PMF interviews require an entirely different approach than other types of user research. In typical user interviews, we tend to take a linear approach focused on exactly where we are in the product development process — in other words, we'd do a round of interviews to deep dive into user problems, then go off separately to brainstorm solutions, then conduct another series of interviews to validate the solution, then to validate the business model, etc.

Great PMF interviews have these two characteristics in common: they're unbiased and comprehensive. This interview guide demonstrates how to avoid confirmation bias and and validate all six critical product strategy dimensions in a single interview: problem to solve, target audience, value proposition, competitive advantage, growth strategy, and business model. This helps you to identify your riskiest dimensions early on to avoid the all too common late stage blowups that occur in 0-1 products. For example, identifying a real pain point early on but learning only after significant development cycles that not enough people were willing to pay for it.

This was a B2B product; in a B2C, you'd want to ask them about themselves instead. Probe on attributes that you identified as important that the participant didn't mention. For example, “Oh wait, you didn’t mention XYZ attribute—can you clarify?” Listen for attributes you may not have previously identified, especially those emerging as patterns across multiple interviews.

In this section, you can see we've structured the questions using an unaided-aided approach. We started with an unaided, open-ended question to ensure we didn't bias the participant’s response by introducing our hypothesis upfront. Then, we introduce an aided question ("We have identified the following problems...") to start introducing our hypotheses subtly.

With the unaided opening question, it was important to frame it in terms of a “job to be done” and avoid being too broad or too narrow.

I always find it helpful to repeat the problems you heard back to the participant to clarify what they consider the same problem versus different problems. I also make sure to ask, “Am I missing anything?” It opens the door for them to jump in with new insights.

This is where you'd bring in the hypotheses your team has already identified before the interview. When you list these out, it's good to clarify with the participant whether any of them overlap or resonate with their previous answers. It's common to have wording nuances.

New 0-1 products require so much inertia that unless they solve a burning problem, people probably won’t use them. But you can’t just ask someone if this is a burning problem for them. You have to approach it in a more nuanced way. This approach ensures we get the most objective answer to problem severity.

From this point on, pick one problem — either the top problem that aligns for you and the participant or the participant’s top problem. It's important here to understand what the ideal solution looks like in terms of the value proposition it offers, not the feature design.

We are again using the approach of globally ranking their own solution relative to our proposed solutions in order to be as objective as possible on their resonance with our potential solutions.

Often, this is an internal process rather than an actual product to solve the problem. Sometimes your biggest competition is a spreadsheet or pen and paper.

It's helpful to brush up on potential competitors before the interviews so you can probe on this, especially if the participant’s initial response is that they haven’t tried anything. A probe can be “Have you heard of companies / products <X,Y,Z>?”

This question can help you get a head start on where to find your users. Growth strategy tends to be harder for product builders at 0-1 startups to determine, whereas product builders at established organizations can rely on the existing user base.

These questions around problem ownership & decision-making are most relevant for B2B product ideas or B2C product ideas with a significant financial transaction requirement (at least a few hundred dollars). For B2C, you could rephrase it slightly:

"If there was a solution to this problem, who would be the ultimate decision maker on whether or not you use that solution? If others need to be involved in the decision, how does the decision ultimately get made?"

Remember: just because users say they'll pay a certain price in an interview doesn't mean they actually will! You want this number to be generally directionally accurate.

This question probes for hard evidence that they already pay for other products and services to help assess their willingness to pay. You're looking here to discover both price point and payment model (e.g., transaction, subscription, freemium, etc.)

Sachin Rekhi

I designed this script to go beyond the typical user interview. This guide offers an example of how to avoid confirmation bias and validate all six product strategy dimensions in a single interview: problem to solve, target audience, value proposition, competitive advantage, growth strategy, and business model. 

Thanks for joining us today! How is your day going so far?

Quickly introduce the interview context and introduce the roles of everyone in the room from your team.

Do you mind if we record this interview for internal research purposes?

Can you tell us about your role and your company?

Can you tell us what are the biggest problems you face in sales prospecting?

. Can you rank these problems from most challenging to least challenging?

We have identified the following problems

 that you may also experience in sales prospecting. Let's go through each and would love to hear whether you currently experience each of these problems.

1) identifying who are the right prospects to reach out to

2) determining the best path in to reaching them

3) crafting what to say in order to entice a response.

Can you rank these problems from most challenging to least challenging?

 of these problems alongside your previously self-identified & ranked problems?

 If one of the provided problems is a top ranked problem for the participant

Can you share a specific instance when you faced this problem and describe in more detail the situation and the consequences of the problem?”

 If none of the provided problems are top ranked problems for the user, then probe to understand why those problems are not burning problems for them

We thought the top problems of 1) identifying who are the right prospects to reach out to, 2) determining the best path in to reaching them, 3) crafting what to say in order to entice a response were interesting but clearly not from your perspective.

Follow up: Can you share a specific instance when you face your top problem and describe in more detail the situation and the consequences of the problem?

For identifying who are the right prospects to reach out to, how would you imagine ideally solving the problem?

Here are the value propositions we are investigating to solve the problem. Can you share your reactions to each? Can you stack rank each of the value propositions?

1) An account-centric view that delivers relevant insights on your top accounts

2) Proactively notifying you about actionable insights on your target accounts & leads

3) Providing a world-class search experience optimized for sales prospecting

4) Proactively recommending potential leads at your accounts

5) Prioritizing accounts that have become more attractive using information gleaned on target accounts & leads

6) Replacing your spreadsheet with a better workflow for pre-opportunity account and lead management

7) Deeply integrating your prospecting workflow with your CRM to avoid manual data entry

8) Guiding sales professionals through the new way of social selling

9) Providing pre-meeting intelligence to better prepare for every prospect conversation

10) Creating an account planning tool to help you better map the key account stakeholders and org structure

Can you rank your own solution relative to these solutions?

 What's not ideal about this current solution?

Do you see our value proposition as more compelling than what you've already seen in the market?

How do you discover solutions to this problem today?

How do you stay abreast of what's going on in your industry?

Where do you spend time online and offline?

We are considering reaching potential sales professionals like yourself through LinkedIn. Do you spend much time on LinkedIn and respond to LinkedIn messages?

Who do you think would benefit most from solving this problem?

Who ultimately would make the decision to purchase a product to solve this problem? How does the decision get made? Do they have the budget to purchase the product?

Would you be willing to pay $80/user/mo for a solution to this problem?

What other products and services do you currently pay for?

Thanks so much for your time today! Are there other people within your org that we should be talking to?

Can we reach back out to you as we iterate on our product idea to get additional feedback?

PMF Interview Script at LinkedIn Sales Navigator

PMF Interview Example Script for LSN

Rapport (5 min)

Build (10 min)

Target Audience

Problem to Solve

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