Book review #1 — The Mom Test: Must-to-read for entrepreneurs

Mario Sabatino Riontino

Mar 26, 2020·5 min read

Introduction

Like everyone (I hope), I am working from home and leaving only for groceries. Although I decided to write a separate article about my learnings from this period, I had some extra time that I decided to spend by reading as many books as possible. The first one is The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick.

The Book in Brief

This book is a practical how-to-guide on how to evaluate your current or next business idea. Normally, you’re likely to look out feedback from friends, family, investors and potential customers by asking them questions. Unfortunately, their answers is often lies:

• Friends and family might hide what they really think about your idea because they want to be encouraging
• Investors might tell you they like your idea just to get you to stop talking

So, how can I obtain honest opinions to understand where my business idea is worth? The Mom Test lists a set of rules that will help you distinguish if someone is expressing his/her honest opinion or he/she is like your mom:

… always supportive of everything you do.

In summary, The Mom Test teaches you how to ask good questions so you can prevent people from lying, and throwing fake compliments about your idea.

Don’t ask anyone whether your business is a good idea

The core idea of the book is simple: people will always say that your idea is good because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. This is especially true if you “ask your mom”, which is the person who is biologically programmed to always be supportive toward you.

By asking someone, “Hey, I have an idea for starting a business about X. What do you think?” you’re begging them to say “That’s a great idea!”. Another classical scenario occurs when you start describing your idea in detail in an attempt to gain approval no matter what.

Collecting false opinions is something you don’t want as an entrepreneur. If you’re serious about your business you need to understand the real problems of the people you’re targeting before devoting a couple of years into something that might potentially be a failure.

The author list three simple rules — known as “The Mom Test” — to make useful conversation:

1. Talk about your interlocutor’s life instead of your idea
2. Ask about the past instead of opinions about the future
3. Talk less and listen more

Let’s say you have an idea to make a paid app that will send daily recipes directly to housewives. Asking some housewives if they would be interested in buying such an app won’t be effective. A more effective method would be asking them if they ever have trouble finding new recipes and how they usually do the research. If they’re easily able to find recipes online, then they’re not going to pay for your product.

Avoid useless conversation

It is common while interviewing a potential customer to lose yourself in meaningless conversations. To make an effective conversation, you need to be specific for getting the information you’re looking for.

Red flags examples are:

1. “I will definitely buy that”
2. People who are simply complaining

Do not seek approval

Seeking approval is a natural behaviour for those who care only about themselves. Unfortunately, your idea will never succeed if you’re the only one who is interested in it, so it is more important to find out what your potential customers think instead of yours. If you want to avoid a “selfish” direction, do not say sentences like:

• “I’m thinking of starting a business… so, do you think it will work?”
• “I had an awesome idea for an app — do you like it?”
• “So here’s that top-secret project I quit my job for… what do you think?”
• “No no, I don’t think you get it…”
• “Yes, but it also does this!”

Put your ego away and listen to your potential customer story, pain points and feelings.

Let your potential customer say what they want

Customers are the most valuable source to validate your idea, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of asking for their help. If you’re looking for an honest and private conversation, try to skip the formalities and set an informal mood. Some relevant points to keep into account are:

• Don’t mention your idea, but only that you’re looking for ways to solve this or that problem
• Explain what stage in solving the problem you’re at
• Mention your specific problem and give the other person a chance to help you by showing weakness
• Ask for help

Below you can find a framework taken from the book:

Hey Pete,

I’m trying to make desk & office rental less of a pain for new businesses (vision). We’re just starting out and don’t have anything to sell, but want to make sure we’re building something that actually helps (framing).

I’ve only ever come at it from the tenant’s side and I’m having a hard time understanding how it all works from the landlord’s perspective (weakness).

You’ve been renting out desks for a while and could really help me cut through the fog (pedestal).

Do you have time in the next couple weeks to meet up for a chat? (ask)

Personal opinion

This book is a must-read for all the entrepreneurs who are building an early-stage startup. In that phase, founders are still trying to figure out the product/market fit. As they stress out during the Startup School by YCombinator:

The best way to do that is to talk directly to customers.

The Mom Test provides a simple and effective framework on how to approach users/customers before building your MVP, to have honest and valuable conversations that will help to understand if your idea has a potential market. Throughout the entire book, you will find many specific examples of good and bad approaches, and the reasons why a certain approach is good or bad.

It’s probably the best book about validating startup ideas.

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