A book that changed my “aspiring entrepreneur” mindset
As an “aspiring entrepreneur”, you read tons and tons of books, watch loads of videos, all in the hope of finding answers to a million questions circling in your mind. You will never find all the answers in one book but sometimes, it so happens, the universe aligns itself in perfect harmony and you find that ONE book that’s written for you. By “for you”, I mean the stage that you’re at in your entrepreneurial journey. That book for me is The Mom Test by
Rob Fitzpatrick. Today I want to write down my learnings from The Mom Test, so I remember it forever! yeah, I know, pretty selfish.
Before I start, the full name of the book is “The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you”. Now, here goes!
- Avoiding compliments by not mentioning your idea to your customer
Entrepreneurs love to talk about their idea and we are fishing for validation. From literally anywhere. But hold your horses. Complimenting during a user interview is a major red flag according to Rob.
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.
2. Give your customer a chance to destroy your currently imagined business
You should be terrified of at least one of the questions you’re asking in every conversation.
Every time you talk to someone, you should be asking at least one question which has the potential to destroy your currently imagined business.
3. Have a list of goals
Before interviewing anyone, have a list of 3 big learning goals and have an idea of some possible next steps and commitments that you can ask for if the meeting goes well.
If they haven’t looked for ways of solving it already, they are not going to look for (or buy) yours.
4. Start broad and zoom in to specifics
Start broad and don’t zoom in until you have found a strong signal, both with your whole business and with every conversation.
While using generic, 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.
These 4 learnings have helped me immensely when I talk to potential customers for identifying if my idea is going to be useful to them or not. More importantly, The Mom Test helped me to change my mindset from “fishing for compliments” for my idea to “really actually getting some insight into my potential customer problems”. Hope it helps you too!
