Book · How companies get built
The Mom Test
Rob Fitzpatrick · 2013
A short book on how to talk to customers without getting useless answers — and the best possible training for how to talk to founders.
Why it is here
The premise is that people will lie to you politely, especially about whether they like your idea, and that the fix is to ask about their past behaviour rather than their future intentions. It is aimed at founders doing customer research and it is barely a hundred pages.
For an angel it converts almost directly into diligence technique. "Would you use this?" gets a polite yes; "what did you do the last time you had this problem, and what did it cost you?" gets the truth. Every question in our diligence guides is built on that distinction.
It is the highest ratio of usefulness to length on this entire list, which is why it sits here rather than in a footnote.
Read it if
You have ever come out of a founder meeting feeling positive and been unable to say precisely why.
Skip it if
Almost nobody. It takes an evening.