Lecture
How to Run a User Interview with Emmett Shear (How to Start a Startup 2014: Lecture 16)
- Future product feature decisions for the next three years will be driven by the pivot from Justin TV to Twitch, with core resources allocated to universal access, video stability, and monetization (subscription programs) rather than direct user feature requests.
- Strategic focus will prioritize broadcasters as the primary users to build a platform that follows content across channels, while market expansion will rely on speaking to non-broadcasters to identify and overcome fundamental adoption blockers.
- The user interview target audience is expected to evolve over time, shifting from initial startup users to competing product users for early wins, and eventually to game publishers who will become an increasingly influential constituency as the company gains traction.
- To avoid the "horseless carriage effect" and false positives regarding willingness to pay, interviews will exclude functional prototypes and existing forums, instead using methods like "hacking" solutions via browser extensions to test viability without full development.
- Significant risks include the potential for incomplete data if interviews rely on easily available users rather than the target demographic, the difficulty of achieving representative samples in non-English markets due to language barriers, and the likelihood of internal teams inventing non-existent solutions without user feedback.
- Validation strategies may include asking for upfront payments from specific demographics like students to confirm excitement, though this approach carries the risk of being unfeasible if the target group lacks disposable income.
- Internal alignment will be achieved by recording and sharing interviews across the organization to demonstrate that ignoring the needs of non-users or relying solely on analytics results in a product that remains a limited side project rather than a scalable business.