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Stories from using the advice in The Mom Test?

Who has used the advice in the mom test? Has it been helpful? Do you disagree with any of it? Any interesting stories?

Do you use the approach of not telling the other person that you are even questioning them for research and make it look like a casual convo?

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    I've recently finished reading the book. I have to say it's incredibly insightful!

    When you're "interviewing" , it has to be as natural as possible. Let the conversation flow but also being aware of what you're asking and how / why & what the customer is saying.

    I was at a local event and I came across one of my customers , they introduced me to another potential customer and whilst the 3 of us were sitting there. I was literally just watching them both passionately discuss the problem my product was trying to solve. I sat back and just took notes. It was so insightful and surreal. I now have a more advanced meeting set with this referral.

    Knowing when to add or direct the conversation to keep it ROI positive is important!

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      Nice story, thanks. Goes to show the value of listening, and also getting your customers and prospects in a room together - something bigger companies tend to do, but might be rarer for indie hackers.

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        We can't do it at their scale but we sure can try to put ourselves in situations that allow it to become possible!

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    Read the book & applied the 'informal' interview strategy. As a result, you get much faster to learn about a much larger amount from your target audience, without being creepy. Still, it felt that 'typical' scheduled interviews of 1 hour can be necessary if you really want to get in the brain of your customers. But maybe 'light' research is enough to launch an MVP?

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    I have found it very helpful in prioritizing which ideas I should spend time on. I spent weeks on an app idea, ran it through the Mom Test 5 times and conceded I was wasting my time. (Oops. Sunk cost). Now I use the Mom Test to make sure I am working on ideas someone will likely pay for and I know by name who my first target customers are.

    I ran a business before that eventually folded and if I knew about the Mom Test I guess it would have been tremendously helpful then.

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      Thanks I too have a lot of projects over the years that would fail the mom test. Hell I could have just interviewed myself and avoided starting on them!

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