The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you Paperback – September 10, 2013

I love the simplicity of this book and how it gets straight to the point on how to test product ideas with people.It was eye opening to read how we as product developers can get led astray fishing for compliments instead of listening more, walking into a meeting with declarations of what your idea is without getting the person just talking about their day pain and tasks, etc.I walked away with a lot of practical ideas that I can carry with me to the next product meeting and customer interaction.

This book is short, sharp, and absolutely packed with practical advice. It helped me recognize how much I was unintentionally biasing conversations with potential customers just by asking the wrong kinds of questions.What makes it stand out is how specific and actionable the examples are. It doesn’t waste time with fluff... it shows you exactly what to say and what to avoid if you want honest, useful feedback. I’ve applied its principles in real conversations, and the difference in the responses has been huge. A must-read for anyone testing or building a product.

I soaked everything up like a sponge. It was very annoying to have to go back over sentences, confused, only to realize there are terrible typos and grammatical errors throughout.

I have struggled with consult calls for two years until someone recommended this book in a FB group.It offers a friendly, No pressure approach to consult calls.I am in B2C, and I have already started implementing the strategies.

A billion dollars?Yeah.First about me: I've spent the last three years applying the tools of human-centric design to business projects. I'm also thoroughly trained in the scientific method.This book is WILL save you billions. And if you have great ideas, you can make billions, too.In science, we know that proving a hypothesis does not provide one with strong evidence. It's primarily a matter of picking the right kind of evidence.(Often how a case is made in court.) The strongest kind of evidence is falsifying a hypothesis. Everything points in one direction, making something highly probable. But you might be wrong. You need to look for that one piece of evidence that shows you're wrong, even if everything else seems to support it. It took me a while to truly understand the significance of that. You don't have to, if you read The Mom Test, but you will benefit from what it means in practical know-how when you talk to customers. (And they are the ones who will, or will not, open their wallets.)Fitzpatrick shows you the questions we tend to ask - and we learn to identify which ones are extremely bad to ask. They are making our interviewees partners in crime of confirming something which simply isn't true. Every practical piece of advice in this book is highly valuable; one favorite of mine is to make sure you don't zoom in too early. You can get someone get highly emotional about a problem. Yet, if this is a lower-level problem, that the customer has never bothered to take action to change, it's still not a big problem for you to solve.Obvious, yes. This whole book is obvious. And yet, it's funny how often the most obvious stuff is ignored when it really counts.Don't mistake the laid-back-style of writing with its importance.Usually it takes years of practical experience to learn from mistakes, that will make you correctly apply an important theory that you grasp, into successful practical application.This book gives you that in - what, an hour of enjoyable reading?I've read many books on customer research.This books is invaluable. Read this one and you will probably go crazy when observing even more seasoned customer researchers for the traps they're stepping into, unknowingly, potentially wasting lots and lots of resources towards the wrong pursuit.Enjoy!

The book quickly establishes it's purpose and central premise and proceeds to support those with specific examples and rationale. The advice is clear and well written with minimal fluff.

I’ve read lots of books on interviewing customers and taken classes. This book is the most usable resource I’ve found.Short and to the point.Included templates for cold and warm introductions to secure the interview along with guidance on who to talk to, what to ask, and what to with your learnings.

My startup has problems barely covered in the book so I found it less relevant than some might. But I’m glad I read it