The Mom Test is an amazingly insightful book spanning just over 100 pages. It's a guide for customer conversations- how to have them, when, where, why.
This book packs a lot of content into a small form factor to help the busy founder get what they need and get out there having conversations with customers or potential customers. As I read this book, I thought back to the myriad of conversations I've had with people about the platform I've been building and how I've mostly been doing it wrong. I'm ok with it, not all conversations work out the way that you intend. But, this book helps give me a plan going forward.
For me, through the book, the biggest issues are biasing the conversation and pitching too often. Most of the time I'm so excited hearing about someones issues that I can solve, that I just start diving into my possible solutions rather than listening to their problem all the way through and knowing whether my solution is the right solution. I think this is the engineer in me breaking out, I am a fixer. But, now that I recognize it, I have a plan to fix it.
The other big takeaway from this book for me is that I'm not having conversations with others about the topics that scare me, the types that could fundamentally end the work that I've been doing. Obviously I've put time, effort, and brain power behind the work and so I'm excited and invested in what I've been building. But, I shouldn't just keep going if it's never really going to turn into something that people will both use and pay for, because I want both. I don't want people paying for something they aren't going to use. That's not helping anyone.
So, my plan going forward is to start having scarier conversations, and to listen more to peoples problems. Marketing is talking and sales is listening. I'd never fully realized that until reading this book.