during customer interviews. When you hear, “Oh yeah, I guess that would be nice,” or something similarly noncommittal, that’s your cue to move on. You’re looking for customers who are ready to say, “Take my money—where do I sign up?” 5. The way you approach customer research should differ from sales. Practice humble inquiry—ask questions as if you’re learning, not selling. Be vulnerable and embrace the fact that you don’t know everything. Your goal should be to learn, not to pitch. 6. Before diving into interviews, get everyone to predict what they think they’re going to learn. Make the predictions specific: what you actually expect will happen, not just what you hope to uncover. Then, after the interviews, compare those predictions with what you learned. This helps you avoid hindsight bias and gives you a clearer picture of how much you actually learned.

Michael Margolis (@mmargolis) has been a UX research partner at @GVteam for nearly 15 years, and through his hands-on work with over 300 startups has developed a unique approach to helping founders identify their “bullseye customer”—the specific subset of their target market who initially is most likely to adopt their product. In our conversation, Michael shares: 🔸 The step-by-step process of running a bullseye customer sprint 🔸 The most common mistakes founders make when picking their first customers 🔸 Practical tips for conducting effective customer interviews 🔸 The power of “watch parties” in aligning teams around customer insights 🔸 How to apply these methods beyond typical tech startups 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: youtu.be/B6Dt1sgGmLI - Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/59xU69… - Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ide… Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: 🏆 @Get_Eppo — Run reliable, impactful experiments: geteppo.com 🏆 @useparagon — Ship every SaaS integration your customers want: useparagon.com/lenny 🏆 @enterpret_ai — Transform customer feedback into product growth: enterpret.com/lenny

Thanks to @ash_oliverrr for talking about how startups can Learn More Faster.

Learn More Faster is on @ProductHunt! 👀  Looking forward to hearing your reviews of the book — producthunt.com/products/learn…

@kraneland Thanks @kraneland for always being such a big advocate for research and design at @GVteam.

Thank you, @mmargolis, for sharing your brilliance and enviable experience with the world... many, many gems in this new book!

📣 Introducing Learn More Faster: How to Find Your Bullseye Customer and Their Perfect Product, a new book by GV's @mmargolis! 📚 Startups can learn how to accelerate customer discovery (for free!) on LearnMoreFaster.com. @FastCoDesign shares more — bit.ly/4dVUclf

@dburka Thanks so much, @dburka ! I hid a tiny Easter egg in there for you... :)

Can't wait to read @mmargolis' new book. He's the best user researcher I've seen in action. He has so much to teach.

@katearonowitz Thanks, Kate! It's been amazing to develop this with you and @veeecho

Congrats to @mmargolis on launching Learn More Faster: How to Find Your Bullseye Customer and Their Perfect Product! I hope that this guide becomes essential for early-stage teams looking to accelerate customer discovery. LearnMoreFaster.com

I’m thrilled to launch a new book that draws on lessons learned from conducting hundreds of research sprints at @gvteam over 14 years — Learn More Faster: How to Find Your Bullseye Customer and Their Perfect Product. Download at LearnMoreFaster.com! fastcompany.com/91131380/googl…

@jazer @CharacterVC @eliblee @jakek @GVteam Congratulations!!

Super excited to announce @CharacterVC, my new seed fund with @eliblee and @jakek!! 🎉 We invest in pre/seed-stage startups and support founders with the Sprint method we created at @GVteam 💪 If you're working on something new, we'd love to talk. So, why a new fund? Why now?

Designers: Looking for a start-up obsessed with building experiences users love? Can't recommend @getmatterapp & @benspringwater strongly enough. And guess what? They are looking for their first design hire (fully remote team). hq.getmatter.app

@_GregSchmidt @dburka That depends on lots of things: how you're testing it, your product, your target customers, context of use. I think the key is figuring out exactly what info people actually need and when they need it.

Product tours / training of new users: - 1 min video on first login? - Tooltips throughout? - Neither? - Both? - Other? Do people watch/interact with these product tour approaches differently in user testing than in real life? @dburka @mmargolis

Why do financial institutions still ask for "mother's maiden name"? I saw this on forms from 2 different banks this weekend. It's anachronistic for so many reasons. . .

Throwback Thursday: The GV Research Sprint, a 4-day process (updated).  library.gv.com/the-gv-researc…

Hey, researchers! If you're looking for that special new role, don't miss this opp at Lime in SF or Berlin. jobs.lever.co/lime/b0ae5a5f-…

@mikeindustries Laughing kookaburra youtube.com/watch?v=S0Zbyk…

@dburka So happy for you, Daniel. Welcome, Cider!!!

Two of my favorite design leaders discuss getting a seat at the table. Thanks @veeecho and @lil_dill!

Welcome @lil_dill! I love this candid, insightful conversation between Katie and @veeecho. Grateful to get to work with both of you.