Review: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

A must-read for anyone who builds products. There are many business books out there that tell you to talk to customers, but this is one of the few that helps you navigate a huge pitfall with these conversations: most of your customers are lying to you. For example, the title of the book comes from the anecdote of asking your mom if she thinks your business idea is a good one: most moms will say yes, not because they believe it’s a good idea, but because they wants to support you, protect your feelings, etc. It turns out that almost anyone you interview may end up (inadvertently) lying to you for a variety of reasons. This book is a concise and practical guide on how to navigate this pitfall and get honest answers about your business ideas from almost anyone—even your mom.

Here are some of the key insights for me:

The problem: people will lie to you

If you sit down to discuss your business idea with someone, there is a high probability that they will lie to you or give you misleading information. It’s usually not malicious or even intentional, but the result of a variety of factors, such as:

• They don’t want to hurt your feelings: if you ask someone, “do you think this is a good idea,” they often will say “yes” just to be nice.
• They don’t know their own preferences: if you ask someone to predict their future behavior, they often tell you how their “ideal self” might act (how they wish to be), which will turn out to be very different than how they actually act. E.g., If you ask people how they prefer their coffee, many people say “strong,” but when you watch what they actually order, it’s often weak & milky.
• There is nothing at stake: if you ask if someone would buy something, hypothetically, they might say yes, as there is nothing at stake, but if you actually asked them to hand over cash, they may behave quite differently.
• They aren’t product designers: people will often make feature requests, but it’s usually a bad idea to blindly implement them, as most people don’t have the knowledge to come up with good solutions.

The solution: the mom test

There are three key principles you can follow in customer conversations to minimize the amount of lying:

1. Talk about their life instead of your idea.
2. Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future.
3. Talk less and listen more.

The idea is to ask questions where lying is vastly less likely and to get feedback on whatever business idea you’re investigating without ever discussing the business idea directly.

“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.”

A few examples of bad questions and alternatives to consider

Bad question #1: Do you think my idea for a product that does X is any good?

Alternatives to consider: How do you currently do X? What products do you use? What problems are you hitting? Are you actively searching for an alternative products? What other options have you considered?

Bad question #2: Would you buy a product that did X?

Alternatives to consider: How do you currently do X? Do you even solve it? Or is it not that big of a pain point and you mostly ignore it? If you do solve it, how do you do it? Do you use any products to help you?

Bad question #3: How much would you pay for a product that did X?

Alternatives to consider: How do you currently do X? How much time and money is that costing you? Have you spent money on previous solutions? If so, how much? Where does that budget come from? Alternatively, get a real commitment: we’re building a product that does X, would you be willing to put in a pre-order?

A few examples of good questions

• Why do you bother with X? This helps you understand the underlying problems & goals.
• What are the implications of that? This helps you understand how much the problems really matter.
• Talk me through last time X happened? This helps you understand the full lifecycle. Moreover, it lets you see what someone is really doing and what problems they are really hitting, instead of what they think the problems are.
• How are you dealing with X now? Tells you how they currently solve it and how much money (if any) they are currently spending on it.
• Where does the money come from? This is important in a B2B setting to understand where the budget comes from, who else has to sign off, etc.
• What else have you tried for X? If they haven’t looked for ways of solving it already, they probably won’t bother looking/buying your solution either.
• What are your top 3 priorities that you’re working on with X right now? This give syou a sense of whether they are really focused on this problem and how they are tackling it. If they aren’t prioritizing it at all, that’s a sign it might not be that important of a problem.
• Why do you want that? A great question to ask any time someone requests a feature or tosses out an idea.
• Who else should I talk to? This helps you find other people to interview.
• Is there anything else I should’ve asked? People often want to help, and this gives them an opportunity to correct your line of thinking.

Avoiding bad data

Even if you ask good questions, it’s still possible for the conversation to turn in such a way that you’re getting misleading information. Therefore, it’s important to recognize the three most common signs that you’re getting bad data:

1. Compliments: If you walk away with just a bunch of compliments on your idea, that’s often a sign of bad data. What you want instead are facts like: why did the person like the idea? What else have they tried? How much did that cost them?
2. Fluff: There are 3 common types of fluff: (a) generic claims like, “I always” or “I never,” (b) future promises, such as “I will” or “I would,” and (c) hypotheticals, such as “I might” or “I could.” The most dangerous of these is “I would definitely buy that.” People are wildly optimistic and trying to please you, and while the claim sounds great, it often ends up being untrue. The key is to turn the conversation from fluff back to something concrete. “I would definitely buy a product that did X.” “Oh, really? Tell me about the last time you ran into X. What did you do?”
3. Ideas: Any time a customer starts giving you ideas and feature requests, it is critical that you get under the hood and understand why. What problem are they trying to solve with those? How do they currently solve that problem? What’s the underlying goal or motivation?

Meetings only succeed if you get a commitment

Every meeting with a customer either succeeds or fails. It is a success only if the customer gives you a commitment to advance to the next step.

• Commitment: the customer is willing to give up something they value, such as time, reputation, or money.
• Advancement: the customer is moving onto the next step in your funnel and getting closer to purchasing.

If you end a meeting without a clear commitment to advance, that meeting was a failure. They may have given you compliments, made all sorts of fuzzy promises (“I would definitely buy that”), shared lots of fun ideas, and you may have left the meeting feeling great… But without a commitment, that’s all meaningless, and you failed.

Therefore, make sure that in every single meeting, you are:

1. Gathering facts: not compliments, fluff, or ideas.
2. Getting a commitment: the customer is giving up something they value.
3. Adsvancing: you’re moving to the next stage in your sales funnel.

Types of commitments

There are several different types of commitments you can ask for:

• Time commitments: clear next meeting with known goals; sitting down to give feedback on wireframes; using the product during a trial period.
• Reputation commitments: intros to other team members; intros to a decision maker; public testimonial.
• Financial commitments: letter of intent; pre-order; deposit.

Examples of good and bad meetings

Examples of bad meetings:

• “Looks great, let me know when it launches!”
• “I would definitely buy that.”
• “There are a few people I can introduce you to when you’re further along.”

Examples of good meetings:

• “When can we start the trial?”
• “Can I buy the prototype?”
• “Can you meet with the rest of my team?”

Rating: 5 stars