Identify your bullseye customer in one day | Michael Margolis (UX Research Partner at Google Ventures)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2024
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael Margolis has been a UX research partner at Google Ventures (GV) for nearly 15 years. He has developed a unique approach to helping startups identify their “bullseye customer”—the specific subset of their target market who initially is most likely to adopt their product. Michael has conducted over 300 hands-on research sprints with GV portfolio companies across various industries and helped develop the “design sprint” process made famous by the book Sprint. In our conversation, we discuss:
• The step-by-step process of running a bullseye customer sprint
• The most common mistakes founders make when picking their first customers
• Practical tips for conducting effective customer interviews
• How to create simple but effective prototypes for user research
• The power of “watch parties” in aligning teams around customer insights
• How to apply these methods beyond typical tech startups
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• Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments
• Paragon—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want
• Enterpret—Transform customer feedback into product growth
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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/finding-your-bullseye-customer-michael-margolis
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Where to find Michael Margolis:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmargolis/
• Website: https://www.learnmorefaster.com/
• Medium: https://medium.com/@mmargolis
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Michael’s background
(09:11) Bullseye customers vs. ideal customer profiles (ICPs)
(12:32) An overview of the bullseye customer sprint
(20:56) When to use the bullseye customer sprint
(22:19) Step one: Agree on goals and key questions
(23:48) Step two: Define your bullseye customer
(25:52) The importance of a narrow target audience
(29:00) An example of step two in action
(38:24) Narrowing attributes and exclusion criteria
(43:28) Step three: Recruiting and compensating participants
(56:11) Step four: Creating effective prototypes
(01:01:10) Step five: Drafting your interview guide
(01:08:49) Step six: The watch party method
(01:19:40) Common pitfalls and final thoughts
(01:24:43) Closing thoughts and where to find Michael
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Referenced:
• Learn More Faster: How to Find Your Bullseye Customer and Their Perfect Product: https://www.learnmorefaster.com
• Alcoa: https://www.alcoa.com
• Dupont: https://www.dupont.com
• Ericsson: https://www.ericsson.com
• Google Ventures: https://www.gv.com/
• Kate Aronowitz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katearonowitz/
• Vanessa Cho on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veecho/
• How to kickstart and scale a consumer business—Step 2: Identify your super-specific who: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/consumer-business-super-specific-who
• When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/when-enough-is-enough-andy-johns
• Zipline for health care: https://www.flyzipline.com/solutions/healthcare
• Jobs to Be Done framework: https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done
• User Interviews: https://www.userinterviews.com/
• Respondent: https://www.respondent.io/
• Flatiron Health: https://flatiron.com/
• How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-identify-your-ideal-customer
• Gong: https://www.gong.io
• Linear: https://linear.app
• Gusto: https://gusto.com/
• Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling: https://bookshop.org/p/books/humble-inquiry-second-edition-the-gentle-art-of-asking-instead-of-telling-edgar-h-schein/14739375
• Figma: https://www.figma.com
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You have done 30 years of work and iteration and refinement. You're here just to tell us. |
| 0:04.5 | Here's the most important thing you need to know. Here's how to do it based on all that time I've spent. |
| 0:08.0 | Help us understand what is a bull's eye customer? Every ambitious founder wants to build a product for |
| 0:12.2 | everybody. But it doesn't start there. Amazon started just selling books or Facebook was just |
| 0:16.5 | profiles for college students. So a bullseye customer is the very specific subset of your target |
| 0:22.4 | market who initially is most likely to adopt your product or service. Why this of all the |
| 0:28.0 | things that you can focus on of a startup journey? It helps you get really deep in understanding |
| 0:33.0 | who are those people and understanding what they need. It helps you prioritize the feedback you're getting |
| 0:38.1 | and it just gets everybody as a team much more aligned on what are we doing and what are we doing first. |
| 0:43.2 | You have this bullseye customer sprint that your book describes. You basically give people a plan |
| 0:48.5 | for how to figure this out in a day, which sounds like a dream. The basic formula, the way I think about it, |
| 0:55.3 | is five and three and one. So it's five bullseye customers and three very simple prototypes. And then we conduct |
| 1:00.9 | those interviews in one day while the whole team is watching and debriefing and kind of thinking |
| 1:05.4 | about what are the key big takeaways at the end of that. Where do you start? So step one is |
| 1:18.9 | Today, my guest is Michael Margolis. Michael has been a U.X researcher at Google Ventures for almost 15 years, where he's worked with over 300 companies to help them get unstuck, move |
| 1:24.1 | faster, and build something that people want. He helped develop the design |
| 1:28.0 | Sprint method made famous by the book Sprint, and more recently wrote a book called Learn More |
| 1:32.5 | Faster, how to find your bullseye customer and their perfect product, which essentially |
| 1:36.9 | helps you identify and refine your ideal customer profile in a single day. I've said many times |
| 1:42.7 | on this podcast that one of the biggest mistakes |
| 1:44.6 | founders make and product teams make is not being very clear and very narrow with their initial |
| 1:49.7 | target market. And I've been looking for a book and a guide to help people figure this out. This book |
... |
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