The Mom Test

Rob Fitzpatrick provides a practical guide for getting meaningful customer feedback that reveals the truth so you can build products people will actually buy, with three main rules: don't pitch your idea, ask specific questions about the past, and listen more than you talk. Named because even your mom (most likely to spare your feelings) can't lie if you ask the right questions, the book teaches asking about pain points, current solutions, and past behavior rather than opinions, hypotheticals, or fishing for approval. Widely adopted at Harvard, Seedcamp, and Shopify, it emphasizes getting specific facts about customers' lives—problems, behaviors, goals, and constraints.

8 sections · 25 lessons

Course outline

Foundation

  1. Why Everyone Lies
  2. Three Core Rules
  3. Foundation

Bad Data

  1. Compliments as Fool's Gold
  2. Three Types of Bad Data
  3. Anchor to Specifics
  4. Break Approval-Seeking
  5. Opinions vs. Facts
  6. Bad Data

Good Questions

  1. Talk About Their Life
  2. Ask About the Past
  3. Rule Three: Talk Less, Listen More
  4. Dig for Emotions
  5. Good Questions

Validation

  1. Commitments & Advancement
  2. Ask for Money
  3. Extract Problems
  4. Validation

Segmentation

  1. Find Your Who-Where
  2. Serve Someone First
  3. Who Wants It Most
  4. Segmentation

Process

  1. Big Three Goals
  2. Keep It Casual
  3. Capture & Synthesize
  4. Zoom Out & In
  5. Process

Finding People

  1. Snowball: Cold to Warm
  2. Framing Formula
  3. Finding People

Execution

  1. Time Product Reveal
  2. Learning Machine
  3. Execution

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