The Conversation-Based Learning Method
From the book How to Know Which Idea to Pursue
Most teams invest months building ideas based on success-beliefs. That's risky — most ideas fail in the market because they aren't desirable enough. This book shows you how to gather success-evidence, directly from your customers, before you build anything.
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The Problem
Teams invest months building products no one wants. The fix isn't more data — it's the right conversations.
01
Teams rely on internal opinions and HiPPOs instead of real customer evidence, leading to expensive failures.
02
Quantitative data tells you what customers do, but not why they care — the insight you need to make confident decisions.
03
MVP-first thinking wastes months on features. Conversations cost hours and surface what matters before you write code.
The Method
CBL combines structured customer conversations with AI assistance to generate strong evidence about idea desirability and willingness to pay.
Define learning goals, hypotheses, and customer segments. Use AI to sharpen your conversation structure before you speak to anyone.
Talk to real customers in learning mode — not selling, not surveying. Uncover the 'why' behind their interest.
Turn conversation data into evidence with AI-assisted analysis. Separate strong signals from noise.
Pursue, pivot, or stop — backed by real customer evidence, not opinions.
What's Inside
10 chapters. One methodology. Everything you need to validate ideas through customer conversations.
Act 1 — Why
Why understanding customers matters, why you must never stop learning, and why conversations beat building.
Act 2 — How
Learning goals, hypotheses, customer segments, prototypes, value propositions, pricing strategies, and conversation design.
Act 3 — How
Securing conversations, team roles, dry runs with AI, managing conversation flow, and building learning communities.
Act 4 — What Now
Data quality levels, actionable insights, evidence auditing, and the pursue/pivot/stop framework.
Act 5 — Beyond
Scaling CBL, integrating technology, and real-world stories from practitioners who've done it.
Workshops
The book gives you the methodology. Workshops let your team practice it — on real projects, with AI, guided by the authors.
Limited pre-launch workshops available
A hands-on workshop tailored to your organization. Your team works on real idea projects using AI-powered CBL workflows, with live guidance from the authors.
Open-enrollment workshops for individual practitioners are coming soon. Sign up to be notified when dates are announced.
The Authors
Community
practitioners contributed to this book
Product managers, consultants, strategy and innovation leaders, and founders from around the world shaped this book — with stories, feedback, and experience from their own projects.
Reviews
Early reviews from consultants, product leaders, and founders who shaped the methodology.
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