[ivv]

Maybe I can answer the question "where to find people to talk to." I'm in consumer research; here's what's worked for me.

If you need b2b: LinkedIn, conference and trade show lobbies (you don't need a ticket to hang out in the lobby), email lists you can buy online. There are also companies that maintain lists of experts with every imaginable background you can speak to for an hourly fee; not cheap but worth it.

If you need consumers: survey panel companies will let you field a simple survey to people who match your criteria, who you can then recruit into a phone/Skype call. You can also recruit people yourself through well-targeted Facebook and Twitter ads. Craigslist works well; set up a short survey to prequalify people.

Money is a great accelerant. You will always find people who would talk to you for free, but offering to pay them for their time and expertise makes things go a lot faster. Plus, if you are on the shy side, money changes the dynamic. You are now not asking for a favor, but are offering to engage in a business transaction.

Six people is often all you need to start seeing some common themes.

[thr0waway1239]

>> Six people is often all you need to start seeing some common themes.

That's interesting. I am curious how you came up with that number. Getting six people to give you their opinions is much easier than doing any kind of extensive research.

[ivv]

From personal experience of doing a bunch of interviews and surveys over the years, after about 6, you'll start hearing patterns. If you are new to the subject you are researching, doing some reading and talking to about six people will get you to a point where you'll be able to evolve the questions you are capable of asking, or formulate hypotheses for testing.

"How To Measure Anything" has a great chapter on how talking to only a few people can reduce uncertainty with a pretty amazing accuracy, but I don't have a copy handy.

[thr0waway1239]

I hadn't heard about that book. Thanks for the recommendation.

[ivv]

Here's another place where I remember reading about 5 users, took me a couple of days to find it: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-w...