Customer Interviews: Notes from The Mom Test
I used to interview growers, wholesalers, and farm entrepreneurs when I was a co-founder of hexafarms. Now, as I lead a new project through discovery at VOIDS, I’m interviewing customers again, with more experience, preparation, and structure.
My goal is to listen more and talk less. Ask open-ended questions and listen.
Good founders maintain a direct connection to their users. No middleman!
Before the conversation
Write down the three most important questions you want answered.
Keep it casual. If it feels like they are doing you a favor, then it’s probably too formal.
Don’t open the conversation with your idea. Start with general questions to understand their life.
Understand what they do today
- Tell me how you do X today.
- What is the hardest thing about doing X?
- Why is it hard?
- How often do you have to do X?
- Why is it important for your company to do X?
- What do you do to solve this problem yourself?
Ideally, ask them to share their screen and show you how they do it. We want to understand their behaviour.
People are not good at predicting what they will do. My goal is to understand their current problems. What workarounds have they built?
Talk specifics, not hypotheticals
Ask for specific past examples to get concrete data.
- Tell me about the last time you encountered that problem.
- What, if anything, have you done to try to solve it?
- What don’t you love about the solutions you’ve tried?
What they have already done helps us understand whether the problem is painful enough to build a product or feature for it.
Learn about their motivation: why do they want to solve it?
Avoid hypotheticals like: “If we build this, would you be willing to use it?”
Dig into interesting answers
Ask open-ended follow-up questions:
- What do you mean by that?
- Can you tell me more about that?
- Why is that important to you?
Dig into interesting and unexpected answers. Search for points where the business could fail.
Don’t ask:
- Yes/no questions.
- “What would a better product look like to you?”
- Two questions at the same time.
Focus on problems, not features! Users have no incentive to say no to features.
Don’t believe everything you hear
Three types of bad data:
- Compliments. You need facts and commitments. A good way to prevent compliments is not to talk about your idea at all.
- Fluff. “I would do that.” “I might do that.” A good way to avoid fluff is to ask specifically about what they have already done.
- Ideas. Don’t just follow their ideas. Dig into what is behind them: “What would that let you do?” “Why do you want that?” “Tell me more about what you’re thinking.”
After people use your product
Once people are using your product, how can you measure product-market fit (PMF) quantitatively?
In Superhuman’s example, they asked users how they would feel if they could no longer use the product:
- A) Very disappointed
- B) Somewhat disappointed
- C) Not disappointed
Measure the percentage who answer A. The benchmark is 40%: exceeding it is a signal of product-market fit, rather than a guarantee.