Turn 10 Customer Interviews Into a Message That Actually Converts

Founders write their messaging from the inside out: here is what we built, here are its features, here is why we think it is clever. Buyers do not care. They care about a job they are trying to get done. The fastest way to write copy that converts is to stop guessing and steal the exact words your best customers use. Ten good interviews will do it.

Talk to two groups, not one

Interview your happiest customers, and interview people who looked and did not buy. The first group tells you what is working. The second tells you where the message breaks. Most founders only talk to fans and end up with copy that converts the people who were going to convert anyway.

The interview questions that surface gold

Skip "what features do you want." Ask about the job and the struggle:

1. "Walk me through the day you decided to look for something like this. What happened?"
2. "What were you using before, and what made it not enough?" (This surfaces your real competitive alternatives.)
3. "What almost stopped you from buying?" (Objections, in their words.)
4. "What did you expect it to do, and what surprised you?"
5. "If you could not use us anymore, what would you lose?" (This is your value proposition, written by the customer.)

Record everything. The goal is verbatim language. The phrase a customer repeats three times is worth more than any tagline you will brainstorm.

Synthesize with a real framework

Raw quotes are not positioning. Run them through April Dunford's positioning method, which is built on a few pillars worth memorizing:

• Competitive alternatives: what would they use if you did not exist (often a spreadsheet, not a competitor).
• Differentiators: what you have that the alternatives do not.
• Value: what those differentiators let the customer do or feel.
• Best-fit customer: who cares about that value the most.
• Market category: the context that makes your value obvious.

Get positioning straight first. Writing messaging before positioning is the classic mistake, and it is why so much startup copy sounds clever and converts nobody.

From positioning to a converting message

Now write the homepage hero as a job done, not a feature: "[Best-fit customer] use [product] to [valued outcome] without [the pain of the alternative]." Pull the supporting lines straight from your interview transcripts. When a visitor reads their own words back to them, they feel understood, and feeling understood is what converts.

Ten interviews, the customer's exact language, and a real positioning framework will beat a year of clever copywriting. Go listen.

Related: the design partner model for recruiting interviewees, and founder-led outbound.