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The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

sandro.volpee.de

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Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#61

Post by robfitz »

asdev wrote: post #54
robfitz wrote: post #23

Heya, 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

The short version is basically:

1. You can still do full "discovery" (i.e., understanding what they're already doing and why, decision-making, current workarounds, etc.), which gives you a better foundation of understanding from which to come up with product ideas

2. But it's MUCH harder to do conversation-only "validation" (i.e., getting confirmation that they're going to buy and use your specific thing before it exists)

So in B2C (and also if building something deep into the future, like 3D Printing), you basically do your discovery as normal and then skip the commitments/validation, jump straight to a quick prototype, and follow the normal iterative product-first learning approach.

A couple Q&A videos (- You can't learn everything, but can learn more than nothing: https://youtu.be/O16IefIu1zc

- Situations where you need a prototype to keep learning: https://youtu.be/EZGiaIxB0HA

- Traps and solutions to 'nice-to-have' validation: https://youtu.be/yxQoRp01HuQ

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#62

Post by moffkalast »

jiggawatts wrote: post #30
mlang23 wrote: post #4

Although not quite the same, this reminds me of a very simple trick many blind people are taught during training on how to navigate the city: Never ever ask "Is this line 4" if you want to know which tram just arrived. Ask "which line is this?" Simply because the first version will make many people answer "yeah yeah" without even looking. The second version forces them to actually answer your question with something…

This is a rule I heard for dealing with coworkers from some other backgrounds as well. In some cultures, the established norm is for junior staff to answer all boolean questions in the affirmative. As in: "Have you completed the task?" "Yes!" -- no matter what If instead you ask for a project completion sign-off document, you're forcing them to provide the answer you were actually looking for.

Always ask string return questions, got it.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#63

Post by sputr »

macando wrote: post #7

Best book on early stage startups period. And it's barely 100 pages long. My favorite quote from it: “Someone should definitely make an X!” “Have you looked for an X?” “No, why?” “There are like 10 different kinds of X.” “Well I didn't really need it anyway.” Long story short, that person is a complainer, not a customer. They’re stuck in the la-la-land of imagining they’re the sort of person who finds clever ways to…

I had a very similar experience starting a (new) political party, of all things.

We had an "innovative" name, so we got loads of "You should change your name to X" and "You're not getting elected because you're named Z not Y".

Lots of my team was really worried about it. But I always told them to ask these people if that's the reason why they are not voting for us.

There were only two answers:

(1) "Nah, I'm still voting for you, but OTHER people MIGHT not."

and

(2) "Nah, i would not vote for you even if you were named X or Y"

It really taught me to stop assuming things.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#64

Post by selcuka »

michaelt wrote: post #53
maxwellburson wrote: post #21

Earlier 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…

> she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at McDonalds

That's not incorrect though.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#66

Post by marcus_holmes »

robfitz wrote: post #23

Heya, 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…

Your book changed my life. Seriously, good work, keep it up :)

I tried getting my co-founder (a serious old-skool sales guy) to read it, but he refused because he didn't need to be told anything about sales. Then he made exactly all the mistakes you talk about in the book when talking to our prospects. It was my first clue that maybe having a good salesperson as co-founder wasn't going to be the great experience I was anticipating. 2 years later the project died because we didn't get any customers.

I recommend the book to everyone now. If they don't immediately go "this is awesome!" then I'm suspicious ;)

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#67

Post by chegra »

I did a summary of my own here: https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-the-mom-test-by-rob-fit...

Well more like highlights that I found interesting. It is definitely on my top list of books for entrepreneurship. You should get a copy and read at least once a year, very insightful.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#69

Post by jack335 »

crhutchins wrote: post #43

I definitely recommend reading this one. It helped me how to talk to my clients and also how to talk with other people. It totally changes your perspective and how you tackle conversations.

Indeed. And you find yourself so often just talking about the wrong things instead of really looking at the problem.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#70

Post by heymax054 »

I've been wondering on the pros and cons of interviewing customers vs. just putting something out there and seeing the reaction/getting a commitment.

There's a great book about the latter called "The Right It" by Alberto Savoia (a guy who used to work at Google to test business ideas). There he describes 8 different ways to test a biz idea:

- The Mechanical Turk – Replace complex and expensive computers or machines with human beings.

- The Pinocchio – Build a non-functional, “lifeless”, version of the product.

- The Minimum Viable Product (or Stripped Tease) – Create a functional version of it, but stripped down to its most basic functionality.

- The Provincial – Before launching world-wide, run a test on a very small sample.

- The Fake Door – Create a fake “entry” for a product that doesn’t yet exist in any form

- The Pretend-to-Own – Before investing in buying whatever you need for your it, rent or borrow it first.

- The Re-label – Put a different label on an existing product that looks like the product you want to create.

A ques to the author (I saw he commented here). What do you think are the pros and cons of interviewing people using the MOM framework vs. just putting something out there and getting feedback? Often people give very different feedback when you ask them questions vs. present something and ask for skin in the game.

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