***<\/p>\n
What we already had at this point<\/h2>\n
Let’s start with a little reminder.<\/p>\n
What we had after the first two parts of the interview was:<\/p>\n
– a crucial pain point of our prospects\u2019 group that we wanted our SaaS to solve;
\n– information on what the prospects currently used to somehow cope with that pain plus a more detailed info on what kind of data they usually work with.<\/p>\n
After two such rounds you should already have some important info, too. Ideally, in your case it’s also your prospects’ pain points and the solutions they use right now to deal with them. This way you’ll be able to decide whether your business idea makes sense or perhaps you should adjust it.<\/p>\n
What should the final part of the interview be about?<\/h2>\n
The third part of the interview can, hopefully, help you to decide on the further direction of development.<\/p>\n
That’s what it did in our case. We found out the trainers collect various kinds of information about their clients\u2019 progress. Now we wanted to find out how they use the information later on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The only thing I would now change about this email, would be to make it shorter. The email worked because we had created a basic connection with the trainers. So, in this sense, this email right here is not exactly a cold one.<\/p>\n Even though it wasn\u2019t an initial outreach (which always has to<\/em> be short) , if I was to write the email again today, I would make it shorter.<\/p>\n As I’ve mentioned in the first part of this post, there are three simple rules for asking questions in such an interview:<\/p>\n The questions we asked, again, were about how the trainers work. And again, I tried to make them as easy to answer as possible.<\/p>\n The first one is an either-or type of question. Yes, I know it’s not an open-ended question, but I like this type because it seems very easy and does not involve much effort to answer \u2013 at least at first sight. They have just two options to choose from, which should make the choice easy.<\/p>\n In fact, such a question is usually a perfect trigger to elicit a longer response. Because in life, there are hardly ever pure either-or situations. Much more often it\u2019s \u201cusually, I do this, but sometimes I do that\u2026 it depends on\u2026 etc.\u201d \u2013 that’s the kind of answers I\u2019m always more than happy to get in an interview. And that’s what I actually got very often in response to this one.<\/p>\n The second one is about the frequency of getting back to the collected data. It\u2019s an open questions that involves some triggers for the interviewee to resonate with.<\/p>\n The third question is very similar in its construction to the second one. (You\u2019ll find more about open questions like the second and the third one in Part 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n This part of the interview may help you plan your further development. Basing your questions on what you’ve already learned about your prospects, confront the ideas you have for your next features with them.<\/p>\n That’s what we did with those three simple questions.<\/p>\n Thanks to the second part of the interview, we established that many trainers collect their clients\u2019 progress data using paper files or Excel.<\/p>\n We needed to define another additional value 52Challenges could offer them. We decided to combine the ease of collecting progress notes with the powerful presentation of results. The idea sounded valid to us, but we wanted to confront it against the realities of personal trainers\u2019 job. And we successfully managed to do that thanks to this part of the interview.<\/p>\n \n![\"Interview_trainers_mail_3\"](\"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/app\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Interview_trainers_mail_3.png\")
<\/a>
\nAs you can see, the first three paragraphs make a kind of re-introduction to the topic. The third interview email was sent after some time, so I wanted to make sure the trainers are back in the context \u2013 remember who I am, what I do, what I want from them and why. I write a bit more about the importance of such introductions in email sequences in the Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\nHow to construct the questions<\/h2>\n
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What can you gain from this part of the interview?<\/h2>\n