Thoughts on 'The Mom Test'

Why this book?

Something that’s always fascinated me yet always seemed so foreign was the idea of selling a product or service - especially if it were to be something I created or offered myself! I’ve always worked at places where the sales and marketing were done by others, and I never peeked further into it. Some may say that I am effectively selling my time (or the output I produce from working), but it feels distinctly different to me.

Especially odd to me was the thought of having to approach potential customers and basically say - hey, you should buy what I’m selling! Thankfully, I recently stumbled upon the book ‘The Mom Test’ by Rob Fitzpatrick, which changed the way I think about this completely.

My favourite take aways

I won’t spoil the book, but I will share some key concepts that I learned from reading it.

Don’t talk about the product

It seems so obvious in hindsight coming from a background in software engineering, where we need to avoid jumping to solutions before understanding the problem. But it’s pretty much the same thing - focus on understanding the problems people are having in order to see if the solution (or product) is a good fit. Only once you know you have a compelling offer to make do you bring up the product or service!

Ideas are cheap

The above assumes you have a product or service people want. A key lesson that I’ve heard in different ways in the past - but really liked the way it was presented in this book - is to ask questions that have the potential of completely invalidating or destroying your idea from being a viable option. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you can move on to the next!

Hanging on to the idea, or even worse, trying to build something based on that idea before actually understanding if anyone wants it, is where things get expensive. Obviously, if you’re building something for yourself that definitely solves a problem you have means it’s not entirely wasted effort. It’s only when your main purpose to try and sell this to people that this becomes critically important to find out as fast as possible.

Formality is overrated

In my head, the idea of selling something seems like it needed some ceremony or formality behind it. Like getting a meeting scheduled or booking a meeting room were prerequisites. However, it can be much simpler - a casual conversation with the intent of simply trying to understand that person’s world a bit better is all it could take to validate an idea you have, and possibly even open the door to selling your solution.

How will it help me

Now, I am not particularly in the business of making or selling my own personal products or services. However, where I work includes responsibilities for solving problems for my customers. The thing is, customers generally have endless problems to solve, and using the mom test can really help drill down into what’s actually important and which problems are really worth solving. In other words, it becomes a tool to help prioritise where I spend my efforts to add the most value to my customers.

Further still, putting more intent into casual conversations is important. The main benefit would be building great relationships, and a side effect might be learning about different points of views and expanding my own world view.

Should you read it?

So, should you read it? If you’ve had business ideas and have no idea where to start in order to figure out if it’s a viable business - definitely! However even if you’re not into building your own business, it was still a very worthwhile read for me, so if my learnings above resonate with you, I definitely recommend you give it a read!