The Customer Interview: A Panel Discussion

Join us on Wednesday, May 12 for a panel discussion to hear how others in product are doing customer interviews. The panel will consist of Derek DeHart, Alex Annarino, and Matthew Abbitt with Justin Meats as moderator. We will discuss all the major aspects of doing customer interviews including frequency, recruiting, location, preparation, who participates, example questions, and what they’ve learned.

In Inspired, Marty Cagan mentions that the Customer Interview is “one of the most powerful and important skills for any product manager and very often the source of inspiration for many breakthrough product ideas.”

Derek DeHart
Derek brings over 10 years of experience in product development and delivery to the battleface team. At battleface, Derek serves battleface's mission to be the world's most human-centered travel insurance company to help bring the world together. Prior to battleface, he was a Senior Product Manager at Root Insurance, connecting US consumers with the fairest car insurance available, and a Product Manager at CoverMyMeds, whose mission is to help patients get access to the medication they need to live healthy lives.

Derek is a passionate world-traveler, but he’s also deeply connected to the community in his home base of Columbus, Ohio. During the pandemic, he was a founding co-organizer of Can’t Stop Columbus, a group of hundreds of local volunteers delivering solutions to help combat emotional isolation, food insecurity, and unemployment. He serves on the Board of Directors of several local non-profits as well as on the small business development advisory board for the City of Columbus.

Alex Annarino
Alex began her career more than 20 years ago in community development and non-profit work. With her natural inquisitiveness and interest in people, she developed into an innovation researcher specializing in ethnographic and qualitative research for early-stage innovation and existing product experiences.

At Cardinal Health, Alex works in the Fuse user experience team. She collaborates with product managers, designers, and engineering teams as they partner with business units to redefine the experience of healthcare through commercial technology. She has integrated her traditional qualitative research methods and techniques with various frameworks, such as design thinking, entrepreneurship, modern product development, and operational excellence.

Matthew Abbitt
Matthew Abbitt has a strong background in helping software companies grow and thrive. In 2003 Matthew started a consulting startup that began his entrepreneurial career. Since this time, Matthew has been the partner of three different startups culminating in successfully integrating Mojungle’s social platform into Peak Performance Solution’s insurance software suite in 2007. Shortly after, Matthew led the product team at Peak Performance and was appointed as a Director at Ebix Inc. after the acquisition of Peak Performance. After Ebix, Matthew transitioned to the Director of Product Management at Irth Solutions and was responsible for the full product life cycle of Irth’s critical infrastructure asset management application. Matthew currently serves as the Chief Product Architect, Resource Management at ARCOS. In 2013, Matthew authored Start Predicting in a world of data science and predictive analysis.

Justin Meats
Justin will facilitate the panel discussion and has 24 years of combined experience in software engineering, online marketing, and product management. He is currently the VP of Product at RevLocal, a digital marketing agency that helps local business owners be found and chosen. He was Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of ORIS Intelligence who helped product manufacturers identify who was selling their products online and enforce their minimum advertised price (MAP). ORIS Intelligence was acquired by PriceSpider in 2019 where he served as the VP of Product.