Naming something "The Mom Test" in the current political environment is a choice.
well, not all people live in the US
The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
51–60 of 140 posts
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And it's barely 100 pages long. I'd like to quote this and add kudos for that. There's a lot of books that could be a blog post, needlessly padded out. 100 pages sounds a lot more manageable.
Most non-fiction books could be long essays at best. Books are usually padded with needless repetition and anecdotes.
Really agree with this. If you have time I'd appreciate to hear some of your favourite high-value concise non-fiction books of any discipline...?
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#53Naming something "The Mom Test" in the current political environment is a choice.
Why?
The risk hbeckpdx fears is:
1. Someone hasn't read the book and only glanced at the title.
2. That someone assumes the book says "test things on your mom, because there's nobody less tech-savvy than an older woman, yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds"
3. That someone, hoping to be an ally in the fight against gender and age discrimination in tech, takes offence at what they imagine the book says.
4. A mob of people who also haven't read the book destroy your career.
Of course, we've got like 4 levels of hypothetical here - you're reading me, putting words into hbeckpdx's mouth, who is imagining an easily offended third party, who is imagining the contents of the book, which they imagine is offensive to a hypothetical mom. Whether you agree with hbeckpdx that this is a reasonable thing to fear is another question....
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#54Heya, author here. Fun to see this. I wrote the book after becoming hugely frustrated as an introverted technical founder trying to "talk to customers" but finding zero books about sales/interviews/etc that spoke to my context. That first company (yc s07) failed just as I started to figure it all out, but the casual approach proved useful (and comfortable) in my future businesses, so I wanted to document it for other…
Hey Rob, do you have some resources on B2C businesses? For example starting something like Facebook or TikTok? I noticed that most of the Mom Test seems geared more towards B2B though some of the insights can be extrapolated to B2C as well
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#55Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
The risk hbeckpdx fears is: 1. Someone hasn't read the book and only glanced at the title. 2. That someone assumes the book says "test things on your mom, because there's nobody less tech-savvy than an older woman, yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds" 3. That someone, hoping to be an ally in the fight against gender and age discrimination in tech, takes offence at what they…
Call it the 'dad test' then. Or even the 'sibling test' - because they're probably not technology experts.
It literally means 'regular person test'...
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
The risk hbeckpdx fears is: 1. Someone hasn't read the book and only glanced at the title. 2. That someone assumes the book says "test things on your mom, because there's nobody less tech-savvy than an older woman, yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds" 3. That someone, hoping to be an ally in the fight against gender and age discrimination in tech, takes offence at what they…
[deleted]
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
The risk hbeckpdx fears is: 1. Someone hasn't read the book and only glanced at the title. 2. That someone assumes the book says "test things on your mom, because there's nobody less tech-savvy than an older woman, yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds" 3. That someone, hoping to be an ally in the fight against gender and age discrimination in tech, takes offence at what they…
> yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds
I think this says more about the intelligence of the person who decided that Ξ is obviously a picture of a hamburger.
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#59Heya, author here. Fun to see this. I wrote the book after becoming hugely frustrated as an introverted technical founder trying to "talk to customers" but finding zero books about sales/interviews/etc that spoke to my context. That first company (yc s07) failed just as I started to figure it all out, but the casual approach proved useful (and comfortable) in my future businesses, so I wanted to document it for other…
I wish more authors could adopt your zero-fluff-all-insights approach. Thank you for writing the book, I recommended it many times.
Funny you should mention it, that's (part of) the topic of my latest, about designing nonfiction like a problem-solving product (won't plug it here since it's off-topic, but easy enough to find).
Too many authors seem to forget that readers pay for every book twice: once with the cover price and then again with their time.
(And for most business/tech books, the second price is orders of magnitude more costly than the first.)
Anyway, happy it has proven useful and many thanks for the support.
Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risk hbeckpdx fears is: 1. Someone hasn't read the book and only glanced at the title. 2. That someone assumes the book says "test things on your mom, because there's nobody less tech-savvy than an older woman, yo momma so dumb she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds" 3. That someone, hoping to be an ally in the fight against gender and age discrimination in tech, takes offence at what they…
Call it the 'dad test' then. Or even the 'sibling test' - because they're probably not technology experts. It literally means 'regular person test'...
Who are you calling a regular person? As if other people aren’t regular? How dare you. /s
If somebody wants to be offended by combinations of words, no combination of words will deter them.