Method category: Generative product research

How to Use This in GLIDR

Ask An Expert is exactly what it sounds like: going to experts for advice about your product or business. Be careful, because getting advice is Research, not an Experiment; take the information with a grain of salt and remember that they don't know your business as well as you do.

In GLIDR, in particular when you want to solve a particular problem or learn more about a certain idea, you can schedule one or more expert interviews as Research and then add one or more piece of Evidence - Interview for each person you meet. When you've finished the meetings, evaluate what you learned and which advice you want to take in the Analyze phase. 

Learn more about each of those aspects of GLIDR:

Article excerpted from The Real Startup Book
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Founders ask experts for opinions. Then, they choose do what they say. Asking product and marketing experts is ok, but it's generative research ... not evaluative.

Experts provide deep insights into a particular problem domain. Experts provide useful input for problem types that are complicated according to the Cynefin decision making framework. These are problems with predictable but many factors, components, or pieces. There are many "known unknowns"; however, they can be analyzed using cause-effect in order to uncover a range of appropriate answers. Ultimately, founders need to be able to execute quickly, so piggy-backing on others' knowledge can serve as a useful shortcut.

For example, certain industries require significant expertise in order to compete effectively, e.g., FinTech. Finance itself is highly regulated and highly dependent on detailed models used for valuation, risk assessment, or accounting. Each of these are context-sensitive. While it's possible to learn some of this from books, seeing how these play out in a competitive environment gives extra insight. Some areas of finance have high degrees of product innovation, e.g., derivative markets. On top of that, technology itself has been changing rapidly for the last few decades. Given both of the above, founders entering this market would be wise to consult with experts in areas where they feel it will help generate additional options that they hadn't considered.

Even for other contexts, quite often an expert will be able to view a founder's situation in the context of many companies facing a similar problem. For example, consulting with a Facebook marketing expert if you are considering channel testing around Facebook can be a good use of resources.

As a general rule, though, using third-party expertise to evaluate existing options is an anti-pattern. Experts will view the situation through assumptions that may not hold up in the data.

15 minutes (quick coffee meeting) to a longer term engagement (regular meetings over X weeks)

In general, it is best to limit yourself to experts who either

Keep in mind that all advice is context-dependent. Even if an expert was successful before, the situation and competitive landscape changes over time. And despite their best intentions, an expert's advice might not be relevant to your specific case.

If you take advice from anyone, make sure their interests are genuinely aligned with yours. Confirm there are no conflicts of interest that would affect the expert's advice. It's best to pay specifically for impartial advice if you're unsure about this.

Free advice may or may not be useful. You may get what you paid for. Time spent executing bad advice is still wasted.

Some topics naturally invite strong opinions. To the extent possible try to get access to data that the expert used to formulate their recommendations or advice, in order to evaluate its relevance.

Think for yourself after being given advice.