Run Discovery Calls That Tell You What to Build

Ask for advice, not for a meeting. "I am researching how firms like yours handle prior authorisations and I am trying to understand the process. Could I ask you fifteen minutes of questions? I am not selling anything." That message gets answered, because people like being the expert and nobody minds a question they know the answer to.

Go where the specificity is. One warm introduction into the right niche beats two hundred cold emails, and an industry group, a former colleague, or a trade association list will get you further in a week than any outbound tool. You need ten conversations, not a pipeline.

Hold the line on not selling. The moment you pitch, the other person switches from describing their world to evaluating your product, and you lose the only thing the call was for. You will have plenty of chances to sell to these people later, and having listened first is what will make that easy.

Start with the process as it is: walk me through the last time you did this. Who touched it, in what order, and how long did each part take? Ask about the specific last instance rather than the general case, because general answers are tidied-up fiction and the specific one contains the mess.

Then move to failure: what happens when it goes wrong, how often is that, and who notices? Then to prior attempts: what have you already tried, and why did it stop working? A description of a failed tool is the single most useful thing you can hear on these calls.

Close with money and authority, plainly. What does this cost you today in time or people, and who would have to agree to spend money on fixing it? Founders skip this from politeness and then build for six months without knowing whether a budget exists or who controls it.