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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

#121

Post by klipt »

khazhoux wrote: post #9
hbeckpdx wrote: post #8

Naming something "The Mom Test" in the current political environment is a choice.

Is "is a choice" something the kids are saying these days? Never heard that expression. At any rate, at first I was worried that this was a sexist-agist reference, but in fact it's not at all. "Mom" is just used to represent someone who doesn't want to hurt your feelings.

The idea that mom (but not dad?) will lie to you in order not to hurt your feelings surely reflects biases about gender (aka sexism, albeit a mild form).

The non biased version would use "parent" not "mom".

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#122

Post by Jiro »

jjoonathan wrote: post #86
sputr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vot…

Yeah, I learned this one watching Soylent, the meal-replacement drink: everyone was talking about it, saying how awful the name was. It clearly wasn't a bad name, though, because it made everyone talk about it, and nobody actually mistook the real product for the fictional namesake.

People make decisions at the margin. What you'll actually get is that a lot of people will become a small percentage less likely to buy it. Some of those people will be driven over the edge, since they were just barely going to buy it and now just barely weren't. But none of those people, when asked, will tell you "the stupid name was why we didn't buy it". At best they'll point to a lot of reasons of which the name is only one. At worst, they'll just point to a general sense of distrust that is 5% caused by the stupid name, and not even be able to analyze their own motivations well enough to answer the question.

In other words, "would you not buy/not vote because of this problem" is a bad method of analysis, and will tell you that it had no effect when it actually did.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#123

Post by yoaviram »

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…

Thank you Rob! I've been advising startups for many years now. I consider your book to be the only mandatory reading for a first time enrapture, ever since i picked it up about 5 years ago. I'm going to order another copy as I've given mind away, (again).

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#124

Post by jjoonathan »

Jiro wrote: post #122
jjoonathan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I learned this one watching Soylent, the meal-replacement drink: everyone was talking about it, saying how awful the name was. It clearly wasn't a bad name, though, because it made everyone talk about it, and nobody actually mistook the real product for the fictional namesake.

People make decisions at the margin. What you'll actually get is that a lot of people will become a small percentage less likely to buy it. Some of those people will be driven over the edge, since they were just barely going to buy it and now just barely weren't. But none of those people, when asked, will tell you "the stupid name was why we didn't buy it". At best they'll point to a lot of reasons of which the name…

Next to the wild success of the viral marketing campaign that sliver of people is completely insignificant. I'm sure the name did push a few people over the edge, but it pushed everyone to spread the word. Sure, you could postulate the existence of an alternative brand that was equally viral without the negative connotations -- but that would be nothing more than wishful thinking.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#125

Post by gkkirilov »

moosebear847 wrote: post #80
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…

As an author of the book that's summarized, how do you feel about in-depth summaries of your book in terms of it affecting sales and providing publicity? I've always wondered how authors feel about it.

There is a great summary of the book at the end of it.

I revisit it often

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#126

Post by gkkirilov »

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…

The summary is the pure love. Thank you!

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#127

Post by sharps_xp »

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,

Please release that book on dating. Not that I'm interested in the topic, but I'm more interested in reading something entertaining.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#128

Post by thaumasiotes »

bzbarsky wrote: post #100
thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No worries; I made sure to run through a publisher who exclusively employs whites.

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#129

Post by robfitz »

kenjackson wrote: post #120
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…

Thank you for this. I did have one question about the Mom Test. How do you actually do solution validation? I get that you talk about the problem, but at what point do you actually get feedback if the solution that you want to build (or have built) is going to be a solution for the customer?

If the problem is well-defined, you can get a fairly strong signal on intent-to-purchase by asking for commitments (i.e., time, reputation, money, or secrets about an enterprise buying process). You start with the smallest ones (weakest signal but easiest to ask for early) and then move up toward money (and eventually full price) as you make progress with the overall business.

But if the problem is undefined/unknown (like much future tech), or if the product is a nice-to-have or "10x improvement" (like many B2C apps or UX improvements), then you basically have to validate via a prototype (or some other sort of creative v1).

(You can still do your discovery/understanding via conversation in either case, of course.)

Re: The Mom Test – How to talk to customers

#130

Post by c152driver »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #66
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 wa…

Do you think this book would be good for a sales engineer inside a larger organization?
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