Have a Conversation, Not an Interrogation

"James Bond: Do you expect me to talk? Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."

Goldfinger, 1964

We won't get to the point through interrogation. We get there by having real, relevant conversations with the founders.

You're looking to dig deeper - to understand more about the product, the solution, the market, the audience, the ecosystem, the vision. You want to walk in their shoes and understand how to approach and explain their value forward.

You'll likely get answers if you keep asking questions. But you'll get so much more - insights, anecdotes, stories, reasoning, and personal experiences - if you actually talk to them and let the conversation breathe.

Think about yourself: how defensive do you get when you're being questioned? And how open do you become when someone is genuinely having a conversation with you, listening, showing interest, and waiting for your answer rather than already planning the next one?

Beyond the answers you're hunting, you want to uncover hidden gems - new points of interest that lead to new avenues, words, phrases, and angles you weren't aware of. Simply let the founders reveal the real pains.

When you're just running through questions, founders give you pre-prepared answers. That may be sufficient, but sufficient isn't what we're after. We're looking for gold.

To get them actually talking, you need to be a great listener. And to be a great listener, it needs to be a conversation - not an interrogation.

So talk to them, listen to them, and genuinely care about finding the pains they alleviate, the value they provide, and the passion they may have buried underneath it all.