Myths of Customer Discovery

In a recent conversation with a friend who leads the venture development arm of a university, the theme of customer discovery really stood out. Their group supports faculty who are building novel inventions, often at very different stages of development. This support includes customer discovery.

Customer discovery is a well accepted idea in any innovation process. At the core of it, it means talking to potential customers about an invention. In reality, it is a more evolved process, and often less understood than it first appears.

In some settings, discovery becomes a checkbox exercise. A team defines a set of questions. These questions may cover whether the invention is useful, whether the problem matters, whether someone would use it, and perhaps whether someone might pay for it. They speak with a group of people, summarize the responses, and move on.

That exercise can be useful, but it is rarely enough. The challenge is that teams can go through the motions of discovery without changing how they understand the customer. They can ask questions, collect reactions and summarize themes, but still miss the deeper realities that matter: how people work today, what they already tolerate, what they trust, what slows them down and what would have to change for the invention to matter.

Let’s discuss a few myths and mental models associated with customer discovery.

Myth 1: Customer discovery is about the product

Most teams naturally begin with the product they are building. They want to know whether people understand it, whether they would use it, and whether it feels valuable. Those are reasonable questions, but they can narrow the inquiry too quickly.

Customer discovery needs to begin with the customer’s world. What problem are they already trying to solve? How painful is that problem compared with everything else competing for attention? How do they experience it today, and what workarounds already exist?

Blood-based colorectal cancer screening is a useful example. It is easy to focus discovery on whether patients would prefer a blood test over stool-based testing or colonoscopy. But the more important questions may come after the test. The FDA’s approval summary for one such test states that patients with a positive result should be followed by colonoscopy. Medicare’s coverage page makes the same point: blood test is a screening step, and a positive result still requires follow up colonoscopy.

That modifies the discovery questions to include additional facets: do patients understand that blood based screening may still require colonoscopy? Will the ordering clinician have a clear follow up process? Discovery, in that case, is about the full path the customer has to travel, including steps beyond the product.

Until those details are understood, it is difficult to know whether the invention is solving a high-priority problem or simply creating a new set of steps around an existing one.

Myth 2: Customer discovery is about interviews

Interviews help teams hear how people describe a problem, what they believe matters, and what they say they would do in a situation. But an interview also removes people from the setting where the problem actually happens. It asks them to remember, explain and predict behavior from a distance.

In healthcare, the reality of a problem often lives in the details of the day. It lives in the room setup, the handoffs, or the staff member who quietly makes the workflow work.

This contextual inquiry study of central line placement makes this point well. The researchers combined observation and interviews, and studied users, environment, tasks and workflow. That kind of inquiry help them understand if the problem may sit in a hand movement, the location of supplies, or a crowded room. Those details often become visible only when the work is observed.

The point is not to abandon interviews, but to recognize their limits. Good discovery often requires watching the work, mapping the workflow, listening for contradictions and understanding the small adaptations people have already built into their day.

Myth 3: KOL feedback is customer discovery

In MedTech, it is natural to begin with physicians, surgeons or other respected clinical voices who understand the problem deeply. They can help refine the idea, identify clinical concerns and explain what would make the invention more useful.

But they cannot be the only representation of the customer. A key opinion leader may be unusually motivated, tolerant of friction or willing to imagine a better future. That makes the feedback valuable but also limited.

For example, a highly experienced surgeon may immediately understand the use case and see where a new tool fits in the procedure. That still leaves several questions unanswered. How would the tool perform with someone less experienced? How much training would the broader team need? Would the tool still be used when the original champion is absent?

Myth 4: Customer discovery ends once people start using the product

The final myth, and probably the most dangerous one, is that customer discovery ends once people start using the product. Early use matters because it shows whether the invention can make it into a real setting. But the harder questions often come later. What happens after the fifth use? What happens when a new staff member joins, or when the use case is less ideal than the first one?

So what is a good example of customer discovery done well?

This usability-focused study by a team developing a connected sensor system initially asked surgeons whether the idea was useful but they didn’t stop there. The process also included observations, workshops and usability tests, and considered how the technology would fit into clinical practice involving surgeons, nurses, nurse assistants and patients. The study also describes an iterative loop of observation, design and formative evaluation before a functional prototype was produced.

That is closer to the kind of discovery MedTech teams need. Discovery should evolve as the invention evolves. Early discovery may focus on the problem. Later discovery should focus on workflow, trust, training, usability and repeated use. The goal is to keep learning as the customer’s relationship with the invention becomes more real.

For faculty, founders, accelerators and venture development teams, the practical question is: did customer discovery change what the team understands and help them uncover problems they did not consider initially? Or did it only confirm what the team already hoped was true?

If discovery only produces interview notes, it has probably fallen short. If it changes who the team learns from, what questions they ask, what evidence they trust and what they build next, then it is doing the work it is meant to do.

Photo: Urupong, Getty Images

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