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The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you
by
The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak.
They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a ...more
They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a ...more
Paperback, 134 pages
Published
September 10th 2013
by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
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Start your review of The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you
Either really good or dismally bad. Not sure which one.
Easy read. Some ideas that could sometimes be useful. Or not.
Q:
Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but its fragile. (c) ...more
Easy read. Some ideas that could sometimes be useful. Or not.
Q:
Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but its fragile. (c) ...more
Oct 28, 2017
WhatIReallyRead (Anna)
rated it
it was amazing
Recommended to WhatIReallyRead (Anna) by:
teachers at my Digital&Product Marketing class
This book is amazing!
I recommend it to everyone who builds products, talks to customers, works in startups or has the desire to sell any ideas/products they came up with or made.
Why I loved it:
- it's a how-to book that offers concrete methods and tools to solve problems on tour path to a new product with an audience;
- it is full of specific examples of good and bad approaches, and reasons why a certain approach is good or bad;
- it is easy to read, short and funny - a real delight to spend your ...more
I recommend it to everyone who builds products, talks to customers, works in startups or has the desire to sell any ideas/products they came up with or made.
Why I loved it:
- it's a how-to book that offers concrete methods and tools to solve problems on tour path to a new product with an audience;
- it is full of specific examples of good and bad approaches, and reasons why a certain approach is good or bad;
- it is easy to read, short and funny - a real delight to spend your ...more
Outstanding book!
Main lessons learned:
1. Don't pitch your ideas to customers
2. Learn facts. Dig and ask more questions till you have exact facts and data
3. Don't mention your solution
4. Don't listen to opinions, collect facts and pain points instead
5. Compliments means nothing. Really nothing. Deflect them and dig deeper.
6. You cant learn anything useful unless youre willing to spend a few minutes shutting up
7. If you dont know what happens next after a product or sales meeting, the meeting was ...more
Main lessons learned:
1. Don't pitch your ideas to customers
2. Learn facts. Dig and ask more questions till you have exact facts and data
3. Don't mention your solution
4. Don't listen to opinions, collect facts and pain points instead
5. Compliments means nothing. Really nothing. Deflect them and dig deeper.
6. You cant learn anything useful unless youre willing to spend a few minutes shutting up
7. If you dont know what happens next after a product or sales meeting, the meeting was ...more
This book is about having conversations with potential customers to see if your business is a good idea. It is not written by a UX guy, but someone from tech startups who has learned through mistakes. In some places it's a bit beginner, but it's fun to read, not pretentious, and at times laugh out loud funny. It's a good reminder of the basics and packed full of example dialogues. I actually put down the book I was working on to read this one and devoured it in part of a day.
It starts with a ...more
It starts with a ...more
The best book for Customer Development I've ever seen!
Must-read for all CEOs, founders, Product Managers, and User Researchers!
My notes, in case you need: https://www.notion.so/uptechteam/The-...
Must-read for all CEOs, founders, Product Managers, and User Researchers!
My notes, in case you need: https://www.notion.so/uptechteam/The-...
It's the second time I read this one and once again, I loved every page of it. The book is an amazingly simple, down-to-earth guide on what it means to 'talk to your customers' before you go ahead and build that thing. It's one of those books that you can reread in a few hours every time you're thinking of starting a new project and you'll always find something new and useful. If you want to keep your sight on what's important in the mess of a product's initial research & creation, read
...more
I can't recommend this book enough. Simple, straightforward and immensely helpful. If you're only going to read one book about validating startup ideas, make it this one.
I learned quite a lot 🤔
Insightful, clear, understandable and quick
Now I'm more sure how to ask questions, how to ask the right questions mind you.
Now I'm more sure how to ask questions, how to ask the right questions mind you.
This book is the best business book I've ever read.
No fluff, no tedious and irrelevant stories, and no jargon filled generic crap. This is a manual for how to talk to customers for maximizing learning instead of fishing for compliments and ego boost. The writing is engaging and concise, and there is not a single page whose content can't be put to use immediately. I am sure I will come back to this book multiple times.
Highly recommended for aspiring entrepreneurs.
No fluff, no tedious and irrelevant stories, and no jargon filled generic crap. This is a manual for how to talk to customers for maximizing learning instead of fishing for compliments and ego boost. The writing is engaging and concise, and there is not a single page whose content can't be put to use immediately. I am sure I will come back to this book multiple times.
Highly recommended for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Jun 25, 2019
Louise
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
business
A short and to the point business-type book that's extremely helpful in conducting customer research. I heard about this book through an IndieHackers podcast episode and while one could get the gist of this book by just listening to the podcast, the details and examples in the actual book were worth the price of admission.
A nice short book no how to have better conversations with potential customers when you're building an idea. The main concept behind the book is that you shouldn't ask leading questions or questions that expose your ego (what do you think of my idea?). Instead, you should focus on asking questions in a way where they don't even know that you're building something, so your ego is not exposed. So for example, you could ask people "is x a problem for you", "how did you solve this problem in the
...more
Its nice.
Maybe the only downside is, even though it is a super short book, it is still extremely repetitive: 40% of the book is the exact same message:
DONT PITCH! Ask about THEIR lives, their problems, their current solutions/workarounds.
However, given how easy it is to fall back into "pitch mode", maybe it is worth hammering that message into my brain.
We are about to launch a new product soon at my company and we do have an extremely narrowly segmented customer group, so I will sit down with ...more
Maybe the only downside is, even though it is a super short book, it is still extremely repetitive: 40% of the book is the exact same message:
DONT PITCH! Ask about THEIR lives, their problems, their current solutions/workarounds.
However, given how easy it is to fall back into "pitch mode", maybe it is worth hammering that message into my brain.
We are about to launch a new product soon at my company and we do have an extremely narrowly segmented customer group, so I will sit down with ...more
Priceless.
The book is short and quite expensive, but each page of it is full of very, very useful examples and advise.
I wish I read this book before, and not had an experience of a failed startup, cause I asked wrong questions while doing user research.
I acquired each page slowly, processing and applying to life. I even gave three talks, incorporating the knowledge from this book before I have finished it. :)
The most useful book of 2018. And one of the most useful book for people doing ...more
The book is short and quite expensive, but each page of it is full of very, very useful examples and advise.
I wish I read this book before, and not had an experience of a failed startup, cause I asked wrong questions while doing user research.
I acquired each page slowly, processing and applying to life. I even gave three talks, incorporating the knowledge from this book before I have finished it. :)
The most useful book of 2018. And one of the most useful book for people doing ...more
How to ask questions that are not biased? The book aims to make it easier to face tough questions. If you are setting up a business it is a must read for you. If your sales/pitch/validation conversations are pre-planned you will end up with lots of advice and much-needed information instead of going through meetings focusing on trivial stuff and keeping conversations comfortable.
I think Ive never made as many underlinings and comments as I did on the pages of this one. ...more
I think Ive never made as many underlinings and comments as I did on the pages of this one. ...more
It's complicated to evaluate this book without practicing its recommendations. So the true value will be discovered later. But the chapters where author talks about what questions should be asked to elicit customer requirements correlate with my experience as a business analyst. None of the good questions are about asking what functionality you should build. Talk about people and their life, not your product.
The must-read book for every entrepreneur and product manager. It is easy to read, short and clear. Rob Fitzpatrick provides a lot of tips and tricks for customer development that is applicable to every early-stage company.
Maybe not a fascinating page-turner, but a crisp very to-the-point and readable book on doing customer (development) interviews.
This is such an amazing book!
Heavily recommended by colleagues in office, I was generally apprehensive of the hype and was fairly certain that this book would let me down. But I couldn't have been more wrong. I'd say it's totally worth the hype.
Some very practical and hard hitting facts are conveyed in a very easy to consume manner. Being centered around conversations, the book is rife with examples of both 'things to do' and 'things not to do' during customer and stake holder conversations. ...more
Heavily recommended by colleagues in office, I was generally apprehensive of the hype and was fairly certain that this book would let me down. But I couldn't have been more wrong. I'd say it's totally worth the hype.
Some very practical and hard hitting facts are conveyed in a very easy to consume manner. Being centered around conversations, the book is rife with examples of both 'things to do' and 'things not to do' during customer and stake holder conversations. ...more
I wish all non-fiction book was like this. Short, containing the principles with examples. What are the qood questions as well as what are the BAD questions. Good flow, no fluff, absolutely loved it, learned a ton. Biggest take away: ask about what actually happened, not what would happen if X.
What an incredibly useful book. Highly recommend if you're into building products.
A short and relevant guide anyone working with customer development can and should read. There are some great questions ready to be copy/pasted.
I took another step forward into business :)
I learned good stuff about the evaluation of the idea and discovering customers.
I learned good stuff about the evaluation of the idea and discovering customers.
Amazing read on how to talk to customers. How to take proper feedback. Examples in this book are to the point. Throughout the book it has instances on both good and bad conversations.
I really liked this book. It is simple to read and full of useful and well explained tactics on how to get the information you need out of a conversation with a customer. I'll definitely come back to this book.
A fantastic book for entrepreneurs!
this book helped me to realizing my mistakes in talking to customers. This book introduces simple rules for talking to customers:
1- Talk about their life instead of your idea
2- Ask about specifics in past instead of generics or opinions about the future
3- Talk less and listen more.
This book is a practical how-to, and includes good examples of meetings. The interesting thing about this book is that its author is a technician, not a seller!
this book helped me to realizing my mistakes in talking to customers. This book introduces simple rules for talking to customers:
1- Talk about their life instead of your idea
2- Ask about specifics in past instead of generics or opinions about the future
3- Talk less and listen more.
This book is a practical how-to, and includes good examples of meetings. The interesting thing about this book is that its author is a technician, not a seller!
A practical book on finding what works in your idea and get the first steps toward building a functional, useful and customer-paying MVP/product.
I have 16 pointers I've learned from this book. Will be sharing it with the team. Thanks for writing it Rob. :)
This was in continuation to Talking to Humans. Virtually both the books talk about customer research and have solid advice.
Current, future and would-be entrepreneurs: Read this book. It may save you a lot of mistakes, pain and risk. A one-day read.
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Rob is an entrepreneur of 12 years. He went through YCombinator (s07) with an attempt to figure out social advertising before Facebook managed to do so, which obviously didnt work out so well. He has raised funding in the US and UK, built products used by customers like Sony and MTV, designed and Kickstarted a card game, cofounded the education agency Founder Centric, rebuilt a little sailboat,
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“Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but it’s fragile. While each blow with your shovel gets you closer to the truth, you’re liable to smash it into a million little pieces if you use too blunt an instrument.”
—
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“It boils down to this: you aren’t allowed to tell them what their problem is, and in return, they aren’t allowed to tell you what to build. They own the problem, you own the solution.”
—
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