Customer interviews: How to talk to your first prospect

by Klara Lindner

Thursday 6 Nov 2025, 09:00 → 12:00 Europe/Berlin

Background

You hear it time and again - founders should engage directly with their users early on. But being confronted with a half-baked idea would only scare away that first potential customer, right? And what is the value of speaking with just a handful respondents, such a sample size will bear no statistical relevance anyways - or?Let's use this workshop to clarify the opportunities and limits of customer interviews and help you use this approach wisely in your own work.

Target audience

This workshop is designed for aspiring entrepreneurs and curious scientists, who want to understand better how to gather and work with qualitative insights. Also well-suited for people from Helmholtz transfer and talent management offices, who support potential entrepreneurs at their institution.
Sidenote: We will do hands-on work in pairs, so be prepared to actively engage.

Benefits

• Clarifying the value of customer interviews for people socialized in the academic world (deductive & deductive vs abductive reasoning).
• Hands-on instructions for finding, contacting and then talking to so-called warm and cold leads.
• How to make sense of unstructured interview notes, challenge your own assumptions and deal with contradictory statements.
• Common pitfalls and how to navigate.

 

Your Speaker

Klara Lindner I Entrepreneur, Service Designer, Start-up Mentor