• Taking to customer is hard.
    • Conversations take time and easy to screw up.
    • Bad conversations give you a false positive which convince you that you’re on the right path when you’re not.
  • You shouldn’t ask your mom or anyone whether your business is a good idea because it’s a bad question and invites everyone to lie to you at least a little.
  • The Mom Test is a set of 3 simple rules for crating good questions that even your mom can’t lie about:
    • Talk about their lives instead of your idea.
    • Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future.
    • Talk less and listen more.
  • Fix a bad question.
    • “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
      • Only the market can tell you if your idea is good. Everything else is just opinion.
      • Instead, ask how they currently do it, which parts they love and hate, which solutions they tried before settling in this one, are they actively seeking for replacement, why and why not,…
    • “Would you buy a product which did X?”
      • You’re asking overly optimistic people who want to make you happy by always answering “Yes”.
      • Instead, ask how they currently solve X, how much it costs to do so, how much time it takes, talk through what happened last time X came up, why and why not, are they seeking for better solutions,…
    • “How much would you pay for X”
      • Similar to the last one, except the number makes it feel truthy.
      • Instead, ask how much does the problem cost them, how much do they currently pay to solve it, how big is their budget,…
    • “Would you pay X for a product which did Y?”
      • As always, ask what they currently do now, not what they believe they might do in the future.
  • None of good these questions are about what you should build but customers' problems, cares and goals. People don’t know what they want in a product, it’s your job to gather good information, come up with a solution and verify it.
    • “What would your dream product do?” and ask follow-up questions to try to understand why they want these features as well.
    • “Why do you bother?” to dig down into their goals, pain points and motivations.
    • “What are the implications of that?” to distinguishes between I-will-pay-to-solve-that problems and thats-kind-of-annoying-but-I-can-deal-with-it problem since some problems don’t matter or worth spending time with.
    • “Talk me through the last time that happened” to learn through their actions instead of their opinions.
    • “What else have you tried?”, “How are you dealing with it now?”, what they love/hate, how much does it cost, how much would those fixes be worth, how big of a pain would it be for them to switch to a new solution.
    • “Where does the money come from?”, whose budget the purchase will come from, who holds the power to seal the deal.
    • End every conversation with “Who else should I talk to?”, “Is there anything else I should have asked?” can lead to more deals.
  • Avoiding 3 types of bad data.
    • Compliments.
      • They don’t give you any meaningful data.
      • Try to be more specific. Why did that person like the idea, how much money would it save him, what else has he tried which failed to solve his problem,…
    • Fluff: generics (“usually”, “always”, “never”), hypotheticals (“might”, “could”), and the future (“would”, “will”).
      • Be more specific.
      • Ask when it last happened, talk through it, how they solved it, what else they tried.
    • Ideas.
      • Take a moment to dig into the motivations behind the idea/feature request.
      • Why do you want that? What would that let you do? How are you coping without it? Do you think we could push back the launch to add that feature? How would that fit into your day?
      • Tell me more about that. That seems to really bug you. What makes it so awful? Why haven’t you been able to fix it already? Is this a big deal? Why so happy?
  • Keeping it casual.
    • Strip all the formality from the process.
    • Make it a quick and casual chat.
  • Commitment and advancement.
    • A meeting has succeeded when it ends with a commitment to advance to the next step.
    • Commitment can either be time, reputation risk, or finance.
      • Time commitment include: having a clear next meeting with known goals, sitting down to give feedback, using a trial.
      • Reputation risk include: intro to peers/team or a decision maker (boss, lawyer), giving a public testimonial or case study.
      • Financial commitment include: letter of intent to purchase, pre-order, deposit.
    • A bad meeting can be saved just pushing for a commitment at the end.
      • “That’s so cool. I love it!": deflect the compliment and get back to business.
      • “Looks great. Let me know when it launches.": look for a commitment I could ask for today.
      • “There are a couple people I can intro you to when you’re ready.": ask who they want to introduce you to, what “ready” means, why he can’t make the intro now,…
      • “I would definitely buy that.": ask for a letter of intent/a pre-purchase/deposit/intros to other decision makers and team members,…
  • If you already know your customers, go talk to them. If you don’t know, how to find these conversations?
    • Cold calls are hard, though having only one is enough to start the train.
      • Try to keep it informal. Don’t even need to mention you have a business. Have a good conversation. Be interested in other people’s problems.
    • Instead of reaching out to them, what can you offer what will make them want to talk to you?
      • Organize meet-ups, give talks at conferences, host workshops, teach through videos, blogging,…
    • Reach out to general audiences and ask for references. Everyone knows someone. We just need to ask.
    • Find advisors, including industry experts as well as professors.
    • Find investors.
    • 5 key elements of a good reach-out:
      • You’re trying to solve problem X. Don’t mention your idea.
      • Mention what stage you’re at and you don’t have anything to sell.
      • Mention specific problems you need their help on.
      • Show them how much they can help.
      • Ask for help.
    • For example:
      • “Hey Scott, I run a startup trying to make advertising more playful and ultimately effective.”
      • “We’re having a load of trouble figuring out how all the pieces of the industry fit together and where we can best fit into it (weakness). You know more about this industry than anyone and could really save us from a ton of mistakes (pedestal).”
      • “We’re funded and have a couple products out already, but this is in no way a sales meeting – we’re just moving into a new area and could really use some of your expertise (framing).”
      • “Can you spare a bit of time in the next week to help point us in the right direction over a coffee? (ask)”
  • Talking to a lot of different people leads to confusing signals and overwhelming options and feedbacks that hard to make sense of. How do you choose then?
    • Categorize customers in different group and evaluate which group seems most profitable, easy to read and rewarding for us.
  • Running the process.
    • Before the conversation: decide 3 big learning goals, guess what they care about so that we can compare with our notes later.
    • During the conversation: keep it casual, ask good questions, take good notes, press for commitment and next steps.
    • After the conversation: review notes with team, transfer to a permanent storage that is searchable.

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