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Rob Fitzpatrick, author of The Mom Test, recently joined me for an insightful conversation on my podcast. We discussed customer development, validating product ideas, his books, and more. Here are some of the key takeaways from our discussion:
When doing customer development, reveal your product vision to provide context but focus questions on their lives and experiences. Don't pitch or talk about your idea.
The Mom Test is a tool best suited for early, casual conversations where you need to uncover if customers care about the problem you're solving. It helps cut through false compliments and interest.
Don't seek 100% validation. Talk to a few people to go from 0% to 60% confident. Diminishing returns make it inefficient to keep confirming the same thing.
Warning signs you're getting bad data: Compliments, hypotheticals about the future, general opinions. Redirect to specific stories about their experiences.
Rob first got interested in entrepreneurship because he wanted independence and a direct connection between his work and results. He participated in Y Combinator in 2007, which showed him how fast successful founders can move.
Rob views venture capital as bundling many decisions together - you're optimizing for fast growth and rapid hiring. For his current lifestyle, bootstrapping is a better fit.
Rob is writing a new book on building online communities that help people make progress towards goals, which he calls outcome-oriented communities.
I'm grateful to Rob for sharing his knowledge during our conversation. Be sure to check out the full episode for more insights on customer development, validating product ideas, and bootstrapping vs funding.
The Mom Test