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

Questions like these are good starting points: • What is your biggest problem with ______? • What is the number one question you have about _______? • What can I do to help you with _________? Fill in the blanks with the specific topic, niche, or industry you’re researching: “What is your biggest problem with getting things done?” or “What is the n

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Changing the product domain made it easier to navigate. You can have two product development processes: Ask customers what problems they have and build for them. Or you don't ask customers anything and rely on internal product leaders' taste and judgment. Customer obsession and taste are parallel paths to product success. Some domains, like Lean St... See more

No more building. Just talk to customers. “We decided we weren’t allowed to build anything at all. We had to just talk to people—and talk to them until we had a lot of confidence and a mental model of customers, their jobs, the problems they might have and how we might solve them.” (For more here, check out Cacioppo’s write-up on some of her essent... See more

A good rule to follow is: If you’re going to talk, talk. Really talk. And if you’re really going to talk, you can’t do it on the fly. You have to plan a time to talk. You have to be explicit about wanting ten minutes or an hour to discuss something that is important to you. You can’t have a real conversation in thirty seconds, and anything less tha

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