This paper focuses on experiences from using focus groups in order to facilitate and to understand citizens-, in this case entrepreneurs-, needs regarding public e-services in a business start up phase. Most e-government efforts are motivated by dual goals of citizen benefit and agencies- internal efficiency. Rhetorical, this is a persuasive ambition, but in practice it often seems to be easier to focus agency efficiency, redesign of business processes and information systems than to find out what citizens really want. Therefore this paper discusses focus groups as a way of understanding entrepreneurs need regarding public e-services. In this paper the cooperation between researchers and practitioners in the development project also is discussed. Results presented in this paper shows that focus groups is a beneficial method in order to hear -the voice of the people- when developing public e-services. The researcher - practitioner cooperation that took place in the project is also identified as beneficial and fruitful for the process and the outcome.