Customer Research

How to Conduct Validation Interviews That Actually Work

9 min read

You’ve got a brilliant startup idea. You’re convinced it’ll change the world. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: your assumptions are probably wrong. Before you spend months building a product nobody wants, you need to conduct validation interviews. The problem? Most founders do them completely wrong.

Validation interviews aren’t about pitching your idea and fishing for compliments. They’re about uncovering real problems, understanding customer behavior, and testing your riskiest assumptions. Done right, they’ll save you months of wasted effort. Done wrong, they’ll give you false confidence that leads straight to failure.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to conduct validation interviews that actually work—from crafting the right questions to analyzing responses and making data-driven decisions about your startup’s direction.

What Makes Validation Interviews Different

Validation interviews aren’t casual conversations. They’re structured research sessions designed to test specific hypotheses about your customers and their problems. Unlike customer development interviews that explore broadly, validation interviews have a clear goal: determining whether your solution assumption is worth pursuing.

The key difference is intentionality. Every question should reveal information that helps you make a go/no-go decision. You’re not gathering general feedback—you’re validating or invalidating specific beliefs about your target market’s pain points, current solutions, and willingness to change.

The Three Goals of Every Validation Interview

Each interview should accomplish three things:

Confirm the problem exists: Does this person actually experience the pain point you’ve identified?
Understand current behavior: How do they solve this problem today, and what would motivate them to change?
Test solution assumptions: Would your proposed solution address their actual needs?

If you can’t clearly connect your interview questions to these three goals, you’re wasting time—yours and theirs.

Preparing for Validation Interviews

Preparation determines 80% of your interview success. Before you schedule a single conversation, you need clarity on who you’re talking to and what you’re trying to learn.

Define Your Target Segment

Be ruthlessly specific about who you want to interview. “Small business owners” is too broad. “Solo marketing consultants earning $100K-$500K annually who struggle with client reporting” is specific enough to yield actionable insights.

Create a screening criteria document that includes:

Demographics (age, location, job title, company size)
Psychographics (goals, challenges, attitudes)
Behavioral markers (tools they use, problems they actively try to solve)
Disqualifiers (who should you NOT interview)

Develop Your Interview Script

Write out your questions in advance, but stay flexible during the actual conversation. Your script should flow naturally from general to specific, avoiding yes/no questions that shut down discussion.

Start with open-ended questions about their current situation, then progressively narrow to their specific pain points and behaviors. Save solution-related questions for the end—you want to understand their world before introducing your ideas.

The Validation Interview Framework

Here’s a proven structure for conducting effective validation interviews. This framework has helped hundreds of founders avoid building the wrong product.

1. Introduction and Rapport Building (5 minutes)

Begin by thanking them for their time and explaining the purpose: “I’m researching [specific problem] and want to understand how people like you currently handle [situation]. This isn’t a sales call—I genuinely want to learn from your experience.”

Set expectations: the interview will take 30-45 minutes, you’ll be taking notes, and there are no right or wrong answers. Make them comfortable sharing honestly.

2. Background and Context (10 minutes)

Ask about their role, responsibilities, and typical day. You’re looking for context that helps you understand their constraints, priorities, and decision-making authority.

Good questions include:

“Walk me through your typical workday.”
“What are your main responsibilities in this role?”
“What does success look like for you?”

3. Problem Discovery (15 minutes)

This is where most founders mess up. They ask, “Do you have a problem with X?” which practically begs for a polite “yes.” Instead, ask about their current behavior and let the problems emerge naturally.

Try these instead:

“Tell me about the last time you [relevant activity].”
“What’s frustrating about how you currently [relevant task]?”
“What would make [specific process] easier for you?”
“How much time do you spend on [activity] each week?”

Listen for emotional language—words like “annoying,” “frustrating,” “hate,” or “wish” signal real pain points worth exploring deeper.

4. Current Solution Analysis (10 minutes)

Understanding how someone currently solves a problem reveals how serious it actually is. If they’ve cobbled together a makeshift solution, the problem matters. If they shrug and say “it’s fine,” you might not have a viable opportunity.

Ask about:

What tools or methods they currently use
How much they pay for current solutions
What they like and dislike about their current approach
What they’ve tried in the past that didn’t work

5. Solution Validation (5-10 minutes)

Only after you understand their problem and current behavior should you introduce your solution concept. Don’t pitch—present it as one possible approach and gauge genuine interest.

“Based on what you’ve shared, what if there was a tool that [brief description]? How would that fit into your workflow?”

Watch for hesitation or enthusiasm. Ask about deal-breakers and must-have features. Most importantly, ask: “If this existed today, would you use it? What would prevent you from switching?”

Leveraging Reddit Research Before Interviews

Before conducting validation interviews, smart founders do preliminary research to identify which problems are worth validating. This is where PainOnSocial becomes invaluable for your validation process.

Instead of guessing which pain points to explore in your interviews, you can analyze real discussions from Reddit communities where your target customers congregate. PainOnSocial surfaces the most frequently mentioned and emotionally intense problems people are actually discussing, complete with real quotes and evidence.

This Reddit-first approach helps you enter validation interviews with hypotheses grounded in actual customer conversations, not assumptions. You can reference specific problems you’ve seen mentioned repeatedly, ask interviewees if they relate to those frustrations, and validate whether the patterns you’ve observed online reflect real, widespread pain points.

For example, if PainOnSocial reveals that 47 people in r/SaaS are complaining about customer onboarding challenges with specific pain points around time-to-value, you can structure your validation interviews to specifically explore those dimensions with your target segment.

Questions That Uncover Truth

The quality of your insights depends entirely on the quality of your questions. Here are battle-tested questions that consistently reveal valuable information:

Problem Severity Questions

“On a scale of 1-10, how painful is this problem for you?”
“How often does this problem occur?”
“What does this problem cost you (time, money, stress)?”
“If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about [process], what would it be?”

Behavioral Questions

“Show me how you currently do [task].” (If remote, ask them to share screen)
“What did you do the last time this happened?”
“Walk me through your decision-making process when choosing [relevant tool/service].”

Budget and Authority Questions

“What’s your budget for solutions in this area?”
“Who else would need to be involved in a purchasing decision?”
“How do you typically evaluate new tools or services?”

Common Validation Interview Mistakes

Even experienced founders fall into these traps. Avoid them at all costs:

The Pitch Trap

You’re not there to sell—you’re there to learn. The moment you start pitching, people become polite and start telling you what you want to hear. Keep your idea description to 30 seconds maximum and spend the rest of the time listening.

The Confirmation Bias Trap

You’ll hear what you want to hear unless you actively fight against it. When someone says something that confirms your beliefs, dig deeper with “Why?” When they say something that contradicts your assumptions, don’t dismiss it—explore it.

The Hypothetical Question Trap

Questions like “Would you use X?” or “Would you pay for Y?” are useless. People are terrible at predicting their future behavior. Ask about past behavior instead: “Tell me about the last time you…”

The Feature Discussion Trap

Don’t get sidetracked discussing specific features. Features are your solution to their problem—but you need to understand the problem first. If someone starts suggesting features, acknowledge them and redirect: “That’s interesting. Help me understand what problem that would solve for you.”

How Many Interviews Do You Need?

You’ll often hear “talk to 100 customers” as generic advice. The real answer depends on your market and how quickly you reach saturation—the point where interviews stop revealing new information.

For most B2B products, 15-25 interviews with qualified prospects reveals clear patterns. For consumer products with diverse segments, you might need 50-100. The key is quality over quantity. Five deep conversations with ideal customers beat 50 superficial chats with loosely relevant people.

Stop interviewing when:

You can predict what people will say before they say it
You’ve heard the same problems from 70%+ of interviewees
You have clear data to make a go/no-go decision

Analyzing Your Interview Data

Don’t just collect interviews—analyze them systematically. After each interview, write up notes while the conversation is fresh. Identify:

Pain point frequency: Which problems came up most often?
Pain point intensity: Which problems generated the strongest emotional responses?
Current solutions: What patterns exist in how people solve this today?
Willingness to pay: What budget signals did you detect?
Objections: What concerns or hesitations emerged?

Create a simple spreadsheet tracking these dimensions across all interviews. Look for patterns—three people mentioning the same specific frustration is a signal worth paying attention to.

Making the Go/No-Go Decision

After completing your interviews, you should have clarity on whether to proceed. Ask yourself:

Did at least 60% of interviewees confirm the problem exists for them?
Did people describe the problem as urgent or important, not just “nice to have”?
Are people currently spending time or money trying to solve this problem?
Did at least 40% express genuine interest in your solution approach?
Can you clearly articulate the problem in a way that resonates with your target market?

If you answered yes to all five, you’ve validated a real opportunity. If you answered no to two or more, you need to either pivot your approach or choose a different problem to solve.

Conclusion

Validation interviews are your reality check before investing months into building a product. They’re uncomfortable because they force you to confront whether your idea actually solves a real problem for real people who will actually pay for it.

But that discomfort is valuable. It’s far better to discover your assumptions are wrong during a 30-minute conversation than after burning six months and $50,000 on development.

Remember: the goal isn’t to validate your idea—it’s to discover the truth. Be genuinely curious about your customers’ problems, listen more than you talk, and let their reality guide your product decisions. That’s how you build something people actually want.

Start scheduling those interviews this week. Your future self—and your startup’s chances of success—will thank you.