Book SummaryThe Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Mom Test

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a practical guide on how to get meaningful feedback about your business or product. Fitzpatrick explains how to ask the right questions and elicit unbiased responses from customers that will move your business forward. Although the book is intended primarily for entrepreneurs starting a new business venture from scratch, any business seeking to improve itself can take advantage of its principles.

Fitzpatrick was forced into a customer-facing role at his first company and struggled to gain much value from his conversations. He wrote The Mom Test to teach others what he wished he had known back then about how to most...

The Mom Test Summary What Is the Mom Test?

Fitzpatrick’s “Mom Test” is a set of rules that ensures you receive honest feedback from customers: specifically, feedback that signals whether your idea will meet their needs and therefore be successful. The test’s name originates from the idea that mothers in particular are most likely to lie to you to spare your feelings. However, if you ask the right questions, you can get honest, valuable feedback from whomever you ask—even your mom.

(Shortform note: Is it fair for Fitzpatrick to claim that parents are dishonest—and to name a set of rules (and a book) after this claim? Arguably yes: Studies suggest that parents regularly lie to their children. They do so not just to spare their children’s feelings but also to try to prevent tantrums, maintain traditional fantasies like the existence of Santa Claus, and avoid uncomfortable topics of conversation like death and sex.)

As Fitzpatrick explains, applying the Mom Test is important because customer feedback can make or break your new business venture. Deep one-on-one conversations with potential customers can give you all the information you need to craft...

The Mom Test Summary Stage #1: Use Discussions With Customers to Gather Information

Before investing money and effort into developing your idea for a product or service, Fitzpatrick recommends taking time to interview potential customers to determine if your idea is viable and discover how to improve it. This stage of seeking out discussions with customers full-time should take no more than a week or two.

(Shortform note: If you take more than a week or two in this stage before taking action and beginning to develop your product, you may be using information-gathering as an excuse to procrastinate. In Procrastination, psychologists Lenora Yuen and Jane Burka explain that the root of all procrastination is fear of action—so if you find yourself in this situation, do some digging to discover why you’re afraid to develop your product. You may be afraid of failure, imperfection, or even success.)

We can describe this information-gathering process in four steps:

• Step #1: Choose your customer segment.
• Step #2: Settle on three learning objectives.
• Step #3: Seek informal conversations.
• Step #4: If necessary,...

The Mom Test Summary Stage #2: Use Discussions With Customers to Develop Your Business

So far, we’ve explained how to use the Mom Test to learn about your customers’ lives and diagnose the flaws in your business. After a week or two (at most) of seeking out these conversations full time, Fitzpatrick asserts that you should have gathered enough feedback to know that your product successfully solves a problem for the people in your customer segment.

At this point, Fitzpatrick recommends developing a prototype of your product or service as quickly as possible. As we’ll see, discussions with customers look a bit different after you reach this stage, and having a prototype to show off will make these conversations easier.

(Shortform note: Fitzpatrick recommends developing a prototype as quickly as possible, but he doesn’t give specific tips on how to streamline the development process. In Sprint, Jake Knapp recommends a process he calls the “Design Sprint”: Challenge yourself to transform an idea into a working prototype within a five-day workweek. This bare-bones prototype only needs to create the illusion of being a complete product for you to...

The Mom Test Summary Discussions With Customers: Advanced Tips

So far, we’ve learned not only how to turn discussions with customers into constructive feedback for your business, but also how to convert these conversations into sales and ongoing support. Now, let’s discuss a few of Fitzpatrick’s advanced tips on how to use discussions with customers to enhance your business.

Tip #1: Involve All Core Team Members in Discussions With Customers

Fitzpatrick states that all of your business’s core team members should be present for some discussions with customers. If the founder of a startup is the only one to ever talk with customers, they may unintentionally neglect to share important information with the rest of the team.

(Shortform note: Although it’s important to make sure everyone on the team is well informed, take care not to force team members to attend conversations with customers when their time would be better spent elsewhere. This is an easy mistake to make: In Indistractable, Nir Eyal argues that when we want to avoid the discomfort of a difficult problem, we often invite team members along to meetings [in hopes that they’ll solve the problem for...

Shortform Exercise: Prepare for Your Discussions With Customers

Prepare to talk to your customers and gain valuable insight into your business idea.

First, describe the customer segment you’d like to focus on. Ask yourself questions to narrow down your target demographic from a generic audience to specific subsets. (For example, ask yourself “Which customers would be most interested in my product?”)