The Mom Test
Rob Fitzpatrick
9 skills extracted
Quality
Install
Extracted Skills
Commitment Signal Evaluator
Evaluate whether a customer meeting produced real interest or just polite enthusiasm by classifying commitment signals into time, reputation, and money currencies. Use this skill after any customer conversation, product demo, sales call, or pitch where the user wants to know if the meeting actually advanced the deal, asks "was that a good meeting" or "how did it go" or "did that go well," says a meeting "went great" but nothing happened afterward, received enthusiastic feedback and wants to know if it is real, wonders whether someone is actually interested or just being polite, heard "I would definitely buy that" and wants to know if it means anything, wants to distinguish real leads from false-positive prospects (zombie leads), needs to score a pipeline of prospects for conversion likelihood, wants to detect polite rejections disguised as enthusiasm (compliment-stall pattern), or wants to identify early evangelists in their prospect pool — even if they don't explicitly mention "commitment signals" or "meeting evaluation." This skill evaluates meeting OUTCOMES and prospect INTEREST, not conversation data quality (use conversation-data-quality-analyzer) or conversation logistics (use conversation-format-selector).
Conversation Data Quality Analyzer
Analyze customer conversation notes or transcripts after a meeting to classify every statement as fact, compliment, fluff, or idea — separating real signal from noise. Use this skill whenever the user wants to review interview notes, check whether a customer call produced reliable data, figure out if enthusiastic feedback was genuine interest or polite lies, identify bad data patterns in a transcript, audit whether a conversation that "went great" actually produced usable facts, or suspects they are collecting compliments instead of validated evidence — even if they don't mention "data quality" or "bad data." Do NOT use this skill to write or improve questions before a conversation (use conversation-question-designer) or to evaluate whether a meeting produced real commitment signals like time, reputation, or money (use commitment-signal-evaluator).
Conversation Format Selector
Choose the right conversation format — casual chat, scheduled meeting, or phone/video call — for a customer discovery interaction. Use this skill whenever the user is deciding between a formal meeting and a casual conversation, wondering how long customer interviews should be, unsure whether to meet in person or do a phone or video call, preparing to talk to potential customers at a conference or event or meetup, asking how to approach someone at a networking event or industry gathering, spending too much time scheduling formal meetings and not getting enough conversations done (the meeting anti-pattern), defaulting to hour-long Zoom calls for every customer interaction, planning the logistics or setting or duration of a customer conversation, or wondering whether a conversation should be structured or informal — even if they don't explicitly mention "format" or "meeting type." This skill is about HOW to have the conversation (format, duration, setting, formality level), not about finding people to talk to (use conversation-sourcing-planner) or what questions to ask (use conversation-question-designer).
Conversation Learning Process
Structure the before-and-after process around customer conversations so learning actually reaches the whole team. Use this skill when the user needs to prepare a team for a batch of customer conversations, set up pre-conversation learning goals, create a note-taking system for customer interviews, review and categorize conversation notes using signal symbols, run a post-conversation team review, share customer insights across the team, diagnose whether conversations are producing real learning or just going through the motions, fix a learning bottleneck where one person hoards all customer insights, their team keeps having conversations but nothing changes or plans never update, or a co-founder or teammate is out of the loop on customer feedback — even if they don't explicitly say "learning process" or "team review." Do NOT use for analyzing a specific transcript for data quality (use conversation-data-quality-analyzer) or evaluating whether a prospect gave a real commitment (use commitment-signal-evaluator).
Conversation Question Designer
Write, rewrite, or audit customer interview questions so they extract honest behavioral data instead of false validation. Use this skill whenever the user needs to prepare a conversation script for customer discovery, draft questions for an upcoming interview, fix questions that keep producing useless or vague answers, rewrite biased or leading questions into past-focused behavior-revealing ones, check whether their interview questions will trigger compliments instead of facts, or build a question list from learning goals — even if they don't mention "question design" or "The Mom Test." Do NOT use this skill to analyze conversation notes after a meeting (use conversation-data-quality-analyzer) or to decide which questions matter most strategically (use question-importance-prioritizer).
Conversation Sourcing Planner
Create a plan for finding and reaching people to have customer discovery conversations with, including channel selection, outreach messages, and warm intro strategies. Use this skill whenever the user does not know how to find people to talk to, does not know anyone in their target market, needs to reach potential customers but has no connections, wants to write a cold outreach email or LinkedIn message for customer conversations, needs help with warm introductions or getting introduced to prospects, is struggling to get meetings or conversations with target customers, wants to build a conversation pipeline or outreach cadence, asks "where do I find people to interview" or "how do I get customer meetings," needs to figure out the best channels to reach a specific customer segment, wants to plan cold or warm outreach for customer interviews, or wants to leverage events or communities or online forums to find conversation targets — even if they don't explicitly say "sourcing" or "outreach." This skill is about FINDING and REACHING people, not about who your target customer is (use customer-segment-slicer) or whether meetings should be casual or formal (use conversation-format-selector).
Customer Discovery Process
Orchestrate the full customer discovery process — before, during, and after customer conversations — to systematically validate a business idea. This is the hub skill that sequences all other customer-discovery skills. Use this skill whenever the user wants to run customer discovery end-to-end, needs a step-by-step process for validating a product idea through customer conversations, wants to start customer discovery from scratch, wants to know what to do before and after customer meetings, needs a discovery status dashboard showing validation progress, suspects their discovery process is broken or unproductive, wants to diagnose whether they are just going through the motions, needs a customer development or lean validation framework, or asks "how do I validate my idea," "what's the full process for talking to customers," or "what should I do next in customer discovery" — even if they don't explicitly mention "discovery process." Do NOT use for writing specific interview questions (use conversation-question-designer), narrowing a customer segment (use customer-segment-slicer), or analyzing a single conversation transcript (use conversation-data-quality-analyzer).
Customer Segment Slicer
Iteratively narrow broad customer segments into specific, findable sub-segments with who-where pairs. Use this skill whenever the user's target market is too broad, their customer definition is vague or generic ("small businesses," "students," "anyone who..."), they are getting mixed or inconsistent feedback from customer conversations that does not converge, they do not know who to talk to first, everyone seems like a potential customer, they need to decide which customer segment to pursue first, they are overwhelmed by too many potential customer types, they want to know who their ideal early customer is, they cannot figure out who to build for, they ask "who should I talk to" or "how do I narrow down my audience" — even if they don't explicitly say "segmentation" or "customer slicing." Do NOT use for finding or reaching customers (use conversation-sourcing-planner) or designing interview questions (use conversation-question-designer).
Question Importance Prioritizer
Prioritize which assumptions to validate first and produce focused learning goals before customer conversations — classifying risks as product risk versus market risk. Use this skill whenever the user has many assumptions or unknowns and needs to decide which to test first, wants to identify the 3 most important learning goals for their next conversation batch, needs to figure out what the riskiest parts of their business idea are, wants to separate must-validate assumptions from safe ones, is preparing strategic learning goals but not the specific interview questions, or suspects they are avoiding the scary questions that actually matter — even if they don't mention "prioritization" or "learning goals." Do NOT use this skill to write or rewrite the actual conversation questions (use conversation-question-designer) or to analyze notes from a completed conversation (use conversation-data-quality-analyzer).