This interview guide is meant for talking to existing users. We wanted to understand more about the people who already used Grain, which is very different than generative research. This interview campaign resulted in our 

 which we then used to build out our strategy.

We created this with Ely Lerner, who was advising us at the time.

In short, we were trying to answer, "How do they land, expand, and convert today?"

We ran about 20 qualitative interviews to generate our 

That ICP has stayed pretty consistent over the years, and has enabled us to identify more strategic opportunities based on what we learned.

Ely Lerner

Mike Adams

We created this guide to run qualitative interviews with existing customers to define our ideal customer profile.

What problem(s) is this product solving for them?

How impactful/painful are those problems (if solving multiple problems, maybe sure to go through each explicitly, and do the 5 whys to really get a deeper understanding of the problem behind the problem etc.)

Try to really go a few levels deeper and wider to understand the larger context around the problems etc. (i.e. 5 whys)

Note: Extra important to try to understand what specific words they use to describe the problems/pain and the differentiation/solution

How were they solving before and what alternatives are they aware of AND why is Grain a better option?

Be on the lookout for them not being aware of some of the competitors - If you find a lot of your customers are in this boat, you’re going to HAVE to introduce some of them to those competitors to compare

If they have tried any of the competitors (generic and functional-specific) - try to get a read on what they liked and didn’t like about those

Which specific tool is most likely to be the best

Try to also dive a bit into sharing behaviors and incentives - are people sharing Grain with other folks in the org, who, in what situations, why etc.

Then dig in on possible spread and barriers to spread:

Are there other folks in the org using it differently than them and their team? If so, can you introduce us so we can talk to them too?

Are there other orgs/teams who you think could benefit from Grain but aren’t using it now? (i.e. they have these same problems) If so, why aren’t they using it?

Are there people/teams/orgs that have tried Grainbut then stopped using it? Do you know why? Can you intro so we can talk to them?

ICP Interview Guide at Grain

Interview guide for ICP research

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