What is the Customer Research Guide?
The Customer Research Guide is the narrative companion to the MsingiLab Customer Research Framework workbook. It explains why most founders skip customer research, what disciplined research actually looks like, and how to run it in African markets where the standard playbooks often do not apply. The guide is built around a thirteen-worksheet framework and walks you through how to use each sheet to turn raw conversations into decisions.
Who this is for and when to use it
Founders running early customer discovery, product teams validating new features, marketers refining positioning, and customer success leads trying to understand why customers leave. Use the guide before you build, before you reposition, after a churn spike, before a pricing change, and as an ongoing weekly practice. The best founders treat customer research as a habit, not a project.
What is inside
A twenty-three page guide structured in four parts. Part One explains why customer research kills assumptions and the cost of building without it. Part Two introduces the framework and walks through each of the thirteen worksheets in the companion workbook. Part Three covers how to actually use the workbook with a step-by-step process, interview tips, refresh cadence, and the most common mistakes founders make. Part Four provides templates and a reference list for further reading.
Key concepts you will learn
The difference between problem interviews and solution interviews, behavioral versus attitudinal questions, the Jobs-to-be-Done lens, customer avatars, fears and frustrations mapping, the decision-making unit, validation tracking, where to find research subjects in African markets (industry WhatsApp groups, professional associations, community networks), and how to avoid leading the witness when running interviews.