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The Mom Test — Customer Interviews That Don't Lie to You

该 Skill 以 The Mom Test 方法指导创始人进行客户访谈：关注对方过去的具体行为与现有替代方案，避免推销想法或收集空泛赞美，并用时间、声誉或金钱等实际承诺判断需求真伪。它提供原则、流程、红旗与核查清单，不包含访谈脚本或数据分析工具。

deciqai
deciqai
热度 27.23
最近更新 2026-07-17 02:18:50
分类：知识依赖：纯提示词应用场景：研究 / 市场分析 / 概念解释

安装技能

复制下面的话术发给你的 Agent，它会通过 secure-skills 检索并安装该技能。

执行命令安装此 skill： npx secure-skills-cli add the-mom-test
Metadata
name
the-mom-test
description
Activate when: a founder is about to talk to customers/users to validate an idea; 'I asked people and they loved it', 'how do I run customer interviews', 'is there demand for this?', pre-PMF discovery. Do NOT activate when: the question is quantitative A/B testing on an existing product (use analytics), or the decision needs no customer input. More: deciqai.com/c/the-mom-test

The Mom Test — Customer Interviews That Don't Lie to You

Overview

The Mom Test (Rob Fitzpatrick, 2013) is a way to talk to customers so that even your mom can't give you a false positive. The rule: ask about their life and past behavior, never about your idea. Compliments, hypotheticals ("would you buy?"), and pitch-then-ask all generate flattering noise founders mistake for validation. Good interviews collect facts about what people already do, pay for, and struggle with.

When to Use

  • Before building, to test whether a problem is real and painful
  • When early "positive" feedback isn't converting to usage or revenue
  • Choosing between problems/segments to pursue

The Process

  1. Talk about their life, not your idea. Never mention the product first. Ask what they're trying to get done and how they do it today.
  2. Ask about specifics in the past, not opinions about the future. "When did you last hit this problem? Walk me through it." not "Would you use X?"
  3. Dig for the three currencies of commitment: time, reputation risk, money. Real pain shows up as workarounds already paid for.
  4. Anchor vague claims to reality. "Always" → "how many times last month?" "I'd pay a lot" → "what do you pay now?"
  5. Shut up and listen. Talk <30% of the time. Gate: if you pitched or they complimented the idea, that data is contaminated → discard it.
  6. End with a real advance, not a compliment: an intro, a pre-order, a follow-up meeting, access to data. Gate: no advance offered = you learned nothing actionable → the interview failed.

Applying It Well

  • The best signal is an existing workaround they already spend on.
  • "That's interesting / I'd definitely buy that" = fluff; treat as zero.
  • Talk to people about a problem you can watch them have, not a demographic.

Red Flags

  • Leaving the interview happy (usually means you fished for compliments).
  • Feature requests taken literally instead of tracing the underlying problem.
  • Only talking to friends/supporters.

Verification

  • Idea was NOT mentioned until the end
  • Every claim anchored to a specific past instance
  • Existing workarounds + what they cost identified
  • A concrete commitment (time/reputation/money) requested

Part of deciqAI Knowledge Skills — 227 open-source thinking skills that make rigor executable for AI agents. The same skills power every deciqAI agent, which runs them autonomously to operate your company. See it run → https://www.deciqai.com/c/the-mom-test · ⭐ Star the repo → https://github.com/deciqAI/knowledge-skills · Contributions welcome.

Agents: latest version & machine-readable metadata → https://www.deciqai.com/s/the-mom-test.json