As Product Managers, we are wooed to validate our ideas while interacting with our users. This might lead to a biased conversation and result in a waste of time and money. Through The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick tries to provide guidelines for do’s and don'ts for validating business ideas by conversing with prospective users in a very natural way.
#1 Avoid seeking confirmation for your business idea during the initial user research
- Research participants will always provide you with a green signal to move ahead with your idea as they don’t want to hurt you (especially your Mom). Hence, don’t mention that you are planning to start a business and this is the idea, do you like it?
- You should aim to identify the real problems the user segment is facing to validate your hypothesis. This would happen by having a genuine conversation with your target user base.
- The genuine conversation will allow your user base to be comfortable and share their real-life problems by opening up naturally.
- Hence, talk about the life of the user, not your idea. Try to document the exact examples of their experiences in the past, instead of hearing their opinions.
- Lastly, don’t talk about your idea. Just listen, listen and listen.
#2 Avoid the trap - “I will definitely use the product/service”
- You need to identify what is important to be documented and what needs to be ignored while talking to your customer base.
- As and when the user is sharing an instance of when the problem occurred in the past, nudge them to tell how they fixed it then. Understanding how that fix is working now would also be beneficial.
- If a user has been complaining a lot but has not tried to solve the problem, that means the problem is not big enough for them. Hence, might not be worth solving for that user.
#3 Look for negative feedback
- If you identify that the research participants actually don’t care about the problem you are trying to solve, then it is also good news for you. By identifying this, you have saved months of investment which might go down the drain.
- The aim of user research is to seek truth from the targeted user segment. Use these rejections to identify new problems the user segment would be facing and aim to build something which the users would pay for being solved.
#4 Target a specific customer segment, not everyone
- In the beginning, you can’t serve everyone. You need to identify a customer segment which would have a higher probability to buy the solution for the problem being solved
- Targeting a customer segment will help in filtering out the noise - you will clearly know who to interact with, what to solve and what to build.
#5 Show vulnerability and ask for help from target customers
- You should ask for explicit help from the potential users during the conversation and be very clear that you won’t waste their time.
- Vision: Mention the problem you are trying to solve, don’t mention your ideas.
- Framing: State the stage in which you are with solving the problem
- Weakness: Tell the users where you are lacking in the journey and allow them to help you
- Pedestal: Present a case for how the user can help you towards solving the problem
- Ask: Ask for help. Check with them if they can meet again to brainstorm possible solutions or connect with a few more people who you can interact with to have a better understanding of the problem.
Read the Book for examples of best practices during user research: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
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