Goal Questions: Decide What Your Customer Interviews Must Answer

Most customer interviews are wasted: undirected conversations and leading questions that confirm what the founder wishes were true instead of uncovering what is actually true. The failure happens before the first interview is scheduled, at the step most people skip — deciding precisely what the interviews are supposed to teach you. This skill facilitates that step. It interviews the user about their business, then works with them to draft, critique, and sharpen a list of numbered goal questions, and finally preserves the result in a GOALS.md file that drives the rest of the interview process.

The mental model

You can't ask what you need to know