Kurtis is the cofounder of Maesos Technologies, a startup that builds smart sensors for farmers to manage crops. I talk to Kurtis about his VAST experience with user interviews and user personas today.

These are some books Kurtis recommends to learn about users:

• The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

• Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri

• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

To learn more about Maesos, visit www.maesos.com/

P.S. Some fancy words Kurtis used:

• Scouting: When farmers visually inspect their crops to check for signs of damage.

• IoT: The Internet of Things. Kurtis uses it to refer to sensors in farms that can send data between each other via wifi / cellular data.

• Cash Crops: Crops sold to earn a profit, rather than for personal consumption. For example, corn.

• Wind Machine: A tool for farmers that lets them move warm air onto crops to avoid freezing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg2rIiF7VXo

• Concept: An entrepreneurship training program for students at the University of Waterloo.

Timeline

0:00 Intro

01:11 How did you start?

02:50 Describe your product

04:30 Finding the problem

09:03 Choosing Exploratory Questions

13:14 Reviewing Interview Data

17:43 Making User Personas

20:46 Choosing Validation Questions

24:08 Importance of Interviews

26:31 Scheduling Interviews

28:51 Recommended Resources