How do you do research with potential clients on a net new feature?

I'd make sure I have crisp answers to the following - 

1/ Re-visit the "why" behind the new feature. Why did you develop it? What is it supposed to solve? 

2/ Who has this need, more than any other segments? 

3/ Who are these people (from #2) already turning to to solve this need? 

4/ How well does our feature meet the needs of this new audience relative to the tools / companies identified in #3? What are these specific gaps? 

There are a few good ways to get relatively unbiased feedback from new customers. The first is to pull a list of recently onboarded customers – these are customers who are newer to your platform and won’t already be intimately familiar with your platform or solution. I’d attempt to reach out to these people first to get their fresh eyes on the feature that you’re launching.

If you’re looking for even more unbiased feedback from customers who haven’t gone through your sales cycle yet, then you can leverage an expert network like GLG or Tegus to help you set up compensated interviews with people in your target audience. These expert networks will often already have a roster of people in different levels at different companies who are willing to provide their input for a price. These companies also have staff dedicated to reaching out and engaging additional experts if you can’t find the right people in their existing databases.

Another way to get these interviews is to conduct cold outreach to net new prospects. I’ve found that interviews with new prospects that I’ve gotten through cold outreach are some of the valuable sources of feedback (they also sometimes result in a sales down the line). Getting a response from cold outreach can be difficult, so I’d recommend reaching out to many people and expecting most of them not to respond. I find that adding LinkedIn connections and sending a note explaining why you’re connecting is a good way to reach people who aren’t in your existing network. When making the ask, explain that you’re conducting research and that the result could be a new product or feature that they’ll potentially find useful. I’ve also found that having interns or people with senior titles in your organization make the connection request works well for different reasons. Some people love to help others who are early in their career, while others are flattered by outreach from someone with a more senior title. Some companies choose to offer compensation for the interview, though I find that this doesn’t work well for more senior-level titles and can result in more transactional conversations.

Finally, when asking clients for feedback on new features, make sure to start with open-ended questions and show genuine curiosity towards the customer’s situation and pain points. Starting with open-ended inquiry allows you to uncover information that might not otherwise surface if you start with pointed questions too early in the interview. Good luck with this!

You can conduct a "first 30 days" study with new users as follows:

First, identify potential audiences who can provide feedback on your new feature. These are:

• People who are entirely new to your platform.

• People who have just started using the new feature.

The first group is generally easy to identify since the customer signup date is logged.

For the second group, there are a couple of ways to identify them:

• If your product logs telemetry on feature usage, you can pinpoint users who have recently started using the new feature.

• Alternatively, survey a significant portion of your customer base, asking when, or if, they began using the new feature.

Once you've identified your audience, initiate the "first 30 days" study. Offer incentives, such as Amazon gift cards, to encourage participation. Inform participants that you'll be checking in with them weekly over four weeks, using discussion platforms like Slack or Remesh.

Each week, present a series of questions or tasks. Utilize both multiple-choice and open-ended questions. Encourage participants to engage in a public channel, allowing them to build upon and refine others' responses. For more in-depth insights, you can directly message participants.

After the four weeks, conduct focus groups or one-on-one interviews to gather more detailed feedback.

The longitudinal approach of this study yields richer feedback compared to standalone interviews. It also promotes consistent feature usage, ensuring well-informed feedback.