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the first thing you do when you have an idea is that you ask people what they think the problem is these people lie to you and it's your fault the mum test shows you how to learn if your idea is a good idea when everyone
Three practical tips from The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick on validating startup ideas: ask about past behavior instead of pitching, discount compliments and fluff, and keep conversations casual.
Key Takeaways
- Ask about past behavior and specific experiences rather than hypothetical future purchases.
- Treat compliments and vague praise as unreliable; look for concrete commitments and facts.
- Keep conversations relaxed and natural, and prepare a few key questions beforehand.
What the video covers
- Friends, family, and customers tend to lie or give polite answers when asked about your startup idea, so validation requires a different approach.
- Tip one: don't tell people about your idea, ask about their life and past behavior related to the problem instead.
- People are poor predictors of their future behavior, so past actions are the best indicator of what they will do.
- Ask how they currently work around the problem, whether they've bought similar solutions, and why the problem matters to them.
- Tip two: don't believe everything you hear; the book categorizes bad data into compliments, fluff, and unsolicited ideas.
- Compliments feel good but are often lies; deflect them and seek facts and commitments instead.
- Fluff consists of hypothetical or generic statements; ask for specific past actions, or ask them to buy something on the spot.
- When people offer ideas, dig deeper to understand their underlying reasoning rather than building every suggestion into your product.
- Tip three: keep conversations casual, since formal interactions make people feel obligated and reluctant to open up.
- Meet people in their natural environments and write down the three most important questions before each conversation to avoid going off track.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: Why Friends and Family Lie
- 00:24Tip 1: Ask About Their Life, Not Your Idea
- 01:10Focusing on Past Behavior Over Predictions
- 02:01Tip 2: Beware of Bad Data
- 03:00Handling Compliments, Fluff, and Unsolicited Ideas
- 03:36Tip 3: Keep It Casual
- 04:24Preparing Three Key Questions
- 04:51Free Research Tools and Outro
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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is lying to you even your customers and especially your mum here are my top three tips from the book and stay until the end for a bonus tip that you could start using right now tip one don't tell them ask
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so the first people we approach we have an idea are the people we know our friends our family our customers and we approach these people because we know them we like them they like us at least we hope they like us but equally that
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means when you tell them that you've got a new idea they're not going to want to upset you and the answers you're going to be getting are going to be more about keeping you happy rather than telling you the truth which is not the most
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useful thing but these people can still be really useful the trick is you need to stop telling them about your idea so don't open the conversation with something like so i've got this new product idea it's a instead your goal is
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to get this person to talk about their life as they live it now in relation to your idea but without talking about the idea itself and keep it anchored in the past what they have done and what they
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do already this is where you're going to get closest to the truth so avoid questions like so would you buy a product that meant you could would you subscribe to a youtube channel to talk only about and people are very bad at
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predicting what they will do it's the reason i joined the gym every year therefore our past behavior is the best predictor of what we will do in the future so your conversation should be about finding out the specific things
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they do to try and address the problem that your product is trying to solve how they created a workaround did they buy something similar to help them solve it why is it a problem for them in the first place your goal is to plant seeds
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ask open questions and listen tip two don't believe everything you hear when asking people questions you're going to be given answers that you're going to either have to ignore or deflect what the book calls bad data there are three types compliments may
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make you feel good but the person giving them to you is almost certainly lying either because they want to support you or they simply want to shut you up the most common one you'll hear is oh that's a wonderful idea honey usually from your
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mom but it doesn't matter who it's from you don't want compliments you want facts and commitments the easiest way to avoid compliments is to just not talk about your idea at all and if compliments happen anyway you just need
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to deflect them like a jedi knight fluff is when people give you hypothetical or generic fluff comments like i usually go to yeah i would do that i might do that or the world's most deadly fluff i would definitely buy that
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what people say or people do is very different so you want to get specific on what they have already done within their lives if they're interested in a topic you're discussing ask them when they bought something related to their topic
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in the past or if they haven't ask them to buy something there and then that is going to be a real gauge of their interest in the topic the third kind of bad data is when people give you ideas
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firstly if you add on every single idea that people give you you're just going to create a monster it's like building anything by committee and secondly it's your job to create the idea you're having a conversation with this person
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to simply help you get to a better idea so if someone gives you an idea dig deeper turn the conversation to them and ask why do you want that what would that let you do tell me more about what
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you're thinking get the reasoning behind the idea that they're proposing tip three keep it casual there's a really good quote in the mum test that says something along the lines of if it feels like they're doing you a
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favor then it's probably too formal to get people to open up you really need to make sure that they feel comfortable so to do this forget the formalities just ask them about their day to warm them up and then start the conversation to get
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the insights that you're looking for an easy way of making it feel natural is to not make them come to you but instead go to the places where they're likely to be and have the conversations there no one
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will open up about their opinions if they feel nervous so don't put people on the spot talk to them normally they'll appreciate it and they'll be more likely to give you the data that you're looking for the biggest most practical tip from the
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mom test though is probably this before you have a conversation with a potential customer a family member or even your mum write down the three most important questions that you want to get answered first think about what it is that you
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want to learn from the people that you're going to be speaking to and write it down because your conversation will inevitably go off track and the last thing you want to happen is to end the conversation realize that you didn't
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answer the questions that you needed to be answered but even before you start talking to people there is a lot of information that you can get for free that's already out there on the internet things like google trends and loads more
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we've created a short video that you can see on your screen right now click that to find out what these are and how you can start using them right away so click now and see you over on that video in a
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second [Music]
Topics:The Mom TestRob Fitzpatrickcustomer validationstartup ideacustomer discoveryuser interviewsentrepreneurshipmarket researchproduct validationlean startup
