When to send it
Use this survey before you've built much, or while you still have only a few customers. The aim is to learn how people describe their problems and what they already do about them, before you commit months to a solution. Send it to people who fit the customer you have in mind: a personal email to contacts who match, or a LinkedIn post or direct message to your network. A short, honest note works best, such as "I'm researching how small teams handle X and would value five minutes of your time."
Why these questions
The questions follow the idea behind Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test: ask about people's work and past behaviour, not about your idea. Opinions about a product that doesn't exist yet are cheap and usually too kind. What someone actually did last month is far more reliable.
The first question asks about the person's role, so you can tell founders from managers and specialists when you read the answers. The next page asks for the most frustrating part of their work right now, how they deal with it today, and roughly how many hours a week it costs them. The slider gives a sense of size without asking anyone to put a price on their time.
The third page asks whether they've paid for something to solve the problem. Anyone who has, whether they still use it or gave up, sees a follow-up asking what they paid for and what was missing. Money already spent is one of the clearest signs a problem is real, and a gap in an existing tool is often where a new product fits.
The last question asks whether you can talk for 20 minutes. Every field is optional, and the description says the details are used only to arrange the call. Most of the learning happens in those conversations; the survey's job is to find the right people to have them with.
The coupon
People who help before you have a product deserve something back, so everyone who finishes gets a unique early-access code. It doubles as a signal: the people who come back to use it at launch are your first customers. Unique codes keep the offer with the people you actually asked.
What to do with the answers
Sort the answers by role, then read the frustrations one at a time and tag the themes. Look for problems that come up again and again, cost real hours and have already had money thrown at them. One of those is worth exploring. Set aside mild annoyances nobody has tried to fix.
Book calls with the people who left their details, starting with those whose answers match your strongest theme. Once people use what you've built, move on to the product-market fit survey, and for SaaS products the beta program feedback template covers the stage in between.