We don’t know how to ask the right questions. Even I didn’t, despite having worked in Product for years.
When it came time to do customer discovery for think SID (my business) I thought that having real and unbiased conversations with people was enough to check the customer discovery box.
Before long, I was confronted with the hard truth that what I was actually doing was collecting compliments.
It turns out, humans are terrible at asking questions that reveal the brutal truth.
- We ask leading questions, disguised as an open-ended ”what do you think?”
- We can’t help pitching our idea halfway through the conversation
- We can’t tell politeness from real validation
Now, we’re not stupid or incompetent. It’s just that we were only ever taught how to answer questions, never how to ask them.
Following my very own revelation, I started observing AgTech companies. Their websites, their interviews and podcasts, a few pitch recordings, and then some conversations.
We’re all in the same boat: we haven’t asked the right questions to the right people at the right time. And the consequence was lack of traction, sunk costs, and weight on our shoulders.
That’s why I created this guide, so that WE (yes, me too) nail asking questions so specific and grounded in reality that no farmer or grower can lie to you.
Big caveat: it’s all based on Rob Fitzpatrick’s “The Mom Test” - and all credit’s due to him. My job here has been adapting it specifically to the AgTech industry.
What’s in this guide
- The 3 rules of The Mom Test: How to structure questions so people can’t lie to you
- Dos and don’ts for your next call: Exact questions you should and shouldn’t ask
- How to know if it’s working: Signals to look out for during and after your meeting
Your idea is getting in the way.Three rules of thumb to fix this.
Your solution is the least interesting part of a good discovery call. The most interesting part is the workaround growers currently use to solve a problem. You want to uncover their actual workflow and constraints, and you simply cannot do that if you’re talking about yourself or if you’ve pre-framed their mind.
The first rule: Talk about their life, not your idea.
Examples:
If you’re building a labor management tool, don’t ask if they “need better data.” Ask how they tracked hours last Tuesday.
If they pull out a sweat-stained notebook with pencil marks, you’ve found a workflow. If they say “we just sort of know,” they might not actually have a problem worth paying to solve. Even if you know the problem exists, it’s a red flag for your company if they don’t see it.
Likewise, don’t say: “We’re building a platform to optimize harvest crew scheduling. Do you think this would be useful?”
Instead ask: “Walk me through how you scheduled your picking crews last week. What was the most annoying part of that process?”
The first question in both examples invites them to evaluate your idea. The second forces them to describe their reality.
People will never tell you their pains (they don’t know you, why should they?), but they will show you what’s causing them.
People - anywhere and everywhere - are also terrible at predicting their future behavior.
If you ask a grower, “Would you pay for better pest pressure data?” they’ll say yes because it sounds like the right answer.
But “would you” is a hypothetical. It’s a lie.
This brings us to the second rule: Ask about specifics in the past
Bad: “Would you use an app that predicts frost?”
Good: “Tell me about the last time you lost crop to frost. What was the first thing you did when you saw the forecast? Did you see any field signals of it coming? What did you do then?”
Here’s some food for thought: if they haven’t tried to solve a problem in the past, why would they pay you to solve it in the future?
This is how you identify Irrelevance Risk, so you don’t build something that never mattered enough in the first place.
Last rule: Talk less, listen more (Note: this is HARD)
If you’re talking more than 20% of the time, you’re pitching. Growers are used to (and sick of) salespeople who talk over them. They’ve been pitched at for a lifetime.
When you stop talking so much, farmers will fill the silence with the truth. They can sometimes be brutal while at it - thank them for that.
They’ll tell you that the reason they don’t use soil sensors isn’t because of “data accuracy,” it’s because their workers keep accidentally hitting the probes with the tractor. Or plainly, that they don’t have the time for it.
That’s a signal you’re building something they won’t use, but you will never hear it if you’re busy explaining what “AI-driven satellite imagery is” and why it’s groundbreaking tech.
Dos and don’ts for your next call
We made this table at think SID to help us review our discovery call question list before meeting a new potential customer. It’s dead simple, but has helped us a lot.
If your questions look like the left column, you’re collecting compliments. If they look like the right, you’re collecting data.
Notice the pattern: the right column never mentions your product. It only asks about their life.
How to know if it’s working
While the table above is useful, we know you won’t always be able to ask these verbatim.
Luckily, a successful customer discovery conversation isn’t about asking “perfect questions”, it’s about properly guiding the conversation to the truth.
You’ll know it’s working if:
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They’re doing 80% of the talking
You’re successfully getting a glimpse into their real lives and problems
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They’re talking about specific moments, not generalities
“Last Tuesday when the spray rig broke down...” = data. “We usually have issues with...” = fluff.
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They’ve mentioned something that frustrated or embarrassed them
Real problems come with emotion. If the conversation stays comfortable, you’re not deep enough.
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You heard about a workaround you didn’t expect
A sweat-stained notebook, a “we just pulled these hoses together to fix it”, or a “paid my nephew to work that spreadsheet and tell me how much I spent last month” are gold. They are hints of how they behave and solve problems that matter enough to be solved.
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You left without showing your demo
The less you show, the more you learn. Your startup depends on solving the right problem, not having the nicest dashboard. Reroute the conversation back to their life as soon as you realize you’re the one doing the sharing.
A mindset shift
Customer discovery isn’t about proving you’re right. It’s about confirming the business opportunity you see isn’t just a “nice to have,” but a “must solve”.
If your idea survives a series of conversations, meaning growers describe real problems, show you their current workarounds, and reveal they’ve already spent time or money trying to solve it, then you’ve found something real.
And if your idea doesn’t survive? That’s also a win. You just saved yourself six months of building a product no one wants. It might not seem like it, but your investors will some day be happy to hear this too.