Customer Discovery Interviews
Conduct effective user research interviews to validate your product ideas
Who it's for
Written for B1 (intermediate) students who handle everyday English and are ready for longer answers.
English for founders: pitches, investors, demos and startup vocabulary. More Startup English lesson plans
Skills it practises
- Speaking: discussion questionsevery lesson
- Vocabulary: a target word listevery lesson
- Reading: a text or news storyevery lesson
- Controlled practice: gap-fills, matching, sorting and moreevery lesson
- Role-play: a dialogue to act outevery lesson
- An answer framework to structure what they say1 of 8 lessons
Lessons
- Discovery Interview BasicsGoal: run a full Mom Test discovery interview — context, pain story, workarounds, numbers, urgency — without mentioning your idea once.1 hr 13 minFree
- Asking Good QuestionsGoal: run a broad-to-specific question sequence with 'how' and 'tell me' openers and a three-deep 'why' dig — zero hypothetical or leading questions.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Active ListeningGoal: listen actively through a live interview — two paraphrases, one named emotion, one five-second silence, one verbatim quote captured.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Avoiding Leading QuestionsGoal: ask neutral questions under pressure — pass the 'could a stranger guess my hoped-for answer?' test, and rephrase any leading question live.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Pain Point DiscoveryGoal: hunt a pain point through stories — friction, workarounds, numbers — and deliver an honest hair-on-fire or nice-to-have verdict.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Synthesizing FeedbackGoal: synthesize interview feedback live — themes with counts and verbatim quotes, outliers parked explicitly, one action per theme.1 hr 7 minOutline
- Reporting FindingsGoal: present research findings that change decisions — conclusion first, counts on every claim, one verbatim quote, an explicit recommendation.1 hr 7 minOutline
- From Interviews to ProductGoal: translate feature requests into jobs-to-be-done — dig, frame the job in one sentence, prioritise by frequency times pain, and close the loop.1 hr 7 minOutline
How to use it in a lesson
- Lessons run 67 to 73 minutes, with a timing on every stage, so you can see before you start what fits your slot.
- Start with "Discovery Interview Basics": its whole plan is on this site, stage by stage, with the target vocabulary, free to read and to teach from on any video call.
- For a shorter slot, skip a practice stage or cut the discussion short: the stages are a guide, not a script.
Teach Customer Discovery Interviews with your student
Lesson 1 of this course is free. A free account opens it in the interactive player, and the rest of the course is included with Starter. Teaching it live with your student in the Tuton classroom starts with a 7-day free trial.
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