The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

by Rob Fitzpatrick

The measure of usefulness of an early customer conversation is whether it gives us concrete facts about our customers’ lives and world views.

If you just avoid mentioning your idea, you automatically start asking better questions. Doing this is the easiest (and biggest) improvement you can make to your customer conversations.

The Mom Test: Talk about their life instead of your idea Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future Talk less and listen more

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.

While using generics, people describe themselves as who they want to be, not who they actually are. You need to get specific to bring out the edge cases.

Startups are about focusing and executing on a single, scalable idea rather than jumping on every good one which crosses your desk.

The more you’re talking, the worse you’re doing.

Every time you talk to someone, you should be asking at least one question which has the potential to destroy your currently imagined business.

There’s more reliable information in a “meh” than a “Wow!” You can’t build a business on a lukewarm response.

In early stage sales, the real goal is learning. Revenue is a side-effect.

If you don’t know what you’re trying to learn, you shouldn’t bother having the conversation.

Notes are useless if you don’t look at them.

If a question could be answered via desk research, do that first