You must have direct contact with your customers from Day One — and there’s nothing like a failed venture to stress its importance. The ability to ask your customers good questions is what makes a great product manager, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s time-consuming.
I used to spend about 45 minutes on a customer interview, where I went deep into their existing behaviours, frustrations, and worldview. I listened for insights and wrote down direct quotes to save for later.
But after the first few months of product development, I found myself spending less time interacting with customers and more time building. Most of my customer feedback was second-hand information from my team.
https://medium.dave-bailey.com/how-to-get-amazing-customer-insights-automatically-29b01cce46d2/