Discovery in Supply Chain Software

Discovery in Supply Chain Software

Running discovery with operations teams is different from interviewing consumer users or growth-focused SaaS buyers. Ops people are time-scarce, process-oriented, and quick to dismiss abstract product questions. Your interview technique must adapt.

The Ops Buyer's Skepticism

Ops managers have been burned by software before. They've seen tools that promised to replace Excel and ended up requiring more Excel to compensate. They're suspicious of product people who ask them about "pain points" without understanding how their supply chain actually works.

To earn credibility in a discovery call:
- Know the vocabulary before you walk in (DoS, MAPE, MOQ, lead time, fill rate)
- Reference their specific vertical — footwear brands have different seasonality than supplements
- Ask about their current process FIRST, before asking about software
- Never say "how could we improve our product?" — ask "walk me through what you did last Monday to prepare POs"

The 5-Step Discovery Interview for Ops

Step 1: Anchor to a specific recent task
"Can you walk me through the last time you placed a purchase order? Start from when you first realized you needed to order."

This prevents abstract answers and gives you observable workflow data.

Step 2: Map the full workflow
Draw the steps as they describe them. Where do they switch tools? Where do they wait for someone else? Where do they make judgment calls without data?

Step 3: Find the workarounds
"Is there anything you do outside of Tightly to complete this task?" — This is where the gold is. Every workaround is a feature request in disguise.

Step 4: Quantify the friction
"How often does this happen?" "How long does it take?" "What happens if you get it wrong?" — These questions turn anecdotes into prioritization data.

Step 5: Test your hypotheses last
Only after you've heard their world in their words, test your solution hypothesis: "We've been thinking about building X — does that sound like it would help with what you just described?"

Discovery Anti-Patterns in Supply Chain

The Demo-First Trap: Showing the product before understanding workflow. The user evaluates your demo against their current tool, not against their actual job.

The Feature Laundry List: Sending a survey asking which of 10 features they'd most like to see. Ops users are bad at imagining features they've never seen; they're excellent at describing what they did last Tuesday.

The NPS Obsession: Supply chain software lives and dies on operational outcomes, not satisfaction scores. An ops manager with 85% PO acceptance rate and 12% MAPE is a happy customer even if they'd give you a 7 on NPS.

The Single Persona Problem: Only talking to the ops manager. The founder might be making the renewal decision with completely different criteria. Always get at least two personas per account in your discovery rotation.

What Good Discovery Looks Like at Tightly

Given Tightly's SMB-to-mid-market focus, discovery should:

• Be embedded in customer success calls — CS is already talking to customers; train them to run lightweight workflow interviews
• Use session recording tools (FullStory, Hotjar) to watch real PO workflows without needing a call
• Track support tickets as discovery signals — the most common support questions are a direct readout of UI/UX friction
• Run a quarterly "shadow day" — sit with a power user for 2 hours and watch them work. You'll learn more than in 20 interview calls.