How do you run product discovery?

Direct answer

What a strong answer covers

How it works

Discovery is the work of reducing the risk that a team builds something nobody needs, cannot use, cannot build, or the business cannot sustain. It starts from the outcome the team is accountable for, then gathers what is already known from usage data, support tickets, and past research. The team maps the assumptions the idea depends on across value, usability, feasibility, and viability, ranks them by how likely they are to be wrong and how much it would matter, and tests the riskiest ones with the cheapest method that gives real signal: interviews, prototypes, fake-door tests, a concierge version, or a technical spike. Each test updates the decision to build, change, or drop.

Example

A team assigned to reduce churn among small businesses assumed the cause was missing integrations. Interviews with twelve churned customers found that most left because invoicing took too long, not because of integrations. A clickable prototype of a faster invoicing flow tested with eight customers showed completion time halving, and a two-week fake-door test measured 22 percent of users clicking the new option. The integration roadmap was shelved and the invoicing work was funded.

Common mistakes

• Starting from a feature request and skipping the problem.
• Running discovery for months without any decision it feeds.
• Treating a single enthusiastic interview as validation.

A useful answer structure

Answer from your own work.

Do not memorise a script: use only examples you can explain honestly in follow-up questions.