Michael Margolis
person on 1 show · 12 statements across 1 episodes
On the record as a speaker too: Michael Margolis across every show, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
12 statements about Michael Margolis, every show
Margolis: Weight past user behavior over user predictions of future actions
“Put more weight on past experiences than on people's predictions of what they would do.”
Margolis: Low incentives like $20 gift cards cause research no-shows
“You have to make sure they show up, make sure you're compensating them sufficiently. This is something where I'm not giving 20 dollar Starbucks cards because somebody's gonna blow you off. Like when I have those five sessions and the whole team queued up to wa…”
Margolis: User research requires founders adopt humble inquiry over sales pitching
“Asking questions and being vulnerable and giving the person you're asking the higher status is a difficult thing to do as a founder when you're selling. Right? Because you don't want to be vulnerable and express that you don't know or, and people are always, I…”
Margolis: Screeners must avoid telegraphing desired answers to prevent participant bias
“And so part of the trick there is to write a questionnaire in a way that I'm not telegraphing the right answers. And so that I kind of am in the control seat so I can pick out and identify the people.”
Margolis: Bullseye customer definitions require inclusion, exclusion, and trigger criteria
“The way I think about it is kind of in these three groups. So there are inclusion criteria, there are exclusion criteria, and then there are, what we found is very important are triggers.”
Margolis: Early customer research must exclude industry experts and domain insiders
“Another typical exclusion Criteria is I don't want somebody who knows too much. So your core bullseye customer, I want somebody who's pretty typical. So in this case, like if I were to find out that somebody was a pharmacist or worked in healthcare, I'm like, …”
Margolis: Bullseye customer definitions must be comically narrow to reduce variables
“Comically narrow is exactly what it is. And there are times that teams will just be like, Oh, for God's sakes, Margolis, like, just like, this is too much. The reason that I do that is I'm pushing them to identify a person who they all would agree. This person…”
Margolis has not written a user research report in 10 years
“I don't write a report. I haven't written a report in, I don't know, 10 years because we've at the end, when we capture those big takeaways, that's the team has captured it, right?”
Margolis: Testing multiple prototypes stops teams overcommitting to one idea
“The other big benefit of having multiple prototypes is it helps teams avoid getting too wed to one specific idea. And so you can get a little over committed. There's a risk that you get over committed to one idea.
You're polishing that you're working on it. Yo…”
Margolis: Five qualitative customer interviews reach data saturation
“And that idea of just doing five of them
You hit what's called data saturation. And so this is the thing in qualitative research where the kind of the common version of this is everybody after four or five is like, oh, for God's sakes, please don't let me sit …”
Margolis: Batching customer interviews in one day makes patterns obvious
“If you do them in a clump like that, then the patterns are just much more obvious. You have to, at the end of the day, it's just really clear what were the big takeaways.”
Margolis: Successful product building requires starting with a hyper-focused initial customer subset
“Every ambitious founder wants to build a product for everybody and we're investors. So at GV, we want them to be successful and to have these huge markets. But it doesn't start there. So to build successfully, usually you have to be much more focused and much …”