[HN Gopher] The Mom Test - How to talk to customers
___________________________________________________________________
The Mom Test - How to talk to customers
Author : jack335
Score : 427 points
Date : 2021-09-27 05:44 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sandro.volpee.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (sandro.volpee.de)
| mthwsjc_ wrote:
| It's a great book, I really enjoyed it. I made some concise notes
| on each chapter on my blog https://johnmathews.is/mom-test.html
| ekulianova wrote:
| That's helpful, thanks!
| jack335 wrote:
| These are really good notes as well thank you for sharing!
| mthwsjc_ wrote:
| you are welcome :)
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The Mom Test, the entire book, is a couple hour read... honestly
| if you have any interest at all in selling or building (or simply
| work at a startup) it's worth reading the whole thing, and not a
| summarized recap... the book itself is summarized.
| jack335 wrote:
| You're completely right thats what I say as well. If you're
| interested in this topic, read it it is barely 140 pages long.
| But I think a summary can be a good intro and a good learning
| for me as well :-)
| macando wrote:
| 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 solve the petty annoyances of
| their day._
| sputr wrote:
| 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.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| 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.
| Jiro wrote:
| 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.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| 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.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| 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
| macando wrote:
| Traction is in my top 5 of non-fiction books.
|
| [2] looks interesting
| mritchie712 wrote:
| Thanks! If you want to give it a try, I'd like to get your
| feedback on the onboarding flow (it's still very new). Let
| me know, I'm mike@wax.run
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > 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.
| macando wrote:
| Most non-fiction books could be long essays at best.
|
| Books are usually padded with needless repetition and
| anecdotes.
| 12ian34 wrote:
| 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...?
| pikrzyszto wrote:
| a lot of scientific books are like that, for example the
| art of computer programming.
| macando wrote:
| My other favorites are Traction, Peopleware and Made to
| Stick. However, they are 230+ pages long. Pretty consise,
| but I think they could have been shorter.
|
| There aren't many non-fiction books that are 150p and
| less. Hmmm
| handrous wrote:
| God, I get that one, unsolicited, All. The. Time. It may be the
| only kind of unsolicited "idea for a product" I've ever gotten,
| actually.
|
| "You make apps? I have a great app idea that'll make you rich!
| All of us in [profession] would use it! You see... [explains
| idea].... It would save me hours every week and no one's done
| it yet, for some reason!"
|
| Me: _searches the App Store_ You mean like any of these first
| five results that are all literally the exact thing you 're
| describing, are targeted at your profession, and that you want
| _sooooo_ much that you 've never even bothered to search for it
| and plunk down _consults screen_ $14.99? "
| [deleted]
| snarf21 wrote:
| So true. My experience is that those people have "one weird
| requirement" that is unique to them that other tools don't
| include so instead of getting 90% of the the performance
| benefit, they'd rather complain and not change that one step.
| What they really want is for you to automate their _exact_
| current process. I had a friend of a friend pitch me
| something like that and they had the whole "and you can sell
| it to everyone in our industry". There were upset when I
| pointed out that no one else in that industry has their
| specific process and requirements. They just wanted it for
| free.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I had a conversation in the 90s with an acquaintance:
|
| A: What the world really needs is a native Java compiler. That
| would be really great! You should write one.
|
| W: I wrote one for Symantec. You can buy it today.
|
| A: I don't want it.
| goohle wrote:
| I don't want paid compiler too. Native compiler for Java for
| Android exists (APK precompiler) and it's great.
|
| It's possible to make good java compiler into native code and
| then sell it to a big corp, but I'm not a big corp, so it's
| good idea, but I'm not a target audience for it.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Android was not around in the 90s
| Torwald wrote:
| He just wanted to be nice.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I wasn't angry with him, or even annoyed. I simply learned
| long ago that people who don't have skin in the game rarely
| give good game advice. People pitch me _all the time_ what
| programs I should write.
|
| I've written many products over the years, some were
| successes, others were failures. A common thread has
| emerged: all the failures were pitched by others. All the
| successes were ones I wrote to please myself, and everyone
| told me I was a unique snowflake and nobody else would want
| it and I would fail.
| macando wrote:
| > I simply learned long ago that people who don't have
| skin in the game rarely give good game advice.
|
| This is highly quotable.
| andi999 wrote:
| I even did that to myself. I thought about a great product. I
| was convinced, so I wanted to build it (it would also fulfill
| my need). Of course then I did research if it already exists.
| It did. I didn't want it.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yep. I've done that too.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> My favorite quote from it:
|
| "Someone should definitely make an X!"
|
| "Have you looked for an X?"
|
| "No, why?"
|
| Reminds me of the classic line and omition from the dating
| world:
|
| "He's a great guy, he'd make a great husband." ... for somebody
| else.
| jack335 wrote:
| Exactly! I think it is q bit over 100 pages (140) but still
| really short. It was recommended so many times to me so I
| really wanted to make a short summary.
|
| The thing with separating complainers from customer is a great
| learning as well. If you just see complainers maybe the problem
| isn't that important ;)
| macando wrote:
| Correct. It's 136p long. I remember it as no more than 85p.
| It's that good.
|
| > If you just see complainers maybe the problem isn't that
| important ;)
|
| Good point.
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| 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.
| golemotron wrote:
| It's tragic that we have to resort to these techniques because
| our culture has become so averse to offering honest feedback. It
| wasn't always this way.
| robfitz wrote:
| 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 folks like me.
|
| If it's helpful for anyone, I've been answering reader questions
| with little youtube videos that touch on some of the common
| misunderstanding and sticking points.[1]
|
| Also, back when covid started, I also did a short series (5x 5min
| videos) about adapting the approach to remote interviews.[2]
|
| [1] Q&A:
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvHabB7atz2uWPZN5m7z3...
|
| [2] Remote:
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvHabB7atz2tOjQs1OMzj...
| moosebear847 wrote:
| 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.
| robfitz wrote:
| I always love summaries that are publicly posted (like this
| one, no matter how detailed), and I only dislike the
| (relatively rare) ones that are repackaged as "new" books on
| Amazon and then resold at a profit (it feels bad in general,
| but especially since I already work pretty hard to make my
| books as short as possible).
|
| My feeling has always been that if a book _can_ be
| sufficiently summarized in a blog post, then it _should_ be a
| blog post ;). And if someone reads the summary and fully
| "gets it," they probably would have been frustrated by the
| full book, since they probably already had a lot of the
| foundational knowledge in place. So it's better if they don't
| buy it in the first place. And different people will read the
| summary, want the extra detail, and grab the full book, which
| is great too.
|
| Even with piracy of the full book (which is currently #1 on
| google for various fairly guessable searches), I still feel
| that it ends up coming back to me via word of mouth. Piracy
| probably hurts "bad" books that are propped up by PR, but it
| definitely helps books that people find useful, since they
| end up recommending it to other folks who may pay.
| gkkirilov wrote:
| There is a great summary of the book at the end of it.
|
| I revisit it often
| shoto_io wrote:
| 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!
| jwr wrote:
| 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!)
| kenjackson wrote:
| 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?
| robfitz wrote:
| 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.)
| tmarice wrote:
| Looking forward to reading the book, looks great.
|
| Just a small technical issue: I just tried to buy the book on
| http://momtestbook.com/ via Gumroad, and Chrome refuses to
| autofill the credit card number in the Gumroad widget because
| the site is http-only. I circumvented that by copying the link
| from the "Buy on Gumroad" button, but it might be hurting your
| sales. Consider adding SSL certificate or just make the button
| click open the Gumroad site.
| robfitz wrote:
| You're totally right -- it's one of those things that's
| always on the list but never feels like the day's top
| priority, and then one day you wake up and it's on HN and you
| feel like a dummy ;). Probably some sort of lesson for me to
| learn here.
|
| (If anyone else needs it, the direct/secure gumroad PDF link
| is https://gum.co/momtest, and the paperback/ebook are on
| Amazon.)
| wwarek wrote:
| I'd just like to add, and it was important for me, that
| gumroad also has epub and mobi, not only PDF. I've almost
| skipped buying the book because mobi was supposedly only
| available on Amazon. Fortunately I clicked on gumroad just
| to find out that epub and mobi are also there.
| jack335 wrote:
| I think you really hit a frustration of many people :D Thanks
| for the book and your work Rob!
| goohle wrote:
| I'm introvert myself (INTP). I share your frustration. Maybe
| you have some business hints for introverts? AFAIK, the only
| successful Unicorn created by INTP's is Google, but I cannot
| have a talk with Google founders, obviously.
| robfitz wrote:
| I think it depends very much on your goals. For me, after
| going through YC with my first company and having a difficult
| four years chasing scale, I realized that I was oriented more
| toward lifestyle/reliability/freedom, and I've been fairly
| focused on that for the last 10 years (although it really
| only took a couple years to achieve once I was clear on my
| goals, and has been pretty relaxed since then).
|
| So with that caveat out of the way, my top-of-mind career
| advice for entrepreneurial introverts is:
|
| 1 // Learning how to talk to (and listen to) people is
| probably the highest-leverage career skill you'll ever learn,
| even if you only go from "terrible" to "functional." There's
| a tremendous amount of discomfort while learning it, but that
| discomfort is temporary. I'll never "like" talking to
| strangers, and I'll always need to manage my energy levels,
| context, and recovery time. That being said, the ability to
| do so when useful to my career (like custdev or sales or
| fundraising) or life (like making friends in a new city or
| negotiating with an angry plumber) has been transformational.
| The pain is temporary and the benefit is profound.
|
| 2 // Journal each morning. Braindump your
| frustrations/goals/fears onto paper. Your brain likely works
| differently from most "successful" people, which means that
| the common advice won't fully resonate with you, and you'll
| need to chart more of your own path. This requires thinking,
| and for a lot of introverts, writing is the clearest way to
| think (but if you're different, use what works for you).
| Similarly, run every piece of advice you hear (well, the
| compelling bits anyway) through a personality filter,
| normalize it for personality/context, and then decide whether
| it's likely to be right you. Common example: "Go to that
| conference and meet some customers!" Maybe that works for
| other people, but it has a 0% chance of working for me. But
| there's a valuable core concept to that advice (go engage
| with new customers) that can perhaps be adjusted to a context
| I'm comfortable in.
|
| 3 // Cultivate relationships with strong potential cofounders
| long before you need them. You'll never be as quick on the
| draw in conversation as others, so you need the important
| relationships built ahead of time. For potential cofounders
| (the most important network available), the way to do that is
| by collaborating on small, time-constrained side projects.
| Allows both parties to evaluate what each other bring to
| table outside of an "urgent" situation, and without relying
| on quick talking.
|
| 4 // Don't let anyone press you into "right now" negotiations
| or decisions. Use live conversations to gather data, and then
| use your time alone to process it and come to a decision
| about next steps. Repeat if necessary. Nobody will give you
| this time by default, but nobody will deny it to you once you
| ask (and if they do, you probably shouldn't work with them
| anyway).
|
| There's probably more, that's just top of mind, but it's what
| feels important to my brain right now.
| corobo wrote:
| Not the original parent but thankful you've posted that!
| Nice one :)
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| 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 ;)
| c152driver wrote:
| Do you think this book would be good for a sales engineer
| inside a larger organization?
| gkkirilov wrote:
| The summary is the pure love. Thank you!
| macando wrote:
| I wish more authors could adopt your zero-fluff-all-insights
| approach.
|
| Thank you for writing the book, I recommended it many times.
| robfitz wrote:
| 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.
| macando wrote:
| > 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.
| yoaviram wrote:
| 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).
| asdev wrote:
| 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
| robfitz wrote:
| 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 (<5min each) that might be relevant:
|
| - 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
| tishha wrote:
| Great idea! Thank you for the book
| lcrz wrote:
| Could you please not hijack clicking on text on your website?
| That's extremely unfriendly to visitors.
| [deleted]
| sharps_xp wrote:
| 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.
| revorad wrote:
| Rob's book is fantastic. I remember reading a very early version
| when it first came out. I'm very pleased to see that it has
| steadily become more popular over the years.
|
| Another great new book on the same topic is Deploy Empathy by
| Michele Hansen. Michele goes even deeper with lots of practical
| tips, scripts, and templates. I highly recommend it, especially
| if you liked The Mom Test - https://deployempathy.com.
| jack335 wrote:
| Cool will definitely add it to my list. Thanks!
| hbeckpdx wrote:
| Naming something "The Mom Test" in the current political
| environment is a choice.
| newsbinator wrote:
| Is there any combination of words in the English language for a
| book title "in the current political environment" that would be
| beyond reproach?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| _I Wrote This Book_
|
| There are many options.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| "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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| No worries; I made sure to run through a publisher who
| exclusively employs whites.
| Ultcyber wrote:
| well, not all people live in the US
| maxwellburson wrote:
| Why?
| michaelt wrote:
| 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....
| selcuka wrote:
| > she thinks a hamburger menu is something you get at
| McDonalds
|
| That's not incorrect though.
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| Call it the 'dad test' then. Or even the 'sibling test' -
| because they're probably not technology experts.
|
| It literally means 'regular person test'...
| newsbinator wrote:
| 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.
| jhgb wrote:
| Honestly, neither "mom test", "dad test", or "regular
| person test" gives me any idea whatsoever what this might
| be about.
| louisswiss wrote:
| > It literally means 'regular person test'...
|
| The whole point is that it _doesn 't_ mean "regular
| person test'...
|
| It means "person who isn't the target customer and who
| probably cares about you too much to give unbiased
| feedback" test.
| [deleted]
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > 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 Ks is obviously a picture of a hamburger.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that was the point, yes.
| [deleted]
| yololol wrote:
| Why? It is still true. Maybe in the future it won't be, but
| currently 99.99% of moms in this planet are not tech savvy,
| whether we like it or not. Remember that moms being born in the
| 1930s are still out there - not everything written has some
| hidden political intention. As we move forward, if more women
| happen to get interested into technology, this might change.
| But until then, jumping on someone for the sake of political
| correctness - because there may be a tech-savvy mom somewhere
| out there that you decided to defend, or because it shouldn't
| be true in your ideal world - is toxic. And as you see people
| are downvoting you for being this kind of person.
| khazhoux wrote:
| 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.
| jack335 wrote:
| Exactly in this case "Mom" just refers to a person who
| doesn't want to hurt your feelings and just tells you that
| every idea is awesome ;)
| klipt wrote:
| 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".
| glenngillen wrote:
| Yep. I thought the same thing originally, and then realized
| it's nothing of the sort. That I so quickly jumped to that
| assumption says more about me than the author :(
| b20000 wrote:
| what is better than talking to customers is shutting up and
| watching them. they will tell you X and then do Y.
| lbriner wrote:
| There have been a handful of books like this that I think are so
| key and probably not very contraversial but then I see so many
| companies who fail because they don't approach things in this way
| - perhaps they don't know about the book, perhaps they think they
| know better etc.
|
| It would be great imho to replace the venerable but probably
| overpriced and ineffective MBA with a modern equivalent that
| takes on board the sort of training and experience you would get
| from places like YC, some of the well known investors etc. so
| that we would end up with something that we could say, "if you
| want to start a business, you really need to go on this course".
|
| It could be distance/part-time/whatever but it would ensure that
| business people have the correct skills and tools for the job so
| that they give themselves the biggest chance of success.
| chegra wrote:
| 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.
| jack335 wrote:
| That is a nice idea of a summary and highlights as well. I
| thought about visualising the final cheat sheet as well :)
| sseppola wrote:
| Talking to Humans is another great book in this genre. Short and
| succinct, with useful examples.
| jack335 wrote:
| Cool thanks will definitely take a look +1
| b20000 wrote:
| this assumes that your business can only succeed if you solve a
| problem. you don't need to solve a problem to make a lot of
| money. people buy things they don't need all the time. all you
| need to do is make something they want and whether they want to
| pay for it. this might not need any conversation with customers
| at all.
| muzani wrote:
| The mom test is one of those books that have a lot of good
| advice. Most summaries are quite bad and led me to think the book
| itself was bad, but thankfully, this is a good one.
| jack335 wrote:
| Thank you for that! I really recommend reading the whole thing
| but I think a summary is really good to have as well. Rob did
| an awesome job here :)
| [deleted]
| iddan wrote:
| The mom test is the product validation book I get the most
| recommendations about. This is a lovely summary of it
| jack335 wrote:
| Yes me too. It was recommend so often that I thought creating a
| summary is a good idea ;-)
| mlang23 wrote:
| 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 other then yes/no.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Also applies to buying used cars and other high value things.
|
| Has it been regularly serviced?
|
| Vs
|
| Where do you take it for service? What date was it's last major
| service?
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Also if there is no PA on public transport vehicles that
| announces which line it is as it's approaching the stop, and
| it's a city, not a small town or village, it's quite a shitty
| city to be living in. Consider moving elsewhere.
|
| If they can't get their accessibility shit right, no way
| they're going to have working snow plows in winter. Also the
| underground canals are gonna be so clogged that a mildly heavy
| rain will create fucking lakes and rivers on the streets.
| mlang23 wrote:
| I get your attitude, but I can't confirm. For one, I am not
| sure if you actually realize how much work it is to learn to
| navigate your environment blind in a city. Even if there is
| no PA, asking is a million times simpler then moving to
| another city, because, you know, if you move, you have to
| start _all over again_ and will need at least a year until
| you can somewhat move freely in that new city again. Also,
| where I come from we are pretty used to snow. Its not quite
| far up north, but our snow plowing infrastructure works, and
| flooding isn 't a common event either. So yeah, in general, I
| am on your side, I'd love to have a PA. But the truth is, in
| the two most largest cities in my country, there is none, so
| I have to resort to either knowing which line arrives _where_
| , or simply ask someone. I've gotten used to that. Also, I
| have a certain feeling that involving random strangers in
| accessibility issues is actually doing something for the
| society. It forces people to deal with the issues disabled
| people have.
| astrobe_ wrote:
| Can confirm from around 10 years of customer support
| experience. Never ask close-ended question (yes/no), but open-
| ended ones. That is "what is the color of the motherboard"
| instead of "is the motherboard blue?".
|
| As you and others pointed at out, this is a very general
| principle. It comes from the fact that close-ended questions
| sort of puts words in someone's mouth (the trick is sometimes
| used when you want a poll to yield a specific result).
| jiggawatts wrote:
| 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.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Always ask string return questions, got it.
| bronzecarnage wrote:
| "Yes!"
| beebeepka wrote:
| Requiring a little effort makes quite a difference.
|
| Case in point: https://youtube.com/watch?v=n3AGpvV7KLI
| jack335 wrote:
| Oh wow sounds terrible to lie to a blind person but makes
| totally sense.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| It's not much a lie, it's more of a way to quickly get
| someone to sod off. Still a shitty move.
| Deestan wrote:
| 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.
| rmnclmnt wrote:
| Nice read thanks!
|
| In the same vein of gathering good data and finding the
| resonating solution to customers problems, Small Data[1] by
| Martin Lindstrom is another great read with a sociological
| approach, focused on branding but nonetheless on entrepreneurship
| also.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Data
| jack335 wrote:
| Looks really interesting! Added it to my list, thanks :-)
| crhutchins wrote:
| 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.
| jack335 wrote:
| Indeed. And you find yourself so often just talking about the
| wrong things instead of really looking at the problem.
| mpbeauj wrote:
| From my experience, talking to customers in this weird screening,
| problem focused way is always very awkward - but then again, I've
| never found a real problem for people to solve so maybe it's just
| my ideas and the test worked.
| decasia wrote:
| 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 world is _enriched_ by thinking about how
| gender roles work, so the hostility to gender analysis is
| basically throwing away useful knowledge.
| etskinner wrote:
| 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.
| wyager wrote:
| 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.
| rfrey wrote:
| Any perceived hostility may come from your very uncharitable
| read of the the title. The reference isn't _any_ mom, and there
| isn 't any suggestion that moms can't be programmers or are
| clueless in any way.
|
| The reference is your _own_ mom, who will tell you that your
| idea is great, even if it 's not. You're swinging at shadows.
| decasia wrote:
| As a point of method: We can and should distinguish "What the
| author intended" from "what is the unintended side effect of
| this use of language."
|
| I'm explicitly not commenting on what the author intended to
| mean by this title choice (yes, a "person who is uncritically
| affirmative"). (I have absolutely no axe to grind with the
| author either, just for the record!)
|
| But generally speaking, it's fair to comment on the unintended
| side effects of someone's use of language, because there are
| always side effects when we use language. That's how language
| is -- it exceeds our intentions, because it's a legacy tool
| with generations of unexplored cultural baggage, to put it in
| an idiom that software folks might appreciate.
| yololol wrote:
| > It's intellectually unfortunate that there's so much kneejerk
| hostility on HN to basic gender analysis. One's understanding
| of the world is enriched by thinking about how gender roles
| work, so the hostility to gender analysis is basically throwing
| away useful knowledge.
|
| I hope this comment will be seen as constructive rather than
| hostile: Personally while I was initially sympathizing to the
| cause of inclusiveness, I have now developed hostile feelings
| simply because this constant presence has made me tired. There
| is no place on the internet or IRL (at least where I live)
| where you won't stumble on these things. I am not interested
| about any of the gender stuff, I have been sure of what I am
| and what I am not since I can remember myself, so all this
| constant presence makes me tired, and it frankly feels like
| propaganda trying to forcefully change me into something I'm
| not. So pushing so agressivly an agenda that to the majority of
| people is irrelevant (and I believe this is true otherwise we
| wouldn't exist as a species), I am actually surprised of how
| little hostility is received.
| enumjorge wrote:
| > A better title would just be "How to talk to customers."
|
| Hard disagree. That title doesn't capture the reader's
| attention and it's also less descriptive of the main point of
| the book.
| tyroh wrote:
| I've actually added The Mom Test to my recommended reading list
| for direct reports, since it helps a lot in requirements gathers
| from both internal and external customers.
| jack335 wrote:
| That is a cool idea! How is the feedback from your reports so
| far?
| heymax054 wrote:
| 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.
| robfitz wrote:
| > pros and cons of interviewing people using the MOM framework
|
| I gave a fuller answer elsewhere in the thread
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28669204), but it's
| highly reliant on the specifics of your idea/industry/bizmodel.
|
| B2C and '10x improvement' style ideas tend to need to lead with
| a prototype (although you ideally first do enough discovery
| conversations to understand what they're already doing and
| why). The early product iteration is what Uber got right and
| Segway got wrong, and it's why the best videogame studios (like
| Blizzard 10+ years ago) always begin with prototypes of
| isolated core game mechanics, iterating those ruthlessly until
| they feel "crunchy" (the game industry term for immediately
| rewarding interactions).
|
| Whereas ideas that are solving a well-defined, unsolved problem
| (which is way more common in niche B2B and the sorts of ideas
| that you'd bootstrap toward) can be pretty fully validated with
| ONLY conversation, which is obviously extremely quick and quite
| advantageous.
|
| Apart from those two big categories, there are a million edge
| cases where the whole suite of approaches you mention can feel
| like a (somewhat situational) superpower.
| foxbee wrote:
| We used the blueprint within this group to learn from 6000
| signups. It led to us (Budibase) pivoting and saving countless
| hours and money, but most importantly, it's helped us reduce
| stress, build a better product, and deliver exactly what our
| users need.
|
| Huge appreciation - thank you! Joe (cofounder of Budibase)
| mehphp wrote:
| Fantastic read, I highly recommend it if you are trying to talk
| to customers.
| [deleted]
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