I’ve been working my way through a list of product/business books, most of which I discovered through Shreyas‘ recommendations.
The first book I read was The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick and dang, there is so much great content packed into this tiny package. I can’t believe it took me this long to discover it. If you’ve read the book, feel free to skip this post; there’s no radical new information here. But if you haven’t, here’s the summary.
You know how most moms think their offspring are the most beautiful humans to ever exist even though objectively, there’s no way this is true? Similarly, most people you talk to about your product are also too nice—because being nice is easier than providing critical, possibly disappointing feedback. Which then leads to the question, how do you ask the right questions to get accurate insights from your customers?
Without going into as much detail as the book, here are the top three things to keep in mind.
- Don’t lead the conversation with the product or solution you have in mind. The goal at this point is to identify and validate the problem and not to pitch your idea. No one is going to tell you your baby is ugly so don’t bother asking. If the compliments start pouring in, it’s right to be suspicious (they doth protest too much?) This is not a true customer validation of your problem space.
- Ask specific questions to receive answers grounded in reality. If someone asked me “do you exercise regularly? I might say yes (because I like to think I do). Instead if I was asked “when was the last time you exercised?” and my answer was “two weeks ago”… well that is more telling. This is a totally fake example of course. I work out every day. The same logic applies to things I might do in the future. It’s aspirational and I may very well want to do those things, but you can’t really build products on a foundation of hope. Ask about things that have already happened.
- This ties in with point 1 but listen more than you talk. Active listening can help read between the lines of what customers are telling you. It prevents you from implementing customer requests as verbatim features in your backlog without getting to the root of their problem.
I’ve done the opposite of these things plenty of times. Early on in your career, it’s hard to catch yourself when you’re really excited about the product you are building. It takes time and practice. Writing this post was a fun exercise for me to synthesize and remember the contents of this book, so I’m going to do the same for the other books I’m reading as well. If you have any other recommendations for great product books, let me know!