This book isn’t a summary or description or re-interpretation of the process of Customer Development. That’s a bigger concept and something Steve Blank has covered comprehensively in 4 Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual. (Location 59)
Note: Book suggestion on customer development
It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to show us the truth. It’s our responsibility to find it. We do that by asking good questions. (Location 71)
The Mom Test is a set of simple rules for crafting good questions that even your mom can’t lie to you about. (Location 72)
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. (Location 128)
We find out if people care about what we’re doing by never mentioning it. Instead, we talk about them and their lives. The point is a bit more subtle than this. Eventually you do need to mention what you’re building and take people’s money for it. However, the big mistake is almost always to mention your idea too soon rather than too late. If you just avoid mentioning your idea, you automatically start asking better questions. Doing this is the easiest (and biggest) improvement you can make to your customer conversations. (Location 142)
Note: Summarising the two customer conversations
Talk about their life instead of your idea (Location 147)
Note: First rule of mom test
Ask about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions about the future (Location 148)
Rule of thumb: Opinions are worthless. (Location 168)
Rule of thumb: Anything involving the future is an over-optimistic lie. (Location 174)
Rule of thumb: People will lie to you if they think it’s what you want to hear. (Location 180)
Rule of thumb: People know what their problems are, but they don’t know how to solve those problems. (Location 186)
Rule of thumb: You’re shooting blind until you understand their goals. (Location 193)
Rule of thumb: Some problems don’t actually matter. (Location 200)
Rule of thumb: Watching someone do a task will show you where the problems and inefficiencies really are, not where the customer thinks they are. (Location 210)
Rule of thumb: If they haven’t looked for ways of solving it already, they’re not going to look for (or buy) yours. (Location 224)
Rule of thumb: People stop lying when you ask them for money. (Location 232)
Rule of thumb: While it’s rare for someone to tell you precisely what they’ll pay you, they’ll often show you what it’s worth to them. (Location 239)
Rule of thumb: People want to help you. Give them an excuse to do so. (Location 255)
One of the recurring “criticisms” about talking to customers is that you’re abdicating your creative vision and building your product by committee. Given that people don’t know what they want, that wouldn’t be a terribly effective approach. Deciding what to build is your job. (Location 257)
The questions to ask are about your customers’ lives: their problems, cares, constraints, and goals. You humbly and honestly gather as much information about them as you can and then take your own visionary leap to a solution. (Location 259)
It boils down to this: you aren’t allowed to tell them what their problem is, and in return, they aren’t allowed to tell you what to build. They own the problem, you own the solution. (Location 262)
Sometimes we invite the bad data ourselves by asking the wrong questions, but even when you try to follow The Mom Test, conversations still go off track. It could happen because you got excited and started pitching; because you had to talk about your idea to explain the reason for the meeting; or because the conversation is just stuck in hypothetical la-la-land. (Location 271)
With the exception of industry experts who have built very similar businesses, opinions are worthless. You want facts and commitments, not compliments. (Location 279)
you don’t need to end up with what you wanted to hear in order to have a good conversation. You just need to get to the truth. (Location 318)
Compliments are the fool’s gold of customer learning: shiny, distracting, and worthless. (Location 338)
The world’s most deadly fluff is: “I would definitely buy that.” (Location 343)
But folks are wildly optimistic about what they would do in the future. They’re always more positive, excited, and willing to pay in the imagined future than they are once that future arrives. (Location 345)
The worst type of fluff-inducing question you can ask is, “Would you ever?” (Location 349)
While using generics, people describe themselves as who they want to be, not who they actually are. You need to get specific to bring out the edge cases. (Location 375)
we could find a way to force merchants into deeper discounts like Groupon was able to do. (Location 409)
Note: Learn more
Even learning that the person is a non-customer is useful. To move toward this truth, you just need to reject their generic claims, incidental complaints, and fluffy promises. Instead, anchor them on the life they already lead and the actions they’re already taking. (Location 413)
Startups are about focusing and executing on a single, scalable idea rather than jumping on every good one which crosses your desk. (Location 419)
When you hear a request, it’s your job to understand the motivations which led to it. You do that by digging around the question to find the root cause. Why do they bother doing it this way? Why do they want the feature? How are they currently coping without the feature? Dig. (Location 456)
Just like feature requests, any strong emotion is worth exploring. Is someone angry? Dig. Embarrassed? Dig. Overjoyed? Dig! (Location 459)
Ideas and feature requests should be understood, but not obeyed. (Location 472)
compliments are dangerous and sneaky. So if we can nip them in the bud before they bloom, so much the better. The main source of compliment-creation is seeking approval, either intentionally or inadvertently. (Location 474)
Accidental approval-seeking is what I call “The Pathos Problem.” It happens when you expose your ego, leading people to feel they ought to protect you by saying nice things. (Location 479)
Being pitchy is the dark side of the “seeking approval” coin. Instead of inviting compliments by being vulnerable, you’re demanding them by being annoying. (Location 494)
If they say they really want to hear about what you’re working on, promise that you’ll tell them at the end of the meeting or loop them in for an early demo, and that you just want to talk a bit more about their stuff before biasing them with your idea. (Location 505)
sometimes we over-compensate and ask completely trivial ones. Asking someone how old they are isn’t biasing, but it also doesn’t move your business forward. (Location 519)
you also need to search out the world-rocking scary questions you’ve been unintentionally shrinking from. The best way to find them is with thought experiments. Imagine that the company has failed and ask why that happened. Then imagine it as a huge success and ask what had to be true to get there. Find ways to learn about those critical pieces. (Location 522)
Every time you talk to someone, you should be asking at least one question which has the potential to destroy your currently imagined business. (Location 526)
You should be terrified of at least one of the questions you’re asking in every conversation. (Location 534)
if you have an exciting idea for a new product and go talk to a couple customers who don’t actually care about it, then that’s a great result. (Location 542)
Learning that your beliefs are wrong is frustrating, but it’s progress. (Location 546)
Some of the most informative (and thus best) responses you can get are along the lines of, “Umm, I’m not so sure about that” and “That’s pretty neat.” Both are lukewarm responses which tell you they don’t care. (Location 549)
The classic error in response to a lukewarm signal is to “up your game” and pitch them until they say something nice. (Location 554)
If they’re still engaged in the conversation, it’s worth asking a couple follow-up questions to understand the nature of their apathy. Is the “problem” not actually that big of a deal? Are they fundamentally different from your ideal customers? Do they not care about the specific implementation? Are they worn out and skeptical from hearing too many pitches, like cafe owners in the aftermath of Groupon? Are they just plain tired today? (Location 556)
There’s more reliable information in a “meh” than a “Wow!” You can’t build a business on a lukewarm response. (Location 561)
Another way to miss the important questions is by obsessing over ultimately unimportant nuances. We let ourselves get stuck in the details before understanding the big picture. (Location 563)
