The Mom Test

Rule of thumb: Good customer segments are a who-where pair. If you don’t know where to go to find your customers, keep slicing your segment into smaller pieces until you do.

At that point, your head has become the ultimate repository of customer truth and everyone just has to do what you say.

Symptoms of a learning bottleneck: “You just worry about the product. I’ll handle the customers.” “Because the customers told me so!” “I don’t have time to talk to people — I need to be coding!”

if you’re about to meet with a business, do your basic due diligence on LinkedIn and the company website. It takes 5 minutes and will save you from trashing the conversation and looking like an idiot.

app — do you like it?” Exposing your ego (aka The Pathos Problem). “So here’s that top-secret project I quit my job for... what do you think?” “I can take it — be honest and tell me what you really think!” Being pitchy. “No no, I don’t think you get it...” “Yes, but it also does this!” Being too formal. “So, first off, thanks for agreeing to this i

The process before, during and after the meeting: If you haven’t yet, choose a focused, findable segment With your team, decide your big 3 learning goals If relevant, decide on ideal next steps and commitments If conversations are the right tool, figure out who to talk to Create a series of your best guesses about what the person cares about If a q

Results of a good meeting: Facts — concrete, specific facts about what they do and why they do it (as opposed to the bad data of compliments, fluff, and opinions) Commitment — They are showing they’re serious by giving up something they value such as meaningful amounts of time, reputation risk, or money Advancement — They are moving to the next ste

as a pre-order when all you’ve got is a duct-tape prototype. They’re the one who will tell all their friends to chip in as well. They’re the person reading your blog and searching for workarounds.

We’ve got 2 takeaways. Firstly, when someone isn’t too emotional about what you’re doing, they are unlikely to end up being one of your crazy first customers.