Being customer-focused is the way to build a great company. While building their solutions, early-stage founders should stay close to customers to ensure they’re solving pain points well enough for customers to be willing to pay. Talking to customers and obtaining actionable feedback from them is the way to do this.

The key to getting actionable feedback is asking the right questions. It sounds simple and easy, but it’s harder in practice than you’d think. Asking closed-ended or vague questions is a common pitfall and something I was guilty of as an early founder. When you’re crafting questions, be mindful that you should ask questions that help you understand what the customer thinks of your solutions, and why. Ask the right questions, and you’ll get a treasure trove of nuggets. Ask the wrong questions, and you’ll get data you can’t do anything with.

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