Talking to Users Is a Founder Job
Migicovsky's starting point: at an early-stage startup, the two things you should be doing are writing code and talking to users. Both are founder jobs. Don't hire a researcher or outsource interviews to a consultant, because the raw learning has to land in the head of the person making product decisions.
He learned this the hard way at Pebble. The best insights, about what to build, how to market it, and what to charge, came directly from conversations with users, not from dashboards or intermediaries.
Everyone at the company, not just the founders, benefits from a direct connection to users. But in the beginning, the founders have no substitute for doing it personally.
“You should be spending basically all your time writing code and talking to users.”
Key idea
User interviews cannot be delegated at the early stage. The person building the product has to hear users firsthand.