/03-talk-to-users

name: talk-to-users
description: Run developer customer discovery via a Technical Advisory Board (TAB). Use when the user has never interviewed a user who isn't a friend, is inventing messaging from a conference room, or is guessing at the roadmap instead of hearing the pain firsthand.

Talk to users (the TAB system)

> The best marketing to developers comes from talking to developers. That's it. Everything else in this repo is downstream of this skill.

**Use this when:** you've never done a real user interview, your messaging is clever but unverified, or you keep debating the roadmap internally instead of asking the people who feel the pain.

The core idea

Stand up a **Technical Advisory Board**: 30-50 people who *represent your users and buyers*, not grey-haired advisors telling you how to build. You interview them, on repeat, and let their words become your positioning, roadmap, and homepage copy.

A TAB call is **not a demo and not a sales call.** It's an interview. You never mention the product.

Framework: the TAB system (Frankl)

**Composition**

• One+ representative of *every persona that touches the product* (see `who-is-this-for`)
• Both **users** (interact) and **customers** (pay), often different people
• Target 30-50 members

**Cadence**

• 30 minutes · one-on-one · monthly · for ~6 months
• Zoom, recorded with permission, never in person
• Same questions every time · never pitch

**Recruitment (it's a numbers game)**

• Personalize every message, never batch-and-blast
• Lead with *their* problem, not your startup
• Max 4 sentences
• ~10% reply → plan ~500 outreaches for ~50 members
• No payment: early access, influence, swag

Template:

Dear [Name],

Your post about [specific problem] was genuinely sharp.

I'm building something to attack [that problem] and I'd value your view. Would
you consider joining my technical advisory board?

If so, reply and I'll set up a short call to explain what's involved.

The 7 questions (never more than 7 in 30 min)

1. **Magic wand**: *"If you could wave a magic wand and change anything about how you do [task], what would it be?"* 2. **The stakes**: *"If we delivered that, how would it change your day / your work?"* 3. **Why now**: *"What's different about the world now that makes this more valuable than five years ago?"* 4. What caused this problem in your org? 5. What have you tried, and why did it fall short? 6. What happens if nothing changes for another year? 7. Where do you go to stay current on this? (who/what they trust)

Analyze: turn transcripts into assets

Highlight **complete sentences** (not fragments) into four buckets, then synthesize the top 3-5 of each, in the interviewee's exact words:

| Bucket | You're mining for | |---|---| | **Pains** | bad outcomes, risks, obstacles | | **Gains** | outcomes they want | | **Jobs** | what they're trying to accomplish | | **Environmental changes** | trends making the pain worse over time → your **villain** |

Those four buckets feed directly into `positioning-and-story` and `value-prop-that-converts`.

Mistakes that look reasonable

• **Interviewing friends**: they're nice and useless. You need people who'll say no.
• **Pitching mid-interview**: the moment you demo, they start being polite instead of honest.
• **Leading questions**: "wouldn't it be great if…" gets you the answer you fished for.
• **Batch outreach**: a templated blast to 200 people gets 200 ignores. Personalize or don't send.
• **Asking for solutions**: users are experts in their pain, not in your product. Mine the pain.

Your next 30 minutes

• [ ] List every persona from `who-is-this-for`; you need TAB members for each.
• [ ] Find 10 people who've *publicly posted about the problem* (HN, Reddit, GitHub issues, X).
• [ ] Send 10 personalized, 4-sentence, problem-first invites. Today.
• [ ] Lock your 7 questions (3 above + 4 tailored). Do not exceed 7.
• [ ] After 3 calls, fill the Pains/Gains/Jobs/Changes table with real quotes.

--- Built from real dev-tool GTM experience, with frameworks from Adam Frankl (*The Developer-Facing Startup*) and Jakub Czakon (*markepear.dev*). When a framework can't make the call, that's what a human is for: [The DevTool GTM Company](https://thedevtoolgtmcompany.com).