Before we even start, a major thanks to Kalev Rundu! He was integral in crafting our approach! Thanks Kalev :)
If you're anything like us, you know that the heart of any successful product isn't just in its code or design—it's in the feedback from those who will be using it day in and day out. That's why we're excited to share how we approach getting product feedback with product discovery calls.
🎁 Get the product discovery call questions we ask and analysis sheet in the end (for free!)
We hope this helps you with which questions need asking how to extract important takeaways from every call!
Product discovery calls
Here's a closer look at how we conduct our product discovery calls and why they are so crucial to our product development process.
Why We Do Product Discovery Calls
At the heart of this is a simple truth: who better to learn from than our end users? The recruiters, professionals in talent acquisition and hiring managers.
Which is why we want to engage directly with them, understand their needs and challenges.
We do them to:
- Get validation on what we have done so far (Present).
- But also get new ideas (future).
The product discovery calls allow us to:
- Dive deep into the problems and aspirations of our potential users.
- Validate our hypothesis and change it when necessary.
- Build a product that's designed with ideas and feedback from people in HR, for people in HR.
Conversations with our users give us feedback that turns into actionable insights.
How We Do It
Our product discovery calls are meticulously structured to get the best feedback and insights we can from people we talk to, from their background to their specific feedback on our products.
Here's a breakdown of the topics we cover during these calls:
-
Understand User Context and Needs: We gather information about the user's background, their company, and the specific problems they are trying to solve with or without our product. This helps see through their challenges, understanding not just what they need but why they need it.
-
Identify Pain Points and Challenges: Through discussions about their current processes, tools, and the biggest challenges they face, we pinpoint the pain points in their workflow. This insight is crucial for identifying how our product can alleviate these pains or if there are gaps we need to fill in our present approach.
-
Evaluate Product Fit and Usage: After a quick but detailed product demo, we explore how our product fits into their existing ecosystem of tools and processes. This includes understanding any alternatives they might be considering or already using, which helps us gauge our product's competitive edge and areas for improvement.
-
Gather Feedback on Desired Improvements: By asking what users would like to improve or achieve, we get a clear picture of their ideal solution. This guides our product development to ensure we're not just meeting current needs but also anticipating future requirements.
-
Assess Value and Impact: Understanding the general impression of our product and its perceived value helps us refine our value proposition. Discussions around price sensitivity and the potential for users to adopt or recommend our product are key to shaping our pricing strategy and market positioning.
You’d argue that with a set template we’re asking the same questions with every recruiter but of course, the answers change.
We’ve done a lot of market research for our product to have our own hypothesis for the challenges recruiters face, these get validated if they’re brought up in these product discovery calls.
During these calls, much of what we hear is quite familiar, either from our own market research or from hearing it numerous times from other users. However, our mindset remains focused: we're always on the lookout for that 'one thing' we'll learn today that we hadn't known before.
The man who gave our product discovery calls a structure
Our product discovery calls have evolved a lot, for the better, thanks in no small part to Kalev Rundu.
First off, let me introduce Kalev to you. Picture someone whose résumé boasts extensive experience in the digital product world, yet maintains a down-to-earth demeanor. That's Kalev. With a rich background in creative industries and a decade-plus of shaping digital products, he’s the kind of guy who lives by the creed that understanding a problem well means you’re halfway to solving it.
He served as the senior product manager at Pipedrive and Veriff.
Now, Kalev isn’t just a professional acquaintance; he’s a friend. And in true friend fashion, he saw a gap and recommended us to bring a structured in our product discovery calls.
We knew we had to talk to our end users—recruiters, in our case—but we weren’t doing it in a way that would optimize for insight gathering
The set template of questions and the analysis sheet below are his works!
➡️ Product Discovery Questions: Link to Google Doc
➡️ Product Discovery Analysis: Link to Google Sheet
With Kalev's structure these calls were more like laser-focused conversations without too many umms… ahhs… and awkward silences that gave us invaluable feedback.
Sometimes you know you're lucky you’ve got an amazing friend. After giving us the template, Kalev helped us set up some of these calls and stayed with us for the calls (our luck is hitting a record high!!!).
And as we continue setting up many more calls, we're no less than indebted to this man for everything he's done.
If you’ve already checked the templates and they’re helpful I’m 100% sure you’ll want to thank Kalev (So here's how you do it: Tell everyone he's the best product manager ever (he's too humble so he wouldn't really like that). So alternatively, he's setting up a product consulting firm you can check and support them here (he'd love that). And if you really want to befriend Kalev or if product consulting sounds very helpful, book a call with ImBlue.
Listening to Implementing
Listening and recording feedback
We generally note all the quick feedback during these calls scribbling on the paper, a google doc or any method of faster note taking that appeals to you. Alternatively you can also record the calls and go through them later if your customers consent.
You should've checked out the product analysis sheet we use by now. You want everything on this sheet to be accurate aka 'exactly what the user says in the call' and ideally you should have all questions in the sheet answered in every call.
Most importantly, the call shouldn't feel like a forced questionnaire but rather a conversation where you're understanding their needs, concerns and challenges.
Taking my sweet time to add accurate feedback directly onto the sheet during the call would be time that could've been better spent talking to the recruiter.
As a good rule we never let these calls go over 30 minutes as this is the time they usually agree to before the call. And respecting someone's time is something you live by (in general and) when you're building a software that saves time on volume hiring.
Implementing said feedback
During the discovery calls we’ve done, a big issue recruiters face that keeps recurring almost every call is candidate verification to avoid fraud. This is when the candidate who applied for the job uses another more qualified candidate as a proxy to pass the company’s application process.
Companies employ a lot of measures to avoid this. In our calls the companies that most stressed on having this as a feature were a big media outlet and a textile business with 10k employees.
When users ask for something you deliver it so we did strategize on how this feature would work out. And here’s some quick designs for how:
We were aware of the issue but hearing it from the recruiters gave us more confidence that it exists, hence the product needs to solve this. PS: the designs took 3 hours or so, this is important because it sets you apart when companies usually take weeks and months to deliver on features. Engaging after feedback and delivering quickly on how you’re working on it is a good habit!
And that’s how….
We get product feedback.
A good tip: Really know the person you’re talking to before the call. This applies to knowing every individual, their background and experience and knowing your users in general.
For us it’s recruiters, and talking to them you’ll find they’re the nicest people ever. Always trying to make everything work, sharing feedback that doesn’t hurt. And while they love taking initiatives to make things better for other employees they rarely think about themselves.
At this early-stage we need HONEST feedback, and if it hurts it hurts.
So before the questions start we’ll just subtly mention “Please don’t hold back on sharing anything you think we’re not doing right. Be 100% honest during the conversation and if you hate something, the features, the flow, the design or anything else just say it!”
This is what has worked for us
If you’re a SaaS founder too in the stage of collecting critical product feedback, I hope this quick read (and the amazing templates) helped.
Remember, “if you stop innovating, you will die”- Marty Cagan, Part 4, Discovery Testing Techniques.
We’re regularly sharing our successes, failures, processes and everything else you’d like to know about being an early stage startup so stay tuned for more content updates!
Collecting feedback on the sheet, analyzing feedback across calls- wrogn and times pro incident, and implementing customer feedback (attach designs of verification).
The identify verification designs we developed quickly on feedback from timepro & wrogn- without naming the company
2
Why we’re bootstrapped
Talk of why we’re doing this right now.
Structure inspiration from: Why we bootstrap?
Good arguments here: ycombinator news
Investopedia article on companies suitable for bootstrapping
Things that have helped us:
Talk of google credits we won? -maybe a separate blog on how you did it or a small section
Other helpful resources for bootstrapped founders:
We could include other local/international entrepreneurship contests/ websites funding startups (prize money not vc)
You still need to pitch your startup:
You don;t have the VC and angel investors backing you but you’d still need to pitch in the contests above: we reference The sample pitch deck we have in figma.