Kyle Harrison
to-read
The Mom Test
The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you
- Author
- Rob Fitzpatrick
- Published
- 2013
- Pages
- 130
- Recommended
- 2 times
Why it’s on the list: The canonical short guide to customer discovery interviews — how to ask questions that can’t be answered with polite lies, so you actually learn whether your business idea is valid.
Where I heard about it
- Mike Adams (@michaelglena) — referenced in his tweet on “The Founder’s Guide to Actually Understanding Users,” with Rob Fitzpatrick (@robfitz) credited as a contributor: ✨ Dusting Off My Old… (tweet).
- @FilArons — on his recommended-reading list (November 2025).
Connections
- User Research — the book’s core subject: how to structure conversations with potential customers so their answers reveal truth rather than validation.
- Customer Discovery — the startup methodology the book operationalizes; complements “get out of the building” with concrete techniques for not being misled.
- Product Development — upstream of product decisions: the insight that customers lie not out of malice but because they’re being polite is foundational to any honest product process.