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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

#91

Post by Deestan »

jack335 wrote: post #15
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…

Oh wow sounds terrible to lie to a blind person but makes totally sense.

It's also misunderstanding the question, either due to being stuck in thought of due to ambient noise. Absent-mindedly understanding the question as "is this the train?" or something would not surprise me.

A lot of people are also too afraid to say they don't understand or hear you, and will just go "yeah yeah". It's aggravating, but it's both real and no real ill intent behind it.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#92

Post by macando »

mritchie712 wrote: post #77
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…

You might like Traction [1] by DuckDuckGo's founder. It has a similar no nonsense feel to it, but a broader scope of all around growth. I liked it so much I built an app [2] around the framework from in the book (with Gabriel's permission). 1 - https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Cu... 2 - https://www.wax.run

Traction is in my top 5 of non-fiction books.

[2] looks interesting

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#93

Post by shoto_io »

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 there! I am big fan. Thanks for the book.

Just a tiny recommendation: Could you sync the Kindle book with the audible book? I love buying both and read the book while I am listening to it. That would be awesome!

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#94

Post by jwr »

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…

It's a great book. "The meeting went well" became a routinely used phrase in my circles :-) (read the book to understand what that really means!)

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#95

Post by macando »

robfitz wrote: post #59
macando wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And for most business/tech books, the second price is orders of magnitude more costly than the first.

Couldn't agree more.

The idea is great. Lean books should be a thing.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#96

Post by etskinner »

decasia wrote: post #90

Some moms are software developers themselves. Without intending to, I do think that this title tends to reinforce the widespread assumption that programmers are men by default, while moms are, at most, "customers." A better title would just be "How to talk to customers." Meta comment: It's intellectually unfortunate that there's so much kneejerk hostility on HN to basic gender analysis. One's understanding of the wor…

I think the author's intention was to give people a quick way to understand what they were talking about. I agree that it would have been better if they said "The Mom and Dad Test" or "The Parent Test". But I thought their analogy was very salient and I understood it quickly.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#97

Post by ryanmarsh »

If you have no sales skills, asking if someone would by it or how much they’d pay merely soothes your ego.

If you understand what the customer needs, the customer has money, and you know how to sell then you are going to make money. If you have no sales skills then no amount of assurance will result in sales.

I met a young founder who had an obviously bad business plan. I asked if she had customers. She said “no, but businesses said they’d buy it”. I told her to go get a check from those customers, refundable if she didn’t deliver. Not one gave her money. I’m sorry that wake up call came so late in development for her.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#98

Post by wyager »

decasia wrote: post #90

Some moms are software developers themselves. Without intending to, I do think that this title tends to reinforce the widespread assumption that programmers are men by default, while moms are, at most, "customers." A better title would just be "How to talk to customers." Meta comment: It's intellectually unfortunate that there's so much kneejerk hostility on HN to basic gender analysis. One's understanding of the wor…

The article is using “mom” as an example of a person who is supportive and uncritical of you, not as an example of someone who doesn’t know what’s going on.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#99

Post by jack335 »

chegra wrote: post #67

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.

That is a nice idea of a summary and highlights as well. I thought about visualising the final cheat sheet as well :)

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#100

Post by bzbarsky »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #55
newsbinator wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any combination of words in the English language for a book title "in the current political environment" that would be beyond reproach?

I Wrote This Book There are many options.

"Centering yourself at the expense of the many others who contributed to the production and distribution of the book. Many of whom are PoC, you racist pig."

Seriously, intelligent people who want to find fault with something can usually do it, given a flexible-enough fault-finding toolset. Which we have.

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