The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

"When can you come back to talk to the rest of the team?"

people are overly optimistic about what they would do and want to make you happy. Plus, it’s about your idea instead of their life.

"How are you dealing with it now?"

crazy person who tries it first.

The measure of usefulness of an early customer conversation is whether it gives us concrete facts about our customers’ lives and world views. These facts, in turn, help us improve our business.

These guys weren’t having 20 conversations with their customers. They were having one conversation each with 20 different types of customers. That’s why the feedback was so inconsistent.

Pedestal — show that they, in particular, can provide that help Ask — ask for help

Similarly, if you’re about to meet with a business, do your basic due diligence on LinkedIn and the company website. It takes 5 minutes and will save you from trashing the conversation and looking like an idiot.

only the market can tell if your idea is good. Everything else is just opinion.