Deploy Empathy

Part 1: Using This Book

1. Empathy is a Learnable Skill
2. The Neuroscience of Listening
3. Why I Wrote This Book
4. What This Book Can Help You Do
5. How This Book is Structured

Part 2: Key Frameworks

1. Everything is a Process
2. The Core Questions
3. Functional, Social, and Emotional
4. Valuable, Usable, Viable, and Feasible

Part 3: Getting Started

1. You-Yes, You-Can Do This
2. Learn How to Interview: A Step-By-Step Guide
3. Practice Interviewing-No Customers Needed!
4. Practice Interview Script

Part 4: When Should You Do Interviews?

1. Interviews or Numbers?
2. Project-Based Research
3. How Many People Should You Talk To?
4. Research Loops
5. Ongoing Research

Part 5: Recruiting Participants

1. Reddit and Forums
2. Twitter
3. LinkedIn
4. Facebook Groups and Email Lists
5. Email
6. Surveys

Part 6: How to Talk So People Will Talk

1. Use a Gentle Tone of Voice
2. Validate Them
3. Leave Pauses for Them to Fill
4. Mirror and Summarize Their Words
5. Don't Interrupt
6. Use Simple Wording
7. Ask for Clarification, Even When You Don't Need It
8. Don't Explain Anything or Get Defensive
9. Build On What They Say
10. Let Them Be the Expert
11. Use Their Words and Pronunciation
12. Ask About Past or Current Behavior
13. Be a Rubber Duck

Part 7: Interviews

1. Interview Preparation
2. Validating/Evaluating Ideas
3. Why Did They Buy?
4. Why Do They Stick Around?
5. Why Did They Cancel?
6. What Do They Think?
7. What to Prioritize?
8. The "Reaching for the Door" Question
9. How to Ask People How Much They Would Pay
10. Debugging Interviews

Part 8: Analyzing Interviews

1. Drawing a Simple Customer Journey Map
2. The Pain and Frequency Matrix

Part 9: Pulling It All Together: Sample Interview

1. Sample Interview Transcript
2. Sample Analysis
3. Quick Analysis

Part 10: What Now?

1. Related Topics
2. Further Reading

Appendix A: Cheat Sheet

Appendix B: For Founders

1. Research as a Solo Founder
2. Feature Requests as Customer Research
3. Sales, Customer Support, and Customer Research
4. Customer Support
5. Research for Goal Setting