Early-Stage Customer Discovery: A Founder's Playbook for Validating Startup Ideas

Jeanette Mellinger, Head of UX Research at BetterUp and former Head of UXR at Uber Eats, outlines a three-phase structured approach to customer discovery for early-stage founders. The playbook emphasizes rigorous research planning, tactical interviewing techniques, and systematic analysis to validate product ideas before building. Mellinger advocates for focused research sprints over casual validation, addressing common founder mistakes that result in shallow insights.