The "Mom Test": asking good questions when everyone is lying to you

&gt; “When was the last time you googled for a way to roll back your iOS app?”<p>&gt; “Did you try the answers online?”<p>A very high percentage of the time when people give me &quot;great app ideas&quot; when they find out I&#x27;m in software, always assuring me everyone in their field&#x2F;interest-area would use this novel app they say I should make, it turns out that 1) it already exists. From several vendors. Literally the exact thing they want, on the platform they use, and 2) they&#x27;ve evidently never even bothered to check, because this information surprises them.

Another one of my favorite startup books after the &quot;mom test&quot;, is Founding Sales. These books really hammer home hard truths that smart technical founders haven&#x27;t had to learn prior.<p>For me, Founding Sales calibrated me on just how much volume and effort it takes to get a prototype product into customer&#x27;s hands.

Whenever I talk to a friend starting a startup, I literally tell them to read this book.<p>It&#x27;s really just the basics of user research (for those of us who haven&#x27;t been a part of UXR before) with a focus on determining whether a startup idea has legs.