Why Most Startups are Asking the WRONG Validation Questions: Interview with Daniela Navaes

Hi everyone and welcome to WiseWord TV. Today I'm joined by Daniela who is a strategic innovation consultant for startups, founders and business owners. We're going to talk about your journey so far to where you've got to and I know you've got a few different career paths along the way that I've had a look at when I was researching. So first of all tell us what you, how would you describe, if someone said what is a strategic innovation consultant what would you say how would you describe yourself yeah so first of all thank you for having me how would i describe myself what i do is i help businesses create new business with startups and founders i help them de-risk and validate their ideas so with the early stage found to help them de-risk and validate their ideas before they waste time and money building something nobody wants okay With startups that are already post-MVP, I help them create experiments to figure out how they can progress to product market fit. And with business owners and entrepreneurs, people who already have established businesses, and if they already have an idea of something that they want to do, something new that is out of their comfort zone, I can help them get there in a safe way without having to spend loads of time and money. in it and if business owners only want to create something new but don't know what i can help them figure out opportunities within what they already do i can help them discover untapped opportunities within untapped customer needs for example so it's pretty much that work of figuring out the safest path forward through experimentation i'm sorry that was very long I hope it gives a picture of what it is that I do. I love that helping businesses get new business. I think that's really cool. Okay. So my next question then is how, and I'm sure you've got lots of different methods and ways that you go about it, but if a business has come to you and say, let's say they have a new idea, they're always established. They've got a bit of an audience. They have a new idea, maybe a new product, new service. extension to what they have what would your first step be how would you go about validating it i love working with entrepreneurs and founders because they're very creative people when we think of innovation we think of oh i have a great idea oh i have this idea that's going to solve this problem it's going to be amazing and we get really excited about it and we just put everything into making it happen but For me, after years of working as a UX designer, user researcher into the design and research space, I realized that innovation is not just a great idea. If it doesn't bring tangible, proven value to someone specific and they're willing to pay for it, then it's not an innovation. The internet is a graveyard of... So it's only really an innovation if it bridges the gap between something and someone tangibly. And that gap is money, right? This is why before I was working as a UX designer and researcher, and then I evolved into this innovation role because I realized the key is to figure out how to find this bridge between this great idea and someone who will pay for it. The first thing I would do is every business. every new product, every new service is based on a lot of assumptions. We make a lot of assumptions about the value of that idea to someone else, someone's problem, that customer, about the customer themselves, like who are those people, what are the experiences and why do they need this? And so the first thing would be to check those assumptions, to bring them to surface, to really be honest and say, what is it that I'm assuming about this? idea about the people that would pay for it that need to be true for this new business to be successful. That's the step one. Step one for anyone. I have some very good and effective prompts to get these assumptions to come out. So that's step one. Just be aware of what is it that you're assuming that needs to be true. Do you find that new ideas need to always solve a problem? No. This is interesting because this is something that I usually say that this is the case because people will put more effort into getting rid of pain than into chasing happiness. So as a general rule, it's more likely for an idea of business to be successful if it's solving a painful problem. That is true. However, this is not always true. The biggest value proposition is a delight. It's something that is completely... It brings a new value that it brings. The novelty of the value trumps the problem that it's solving to the point where the problem becomes an afterthought. It's more about, wow, this thing is amazing. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Can you think of an example of something where, because I think that's so interesting. And I think it's a really good perspective for people. Coming back to how I write as a copywriter, we say. the idea of people are more motivated to avoid a pain than they are to seek a reward. And we start with the problem and we have all the formulas, the problem, aggravation, solution formula when we're writing copy, because we know people are hooked in by problems. So it's such a huge area for what I do as well. But I love that concept that there could be something. that trumps the idea yes it does solve a problem if you dig down but that's not actually the real motivation for someone to part with their money i think a very classic example is the iphone okay when the iphone came out what was the innovation that came before the iphone it was the blackberry right the blackberry i can now have a mini keyboard for me to type on it and when the iphone came i mean you can say that the Blackberry had a problem that the keyboard was too small for some people with big fingers and most of the people who were using it older men business owners they had fat thumbs and it was difficult to type yeah but it was working yeah you can say that the iPhone I'm just speaking this now but it wasn't you can say that the keyboard thing wasn't just like a massive problem but when the iPhone came up it's like oh okay, like this is so much easier to use. Yeah. And some people can argue that not necessarily it was a pure innovation, but that is an example of me. Another one was Tinder, the swiping, the swiping feature. Yes. Of course, at that time, Tinder was free. It was a free app, but when we talk about tech adoption. Even if you're using a technology for free and not paying for it, it's a metric of people being willing to engage with it. So, you know, the swiping feature, that was a massive value add and it came from an insight from how people already use other tools and people just adapted that to that digital. Another example of it was not solving any problem. It was a delightful feature that happened to take off because it was so easy to use. So yeah, I would say these two examples. as two classic ones that I would think of. Yeah. And I think it's true of most Apple products. When you think about the launch of the iPad, for example, really wasn't doing anything different to what the computer or the phone did. It was just a bigger screen. It had that novelty and innovation factor in that you had it on your coffee table or you had it in your bag. And most Apple products really are because they've built that brand around. Their brand message is more about... the tribe, the people who use the products, you want to be within that kind of group of people who think differently and all that. You want it for that reason rather than because it's solving this huge problem for you that you can't solve any other way. So yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit, I want to talk to you about your customer interviews because I saw a post you did. recently about the surprise you get when you actually speak to people and interview people. I was literally like, you're reading my mind because I do a lot of those as well. Before I start writing copy, I do the voice of customer research, which is very similar to the UX research, right? The things people say are not what the client thought they were going to say or what they thought the motivation is totally different. So I'd love to hear more about your interview process or how you would recommend that people do. understand their audience a lot more than just guessing or thinking they know them really well when actually they don't. Yeah, this is very interesting because it's very easy for me to say those things. Do user research as someone who did not make the things that are being researched. But I understand that if you're a founder, if you're someone who designed the product and I've seen this a lot, it's quite interesting that A lot of founders are resistant to doing user research because they're afraid of finding out that their assumptions are wrong. There is so much into that process, a battle to get someone who designed something to do their, if you can overcome that and instead adopt a mentality of, I am here to learn about something so that I can make something better and not this product that I'm researching is. If this is not perceived as amazing, then that means there's something wrong with me. That needs to go because you're not going to learn anything from that. But this is so normal. Even being a user researcher myself, when I was in the process of launching a startup, I had that mentality myself, which is strange. However, what I recommend is to ask questions in a way that get people to tell a story. Because what I observe is that... Sometimes when founders design their own research, their own interviews, they write biased questions because of that fear, the underlying fear of what if I'm wrong? Yeah. Yeah. What they think to be true. Exactly. And then when you dig deeper into them and say, okay, what answer did you want? What answer are you looking for with this question? It usually comes into surface the fact that, oh yeah, I'm afraid of finding out that I'm wrong. So it's very interesting. So Yeah. If you're researching into a problem space, you should always, instead of asking, I'll give you a practical example, instead of asking people if they would pay for your solution, right? So this is a very common one. I think, okay, I'll show, I will show someone my solution and I'll ask, would you use it? Yes. But the problem with that is that if you ask someone, would you use it? The first one is people don't, they cannot predict the future. Yeah. Second is people don't know what they want. The third and the worst one is that they will want to, because of social conditioning, they're going to say what they think you want to hear. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So instead of asking, would you use this? You talk about the problem. You say, oh, this, this and that problem. Tell me about a time when you needed to go about solving this problem. Just listen and... note what were the friction points, what were the feelings, and then use that to probe it a bit deeper. So always get people to tell a story about what they struggled with. Yes. I think that's, and there are many ways to prompt people to talk about this. So yeah, I think I would say never ask leading questions like that. Would you? Future hypotheticals is a no, always no. Right. You're only going to get... wrong data that's going to skew into the wrong direction. I think you're totally right as well. There's lots of different ways to start the sentence in order to get the story out of people. Like you said, tell me about the time when, or where were you when this happened, those kinds of stories. So it's really interesting as well. I love all this stuff. So how do you go about finding people to interview, to validate that? How do you get such a cross section of people? That is the million dollar question. Oh, it depends how much money you have. Yeah. That's the question. Because if you're a startup founder, you have very little cash. You don't have enough money to pay to recruit people. We go through the route of recruiting people. We either hire a recruiter to get the people that are exactly my demographic. And that is the safest way to get people. they will be paid for it, but being paid for it doesn't mean that they're going to give... Actually, the more you pay people, the better they're going to be as participants. But then you also have to know how to screen out the people who will be bad participants. Instead, you're going to go to social media, you're going to create a Reddit post on the community of your customers. Social media could be one way. If it's a business where your customers will be... somewhere physically, you can try to do something there to get people to sign up for it. The problem with doing that is that your sample will be biased. Your sample will be biased for the people who are very active and likely to be your early adopters. Right. And the people who are your early adopters are a very different type of people than the mass market you're trying to sell to. Yes. So you need to be very aware of where you are at in your startup. If you're an early stage, you should be talking to your early adopters. They're going to help you innovate your product and get insight on how to use it. However, this product set was designed for the early adopters. might not be the same product for the mass market because the mass market, they are not as proactive as the early adopters. They just want things to work. They want to pay for it and they want it to work. You need to be very aware of who are the people you're talking to. Do they match your stage? And I think this gap between the early adopter product and the mass market product, this is the most difficult gap to bridge. You have to be able to translate. What is it about this early adopter product that can well translate into the mass markets? The reality is that it is not unfortunately. So you can go around finding your early adopters in the wild, either online or in person. Be aware of this reality. It's so interesting. You're right. There's a certain type of people that leave a review, for example, for places or for things. So you have to always be mindful that the demographic might not be absolutely representative of in the market. I think that's so interesting. Okay, so let's talk about... wise words which is kind of the theme of our chat so i wanted to ask you as 2025 comes to an end has there been anything this year that you've said yes to that you feel like was a really wise decision oh 100 my wisest yes this year was to pursue this business while i was still on a full-time job okay because i was just built for entrepreneurship and shaping something that is mine and has my vision in it. And because my vision evolves so quickly that a job cannot fulfill. It was the best thing I did because I was able to fully channel my creativity into it and now I'm only doing it. So it was definitely worth it. Yeah. What were you doing in your full-time role? I was doing innovation leadership. in it as well. I came in as a user researcher and then I turned into a broader innovation lead because I was thinking in connecting systems in a more broad way than simply doing user research. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like that tends to be the lead in to this kind of role? Does that tend to be the norm with the people around you, your peers in that kind of role? I think so. I think a lot of designers really enjoy the craft. And they tend to stay in UX design. But if you want to go a step above, I think this is the perfect segue to it. Especially if you're well versed into user research, because I feel like user research is really the key to evolve into an innovation role because it's when you learn whether something can deliver value to someone. It's in the research role. Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting because it's really what I do. End product is copywriting generally, although I do a bit more brand voice. Your end product was UX, let's say at one point, but before all that is the user research. So is the research piece. I would do the voice of customer to understand how they're saying the words. They describe their problems so I can translate that into words and you're trying to understand how they describe. their problems motivations or objections in order to either put it into a user experience or into a new innovation or product or feature or whatever it is so it's almost like the execution side kind of veers off but that top user research side is the same in a way so it is it's really interesting so last question about wise words again taking on board the fact that you've just started on your own and you're doing you know you've kind of left this full-time role and you're all in. Has there been anything, any motivational quote or anything that you've stuck on your laptop and been like that's going to guide me as I go for this? I don't have one specific quote but I do live by the, because I've been a yogi for 20 years. And I've also studied traditionally with a teacher from a lineage of teachers. So that philosophy of yoga is something that is very present in me. And that philosophy is to be objective about things is to be, to be present with things as for what they are and to not attribute false meaning to things. And I think in the work that I do, this is very important because it's about looking at the unanswered questions and figuring out how to get those answers, how to get the evidence that I need to validate where I am and where I need to be. And so having that kind of objectivity and clarity is everything. This is what I infuse in my work and whenever I work with someone, it's all about looking at reality with objectivity. So yeah, I'm not answering your question directly because I don't think I have one, but because I live within that, those principles, that would be it. To do not attribute false meaning to things. Always look at things with objectivity and clarity. That would be it. That's brilliant. And then like you said, it can apply to everything, you know, it can apply to relationships with people. It obviously applied to work, to Um, yeah. Thank you so much, Daniela, for being on today. I've loved our chat, as you could tell us. So where can people find you if they want to find out more about what you do? So my website is lumni.work. That's L-U-M-N-I dot work. Or you can just find me on LinkedIn. It's Daniela Navais, N-A-V-A-E-S. So yeah, feel free to connect, say that you found me through the video and I'll connect happily. Thank you so much for having me.

What if the ‘genius’ of your idea has almost nothing to do with success? 

Achieving product market fit is impossible if you keep asking customers the wrong questions during market research.

In this Founder Story, strategic innovation consultant Daniela Naves explains why the internet is a graveyard of brilliant ideas that nobody wanted to buy.  

What must be true for a new offer, product, or feature to earn its place in the world. And how to de-risk & validate ideas before launch.

If you are a founder or marketing manager planning a launch in 2026, you need to know why “Would you use this?” is a terrible research question, and how to get real stories instead of polite lies in interviews. 

Plus: early adopters vs mass market, pain vs delight - iPhone/Tinder - and how 20 years of yoga philosophy keeps her objective.

You’ll learn

📣 A simple Must-Be-True checklist for problem → solution → demand

📣 How to run customer discovery interviews that surface jobs, pains, triggers

📣 Fast tests: fake-door / smoke test / concierge MVP / landing-page test

📣 Avoid bias: why “Would you use this?” fails—and what to ask instead

📣 Mapping early adopters → mainstream without losing the edge


Perfect for: founders & marketing managers in fast-growing businesses planning 2026 launches.

Find out more about Daniela here:
https://lumni.work/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-navaes/ 

Timestamps 
0:00 Intro — Wise Words TV & guest (Daniella Naves, strategic innovation consultant)
0:22 What is a strategic innovation consultant?
1:35 Who she helps: early-stage, post-MVP, and established businesses
3:20 Why “genius ideas” still fail: innovation = proven value someone will pay for
5:15 Step 1: Surface assumptions (“what must be true” checklist)
6:40 Do ideas have to solve pain? Pain vs. delight (exceptions to the rule)
9:05 Examples: iPhone keyboard → touch; Tinder’s swipe as delightful adoption
11:10 Customer interviews that work: avoid bias & confirmation questions
13:40 Better prompts: “Tell me about a time…” (stories -  hypotheticals)
15:15 Finding participants: social, IRL, and the early-adopter sampling trap
18:10 Bridging early adopters → mass market (why the gap is hard)
19:28 Wise ‘yes’ of 2025: building the business while full-time
20:32 Career path: research → design → innovation leadership
21:44 Why research is the lever (parallels with Voice of Customer)
22:58 Founder mindset: yoga philosophy → objectivity over ego
24:18 Where to find Daniella: site + LinkedIn • Close

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#productmarketfit #startuptips #customerresearch #founderstories #innovation #Founders #MarketingManagers #B2BMarketing #IdeaValidation #SaaS

Join us for an insightful conversation with Daniela, a strategic innovation consultant, as she shares her journey supporting startups, founders, and business owners. We explore her diverse career path, offering valuable business tips and insights into entrepreneurship. This discussion is perfect for those interested in innovation strategy and personal growth within the business world.