Talking to Humans
Talking to Humans: Success Starts with Understanding Your Customers by Giff Constable
What This Is 🤔
A practical guide to customer discovery and early validation, Talking to Humans focuses on one deceptively simple idea: if you want to build something useful, you must talk to the people you’re building it for — early, often, and honestly.
The book challenges the tendency to rely on assumptions, surveys, and internal opinions instead of direct conversations with real users.
What It’s For 🎯
This book helps readers:
Learn how to have effective conversations with potential users and customers
Test assumptions before investing time and resources into solutions
Avoid false validation and confirmation bias
Gain real insight into needs, behaviors, and motivations
Make better product, service, and strategy decisions early
It is especially relevant for entrepreneurs, innovators, product teams, and anyone working in early-stage exploration.
What You’ll Find Inside 🧰
The book offers practical guidance on:
How to prepare for customer conversations
What questions to ask (and which to avoid)
How to listen for real signals rather than polite encouragement
How to interpret what people say versus what they do
How to turn conversations into actionable learning
The emphasis is on learning through dialogue, not pitching ideas or selling solutions.
How to Use It 🧭
This book works best as:
A hands-on guide during early-stage innovation or startup work
A companion to Lean Startup or experimentation-based methods
Background reading for innovation, entrepreneurship, or product courses
A reference you return to before conducting interviews or tests
It is designed to be applied immediately, not read once and shelved.
Key Takeaways 💡
Most early ideas fail because assumptions go untested
Good questions matter more than clever solutions
Polite feedback is not the same as real validation
Listening well is a core innovation skill
Learning early saves time, money, and energy later
Pro Tips 🧠
Talk to humans before building anything
Don’t pitch — explore
Look for patterns across conversations, not single opinions
Combine conversations with small experiments for stronger learning