Fast Customer Research — 5-Question Commute Interviews

About half of failed startups die for one simple reason: nobody actually wanted what they built. Picture this: You're standing in a crowded subway, watching the world rush by. In that brief, fleeting moment, you can quietly find out if your idea is worth anything.

Here’s the strange part: you can be “sure” your idea is good, your friends can love it, your spreadsheet can look amazing—and ten short conversations with strangers can still flip your confidence upside down. In this episode, we’ll zoom in on a tiny but powerful tool: a five‑question conversation you can run in the time it takes to get from one subway stop to the next. No surveys, no pitch decks, no begging people to “support your dream.” Just a structured way to listen. You’ll learn how to uncover what people *already* do, what annoys them enough to pay to fix, and which parts of your idea actually land. Think of it as stepping into a studio with a blank canvas: each person you talk to adds a brushstroke until the real picture of your business opportunity appears—clearer, sharper, and sometimes completely different from what you expected.

Most people rush to build the “thing” and treat talking to customers as a nice‑to‑have. In this episode, we’re flipping that. Those five questions become your portable lab: something you can run on a bus, between meetings, even while waiting for takeout. We’ll look at how to pick who to talk to, how to open the conversation without sounding weird or salesy, and how to dig one layer deeper without turning it into an interrogation. You’ll also learn what to listen *for*—the phrases, patterns, and little hesitations that signal a real problem hiding in their everyday routine.