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Playbook

Customer discovery, twenty interviews, no calls booked.

A six-step playbook for running real customer interviews async. From the first question to the live calls that actually matter.

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The short answer

Pick one sharp question about a past behavior. Send a Magic Link to thirty people in your target audience. Most respond with a 60-second voice note within a day. Read the AI summaries in ten minutes, listen to the three answers that surprised you, then book live calls with those few.
5 days
from first message to twenty completed interviews
1 question
per Magic Link, anchored on past behavior not future intent
60-70%
typical reply rate from warm contacts

The six steps

Not optional, not in any order. Skip step one and the rest does not work.

  1. 1

    Pick one sharp question

    Async voice works when the question is small. Ask about the last time the recipient ran into the problem you are exploring. "Tell me about the last time you tried to X" beats "Would you use Y". Past behavior gives you signal. Hypothetical preference does not.

  2. 2

    Build a list of 30 people

    If you want 20 responses, queue up 30. Mix warm intros (LinkedIn, past customers, your network) and lukewarm ones (people who replied to a post, signed up to a waitlist). Cold contacts can wait until you have refined the question.

  3. 3

    Create one Magic Link

    One link, one question. Add your calendar as the fallback so respondents who want to talk live still can. The link works on any phone or laptop, no login. Setup takes under a minute.

  4. 4

    Send it like a real human

    Personal one-to-one messages, not a mailmerge. "Hey, working on X, would love your take, takes 60 seconds" with the link. Send 10 to 15 messages a day for two days, then stop and read what came back.

  5. 5

    Read the AI summaries first, audio second

    Each response gets a one-line summary plus the full transcript. Scan all summaries in order, mark the answers that surprised you, listen to the audio of those three or four to catch the tone you might have missed.

  6. 6

    Book live calls only with the surprises

    Twenty async voice notes will give you the pattern. The two or three answers that broke the pattern are the ones worth a 30-minute call. You arrive at the call already knowing the basics, so you can spend the full slot digging into what is unusual.

Question prompts that work

Borrow these. Each one anchors on a past event and invites a story.

  • Tell me about the last time you tried to [the job they hire your category for]. What did you do, and what got in the way?
  • What is the one thing in your week that takes way more time than it should?
  • Walk me through how you currently handle [problem area]. Where does it usually break?
  • If you could wave a wand and fix one thing about [domain], what would it be and why?

Keep going

Two more pages on the same problem from different angles.

ICP

For solo founders

The same playbook, but framed around validating a SaaS idea before you build it.

Comparison

Alternatives to discovery calls

Side-by-side: async voice, live calls, and text forms. When each one earns its place.

Common questions

How many customer interviews do I actually need?
For early validation, 15-20 is usually enough to spot a pattern. For sharper market segmentation, 30-50. Async voice lets you hit those numbers in days instead of weeks, so the cost of running a few extra is low.
Are async voice interviews valid research?
For most discovery questions, yes. You lose the live follow-up, so phrase the question to invite a story instead of a yes/no. The Mom Test rules still apply: ask about past behavior, not future intent. The medium does not change the discipline.
What if my respondents do not have HeySpeak?
They do not need it. The Magic Link opens in any browser on any device, no app, no account. They tap record, talk for a minute, hit send. The whole flow is built around the recipient never seeing a signup screen.
How do I avoid leading questions over voice?
Same way you avoid them in live interviews: anchor on a past event, not a hypothetical future. "Tell me about the last time you..." forces a story. "Would you use a tool that..." invites confirmation bias. The voice format is neutral, the question framing is what counts.
Can I follow up on a voice answer?
Yes. Reply to their email with a second Magic Link and a follow-up question, or book a live call with the people whose first answer surprised you. The async-then-live sequence is usually faster than scheduling 20 live calls upfront.

Run your first round this week.

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