Resource: The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick)
What This Book Is About
*The Mom Test* by Rob Fitzpatrick is a practical guide to talking to customers without getting lied to — including by people who mean well. The core insight: if you pitch your idea and ask "would you use this?", you will almost always get empty encouragement. Instead, ask about past behavior and real life to get data that actually means something. Capture inbox.md
Key line: "Compliments aren't data."
The Core Rules
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Don't pitch your idea | As soon as you pitch, people switch to being polite. Keep the idea out of the room until you've learned something real. |
| Ask about the past, not the future | "How do you solve this today?" not "Would you buy this?" Future intentions are unreliable; past behavior is evidence. |
| Compliments ≠ data | "That sounds great!" tells you nothing. Discount praise, hunt for specifics. |
| Real life context matters | Get them talking about their actual workflow, pain points, workarounds — not a hypothetical version of themselves. |
Capture inbox.md
The Golden Question
"How do you solve this today?"
This single question surfaces:
- Whether the problem is real enough that they've already built a workaround
- What the current solution costs them (time, money, frustration)
- Who else is involved in the process
- What "good enough" looks like to them
Compare to the trap question: *"Would you buy a tool that did X?"* — the answer is always yes, and it means nothing. Capture inbox.md
Applied to My Context: Beta Interviews
The side-project MVP goes to beta by Jul 31. The Mom Test framework is the operating manual for those interviews.
Checklist for each beta interview
- No pitching — open with their world, not my solution
- Ask: *"Walk me through how you handle [problem] today."*
- Ask: *"What's the most painful part of that?"*
- Ask: *"Have you tried to fix it? What happened?"*
- Note exact words they use — language is a product asset
- Flag compliments — do not log them as validation
- Look for: money already being spent, time already being lost, workarounds already built
A signal worth keeping
From the capture inbox — June demo feedback: "I'd use it if payments worked." Capture inbox.md
This is a *conditional* signal, not a compliment. It points directly to payment integration as the real blocker — consistent with it being flagged as the biggest project risk. Apply Mom Test framing: *how are they handling payments today, and what would make them switch?*
Distillation
Interview Session Kanban
How This Connects
- Side-project MVP — beta interviews are a deliverable; this framework governs how they're run
- Deep Work — protect deep work blocks for *synthesizing* interview findings, not just running calls
- Progressive Summarization — after each interview, highlight → bold → summarize; raw notes decay fast
- Atomic Habits — build a habit of logging one insight per interview session immediately after the call
- Career & Growth — learning to run good customer interviews is a durable skill, not just a project task
Further Reading Queue
Remote— 37signals (in reading queue) Capture inbox.mdZero to One— in reading queue Capture inbox.md
*Captured from* Capture inbox → organized into Resources (PARA) → distilled here for reuse.