The Art of Product

90: The Mom Test with Rob Fitzpatrick

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Ben and Derrick welcome Rob Fitzpatrick, author of The Mom Test: How to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. It’s not your typical non-fiction business book, but short and straight to the point. It should be a mandatory prerequisite for anyone embarking on the startup journey.

Derrick’s Level Retrospective describes how Rob’s book had a major impact on his most recent startup experience. People want to be supportive, so it’s difficult to get unbiased feedback during customer validation. Derrick already knew this to be correct, but underestimated the degree to which everyone lies. So, he felt betrayed by early validation efforts proved to be radically different from reality.

Today’s Topics Include:

  • Don’t ask anyone if your business is a good idea because everyone is biased
  • Burden of truth should be put on yourself, not your customers
  • Entrepreneur’s Superpower: Getting support before it’s deserved because passion pollutes feedback
  • Founder Fit: Does your business idea merge with your product and lifestyle goals?
  • Founder Centric: Cashflow-positive education and training agency for startups
  • Product-Market Fit: People share their problems via a proposed solution; when customers send feature requests, get to root of the problem
  • Statistical significance of sample size is a trap; reach point of diminishing returns to move forward with product, and focus on number of/hours spent on conversations
  • Entrepreneurs and customers think every problem matters, but they don’t
  • What to do next to pivot in the right direction and niche down

    • Links and resources:

    The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

    Rob Fitzpatrick

    The Workshop Survival by Rob Fitzpatrick

    Founder Centric

    Steve Blank

    Paul Graham

    Skype

    Slack

    Hacker News

    Superhuman Product-Market Fit Survey

    Songkick

    Spin Selling by Neil Rackham

    Drip

    Art of Product on Twitter

    Derrick Reimer Website

    Derrick Reimer on Twitter

    Ben Orenstein Website

    Ben Orenstein on Twitter

    Level

    Level Retrospective

    Level Manifesto

    Tuple

    ...more
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    The Art of ProductBy Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer
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