The Art of Not Wasting Your Life on a Shit Idea: 7 Interview Questions That Separate Gold from Garbage

Let's begin with a truth universally acknowledged but seldom discussed: most founders are spectacularly gifted at falling in love with their own ideas. I've been there – gazing adoringly at my business concept like it was the last chocolate biscuit at a particularly dull meeting. The problem? Our ideas are like our children – we think they're brilliant even when they're actively setting things on fire. And that, dear reader, is why most startups fail before they've properly begun. Not because the founder lacked passion, but because they never bothered to check if anyone else shared their enthusiasm for "Uber, but for houseplants" or whatever fever dream they'd convinced themselves was revolutionary.

Why Most "Customer Research" Is Actually Elaborate Self-Deception

Having crashed and burned in my own entrepreneurial endeavours, I've developed a certain appreciation for the fine art of validation. The truth is, most of us approach customer interviews like we're prosecuting attorneys leading the witness. "Wouldn't you agree that tracking your pet's mood swings is a significant problem in your life?" (Said while nodding enthusiastically and practically mouthing "say yes" from across the table).

The goal of proper customer research isn't to confirm your brilliant idea – it's to understand if the problem you think exists is actually real, painful, and worth solving. It's about discovering if people are actively looking for solutions and, more importantly, if they'd be willing to pay for yours. In other words, it's about potentially saving yourself months (or years) of building something nobody wants. As Forbes recently highlighted, first-time founders often chase novelty when "boring" products that solve familiar, proven problems are often smarter starting points, requiring less market education and offering quicker feedback loops.

And here's where the "Problem-Solution Interview" comes in – a structured conversation designed to extract the truth, not stroke your ego. It's your best defence against wasting your life building the wrong thing.

The Golden Rules of Not Completely Cocking Up Your Customer Interviews

Before we dive into the specific questions, let's establish some ground rules. Because without these, you might as well just talk to your reflection and save everyone the time.

• Talk to actual potential customers, not your mum or mates who feel obligated to be supportive.
• Ask open-ended questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no.
• Shut up and listen more than you speak – your job is to collect data, not pitch.
• Focus on past behaviours, not hypothetical futures – what people have done is infinitely more reliable than what they say they might do.
• Look for emotional responses – true problems generate frustration, anger, or relief when solutions are mentioned.

I learned these rules the hard way after conducting interviews that were essentially thinly-veiled sales pitches. Trust me, there's nothing quite like the sobering realisation that you've spent six months building something based on affirmative nods from people too polite to tell you your idea is rubbish.

The 7 Questions That Will Save You from Yourself

Now, let's get to the meat of it – the seven questions that cut through the politeness and reveal whether your idea has legs or belongs in the bin. These aren't just questions; they're your financial self-preservation toolkit.

Question 1: "Walk me through the last time you encountered [problem your solution addresses]."

Notice I didn't ask, "Do you have this problem?" That's amateur hour. Instead, ask for a specific instance. If they can't recall one, your problem might be imaginary. If they give vague answers, dig deeper: "What exactly happened?" "How did that make you feel?" People who actually experience a problem can describe it in excruciating detail – and usually will, given half a chance.

The red flag here is hesitation or generalisation. "Oh, you know, it happens sometimes" is the sound of your future business dying before it's born.

Question 2: "What have you already tried to solve this problem?"

This question separates mild annoyances from hair-on-fire problems. People who haven't tried anything to solve the problem don't actually care that much about it. People who've tried multiple solutions are promising customers – they've demonstrated both awareness and willingness to invest time or money.

Listen carefully to what they've tried. These are your competitors, whether they're formal businesses or DIY hacks. And sometimes the biggest competitor is "doing nothing," which is a perfectly valid solution if the problem isn't painful enough.

Question 3: "What's the hardest part about dealing with [problem]?"

This question helps you identify the core pain point rather than symptoms. Often what people first mention isn't actually what bothers them most. By asking what's hardest, you're uncovering potential focal points for your solution.

The gold in responses to this question is emotional language. When someone says something is "infuriating," "exhausting," or "keeps me up at night," you're onto something real. If they answer with the emotional intensity of someone describing their filing system, proceed with caution.

Question 4: "How are you currently dealing with this situation?"

This reveals your customer's current workflow and the status quo you need to displace. Remember: your biggest competitor isn't another product, it's the current way of doing things. People are remarkably resistant to change, even when their current solution involves spreadsheets, sticky notes, and occasional prayers to the productivity gods.

Listen for makeshift systems, workarounds, and compromises. These are opportunities for your solution to shine. But also pay attention to whether these systems, however janky, are actually working well enough. "Good enough" is the mortal enemy of "new and better."

Question 5: "What would an ideal solution look like to you?"

Now we're getting into solution territory, but notice we're still asking them to articulate it. This question often reveals priorities and must-have features you might not have considered. It also shows whether their vision aligns with yours.

The trap here is taking everything they say as a feature request. Instead, listen for the outcomes they want. "I want something that automatically categorises my expenses" isn't about the feature; it's about the outcome of saving time and reducing mental load.

Question 6: "If you had a solution that did [core benefit of your idea], how would that impact your life/business?"

This is where you test the value proposition without explicitly pitching your idea. You're asking them to quantify the impact of solving their problem. Responses like "It would save me 5 hours a week" or "It would reduce our error rate by half" are promising. Vague positivity like "That would be nice" is the sound of your bank account weeping.

The magic happens when people start doing the maths themselves: "If this saved me two hours a week, that's over 100 hours a year... that's basically three weeks of work!" When they're calculating the value without prompting, you might be onto something.

Question 7: "What would you be willing to pay for such a solution?"

The money question. It's direct, it's awkward, and it's absolutely essential. The first response is usually hesitation or a lowball figure. That's normal. Follow up with: "What makes you say that amount?" This reveals their value calculation and pricing expectations.

Remember: people who say they would "definitely pay for this" but can't give you a number are lying to you (and possibly to themselves). People who can immediately give you a specific figure ("I'd easily pay £50/month for that") and explain why ("because I'm currently paying £200 for something that doesn't even solve half the problem") are potential early adopters worth their weight in gold. This pricing psychology runs deeper than you might think – research shows that consumers exhibit strong left-digit bias, where 60.7% of advertised prices end in 9 because we perceive $9.99 as significantly cheaper than $10.00, focusing on the leftmost digit and subconsciously rounding down.

Turning Interview Insights into Actionable Decisions

So you've done your interviews – now what? Here's how to process what you've learned without falling back into the wishful thinking trap:

• Look for patterns across interviews, not just confirmation from one enthusiastic person.
• Pay attention to contradictions between what people say they want and what they've actually done in the past.
• Weigh emotional responses more heavily than intellectual interest – excitement and frustration are more reliable indicators than "that sounds interesting."
• Identify the riskiest assumption in your business model and focus on validating or invalidating it first.
• Be willing to pivot if the research suggests a different problem is more pressing or valuable to solve.

After my own spectacular business failure, I realised I'd conducted plenty of "research" but had masterfully interpreted every response as validation. I heard what I wanted to hear. Don't be like past me. Be ruthlessly honest about what your interviews are actually telling you. Recent research on digital startups confirms that while they demonstrate greater success compared to traditional startups, limited understanding exists regarding effective application of Lean Startup Approaches, though they are proven effective in fostering business model innovation within digital entrepreneurship.

When to Kill Your Idea (And Why That's Actually a Victory)

Here's the part most founders don't want to hear: sometimes the right conclusion from your interviews is to kill your idea. And that's not failure – it's efficient success. You've just saved yourself months or years of building something doomed from the start.

Kill your idea if:

• People understand the problem but don't care enough to have tried solving it
• The solutions they've cobbled together are "good enough"
• They express interest but balk at any mention of pricing
• They can't articulate how solving this problem would meaningfully impact their life
• You need to educate people extensively about why they should care

The entrepreneurs we admire aren't necessarily the ones who stuck with their original idea through sheer force of will. They're the ones who were willing to test, learn, and pivot until they found product-market fit. Sometimes that means killing your precious idea and moving on to the next one. It's not personal; it's business. The statistics are sobering: only 39 out of 60,000 VC-funded companies (0.065%) reached unicorn status between 2003-2013, while new unicorn creation dropped from 629 in 2021 to just 102 in 2024.

Having burned through cash, time, and relationships on an idea that wasn't viable, I can tell you that learning to let go earlier would have saved me more than money – it would have preserved my mental health and given me runway to try again sooner.

From Interviews to Action: Your Next Steps

If your idea survived the gauntlet of these seven questions, congratulations – you might be onto something with actual potential. Here's what to do next:

• Craft a Minimum Viable Product focused specifically on the core pain point identified.
• Pre-sell before you build – if people won't put money down now, they probably won't later either.
• Stay in constant contact with those enthusiastic interviewees – they're your potential early adopters.
• Document the exact language people used to describe their problems – this becomes your marketing copy.
• Create a feedback loop to continue learning as you build – because what people say they want and what they actually use can still differ dramatically.

The interview process isn't a one-time event but the beginning of an ongoing dialogue with your market. The founders who maintain this dialogue tend to build products people actually want, rather than solutions in search of problems. For those ready to move beyond validation, understanding how to transition from problem discovery to revenue becomes the critical next phase of your entrepreneurial journey.

Remember: the goal isn't to build something. The goal is to solve a problem in a way that creates enough value that people will pay for it. Everything else is just expensive performance art. This is particularly important for SMB-focused solutions, where endemic churn rates of around 3% per month can severely impact growth as momentum slows, making initial validation even more crucial.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Customer Research

Let's end with the uncomfortable truth about customer research: it's not about validating your idea. It's about invalidating assumptions. Your job isn't to prove yourself right; it's to identify all the ways you might be wrong before they cost you your savings, your investors' money, or your sanity.

The most valuable outcome of these seven questions isn't a green light to proceed with your original vision. It's the red flags, contradictions, and unexpected insights that force you to refine, rethink, or redirect your efforts. The entrepreneurs who embrace this uncomfortable truth are the ones who eventually build something worth building.

So go forth and interview. Be brave enough to ask the hard questions. Be quiet enough to truly hear the answers. And be humble enough to change course when the market tells you to. Because ultimately, the measure of entrepreneurial intelligence isn't having brilliant ideas – it's knowing which ones to abandon and which ones to pursue with everything you've got.