The Mom Test

Takeaways

always know 3 things you want to be learning
know what happens next after a meeting

Key Points

action
- Pre-plan the 3 most important things you want to learn from any given type of person
- asking at least one question which has the potential to destroy your currently imagined business.
- recommending 3 separate meetings: the first about the customer and their problem; the second about your solution; and the third to sell a product.
- If you don’t know what happens next after a product or sales meeting, the meeting was pointless.
interview
- gen
  - "What else have you tried?"
  - “When’s the last time this came up?”
    - Turns out, it was pretty recent. That’s a great sign
  - ask about what they already do now,
    - "Who else should I talk to?"
- watch out for
  - avoid mentioning your idea, you automatically start asking better questions
  - three types of bad data:
    - Compliments Fluff (generics, hypotheticals, and the future)
    - Ideas
- details
  - Attack generic answers like “I don’t buy cookbooks” by asking for specific examples.
  - Dig into interesting and unexpected answers to understand the behaviors and motivations behind them.
  - Ask how they currently solve X and how much it costs them to do so - How much does the problem cost them? How much do they currently pay to solve it?
- motivation
  - understand their goals.
lessons
- Some problems don’t actually matter
- You shouldn’t ask anyone whether your business is a good idea.
- It’s not a real lead until you’ve given them a concrete chance to reject you.
- you aren’t finding consistent problems and goals, you don’t have a specific enough customer segment.
- know your current list of 3 big questions
  - you don’t know what you’re trying to learn, you shouldn’t bother having the conversation
  - warning signs:
    - You got an unexpected answer and it didn’t change your idea
    - You weren’t scared of any of the questions you asked
    - Watching someone do a task will show you where the problems and inefficiencies really
ask for help
- Vision / Framing / Weakness / Pedestal / Ask