Expert Interviews in Product Strategy

Finding and interviewing true B2B experts is expensive and laborious.

For Mason Adair, an experienced product leader, good strategy starts with understanding the voice of the customer. With a background spanning product research and strategy in roles including McKinsey and BCG, Mason has supported many of the world’s largest corporations. He knows the power of customer insights. 

Working with scale-up companies, his focus is to rapidly understand the competitive landscape, competing product offerings, and what marketing messages resonate with customers. None of those things are found on Google. And the company itself usually has an incomplete market understanding - that’s why they need help in the first place. 

He needs to quickly gather perspectives, from existing and potential customers, to inform his product decisions. Traditional expert networks, while useful, are expensive and rigid, especially when dealing with agile product organizations.

Mason uses Inex One to streamline his research process and access a wider range of expertise. He typically does it in two steps:

1. Expert Interviews: At the outset of a new project or product line analysis, Mason conducts targeted interviews with industry experts to gain a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape and market dynamics. This initial phase provides a crucial foundation for subsequent customer research. "Inex One is great," says Mason. "It gets me custom-recruited experts quickly and efficiently from niche markets. Its specialized expert networks have really been an improvement over the off-the-shelf traditional networks that I’ve used in the past."
2. Customer Insights: Mason builds his own customer panel, typically around 60 individuals, through self-recruitment and referrals. This allows for ongoing customer feedback and iterative product development. He wants his team to speak to at least one customer per week, transcribing and storing all interviews for continuous work.“Building a robust customer panel is essential,” Mason explains. “It enables us to continuously validate our assumptions and ensure we’re building products that truly resonate with our target audience.”

Inex One has become an integral part of Mason's research toolkit, enabling him to:

1. Access niche B2B experts: Inex One's platform provides access to custom-recruited experts from 20+ expert networks worldwide, saving Mason valuable time and effort to reach insights.
2. Conduct efficient expert interviews: The platform facilitates seamless connection with experts, allowing Mason to quickly gather insights on industry trends and competitive dynamics. 
3. Drive agile product development: The combination of expert insights and ongoing customer feedback empowers Mason to drive agile product development, enabling the companies he works with to adapt quickly to evolving competition and customer needs.

“Inex One allows me to get high quality market input whenever I need it,” Mason concludes. “It’s an invaluable resource for any product professional that aims to build winning products.”