Recruiting the right people for a startup discovery study

A founder’s first interviews often come from friends, advisers and introductions. These contacts can explain a market, but they may not represent the people who perform or purchase the target workflow. Recruitment should follow the decision the research needs to inform.

Define eligibility through behaviour

Instead of inviting “SME leaders,” specify what participants must have done recently. They may have approved a software purchase, managed a particular process or handled a recurring operational failure.

GOV.UK’s research-planning guidance advises identifying relevant user groups. For a startup, behavioural screening can keep a broad industry label from concealing important differences.

Record company size, role and process ownership where relevant. Do not collect personal information that is unnecessary for the study. Explain how the discussion and any recording will be used.

Include people who may disagree

Recruiting only enthusiastic early adopters can obscure why others avoid the category. Include users of alternatives and people who declined a similar purchase, where access and consent permit.

An illustrative healthcare software founder might interview clinic marketers, reception managers and an authorised purchasing lead. The marketer’s interest in more enquiries does not establish that reception can handle the resulting work or that the buyer will fund the product.

These are complementary perspectives, not interchangeable votes. The research should show which question each participant can credibly answer.

Make recruitment limits visible

A small qualitative study can reveal mechanisms and language. It should not be presented as a statistically representative market survey without the appropriate design.

Keep a recruitment log that shows source, eligibility and relevant exclusions. If all participants came through one accelerator, record that concentration. The next round can deliberately test whether the emerging pattern holds elsewhere.

Before fieldwork, test the screening questions on someone familiar with the target workflow. Ask whether an eligible participant could answer them accurately without revealing confidential information. Revise criteria that confuse job title with responsibility, and keep recruitment incentives separate from any expectation that the participant endorse the proposed product.

GAT’s regional expansion guide stresses the limits of carrying domestic assumptions into new markets. Recruitment is where those assumptions can first be challenged. A regional strategy based on the same familiar contacts in different cities may still be testing only one narrow network.