KNOWLEDGE GRIND NOTES
The Wrong Kind of User Validation
When yes doesn’t matter
Have you ever asked these questions?
Do you think this is a good idea?
Would you use this?
Would you pay for this?
While easy to ask, these questions are also easy to answer because saying
“yes” carries no cost.
No commitment.
For those of us who work in startups and/or work on our own startups, we’ve probably asked these questions before and been asked these questions one too many times.
And they’ll be questions that people continue to ask because getting a “yes” feels good.
But what’s the point of “yes” if it can be done perfunctorily and teaches you nothing about your customer?
Stop searching for your users’ approval.
They don’t have to like you.
Only your product.
— — — — — —
I started Knowledge Grind Notes with the goal of reading 5–10 pages of a book every single day and then writing an article to recall what I learnt and my thoughts on what I learnt.
I wrote this article to summarize what I learnt from pages 1–5 of the Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick.
In these pages, Fitzpatrick describes what the Mom Test is (a simple set of rules for crafting good user interview questions that even your mom can’t lie to you about) and how it can be used to guide a conversation with a user.
