# The Mom Test

> Customer conversations that reveal the truth — an AI agent skill based on *The Mom Test* by Rob Fitzpatrick.

Published 2026-02-23 · Updated 2026-08-17 · Product & Innovation · Free and MIT-licensed
Canonical: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/mom-test/
Source: https://github.com/wondelai/skills/tree/main/mom-test

**Install:** `npx skills add wondelai/skills/mom-test --global`

## What is the The Mom Test skill?

The Mom Test skill takes Rob Fitzpatrick’s book and makes your agent the person who checks your questions before you ask them — rewriting hypotheticals into questions about last Tuesday, deleting every sentence that mentions your idea, and marking which lines in your notes were compliments dressed up as evidence.

## Key concepts from The Mom Test your agent applies

- **The Mom Test Rules** — Talk about their life, not your idea. Ask about specifics in the past, not hypotheticals about the future. Talk less, listen more.
- **Avoiding Bad Data** — Compliments, fluff, and hypotheticals are worthless. Seek specifics: "When did this last happen?" and "What did you do about it?"
- **Asking for Commitment** — Advance conversations toward commitment — time, reputation, or money. If they won't commit, the problem isn't real enough.
- **Finding Conversations** — Go where your customers are. Use cold outreach, warm intros, and serendipitous conversations. Keep it casual and short.
- **Processing & Sharing** — Take notes immediately. Share learnings with your team. Update your beliefs based on patterns across conversations.

## When to use The Mom Test — and when not to

Reach for it when:

- Every conversation ends with “that sounds useful” and none of those people has ever asked what it costs.
- You have written an interview guide and half the questions begin with “would you” or “do you think”.
- There are twenty pages of interview notes on your desk and no way to tell signal from politeness.
- You keep pitching in meetings that were meant to be research, and leaving with encouragement instead of facts.

Reach for something else when:

- You need a frame for what to listen for, not just how to ask — Jobs to Be Done supplies it.
- The interviews are already good and the problem is that they happen twice a year — Continuous Discovery fixes cadence.
- You are testing whether people can use a prototype rather than whether the problem exists — UX Heuristics fits better.
- This is a sales call where you are supposed to talk about your product — Predictable Revenue or Negotiation apply instead.

## About Rob Fitzpatrick

YC founder, author of the definitive customer conversation guide. Rob Fitzpatrick is an entrepreneur and author who has founded multiple startups and been through Y Combinator. His book "The Mom Test" became the go-to guide for customer discovery, used by thousands of startups and taught at top universities.
The book: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL31683609M/The_mom_test

## Example prompts

- Write interview questions for validating our product idea that follow The Mom Test using mom-test skill _(Customer discovery)_
- Review these customer interview notes — which responses are fluff vs real signal? using mom-test skill _(Analysis)_
- Design a commitment ladder to test if this problem is worth solving using mom-test skill _(Validation)_
- Help me plan 10 customer conversations and create an outreach strategy using mom-test skill _(Research planning)_

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I install the The Mom Test skill?

Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills/mom-test --global`. It takes about 30 seconds and needs no account. The The Mom Test skill then works in Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent — anything that reads the open agentskills.io format — and your agent loads it on its own when a task calls for it. It is free and MIT-licensed, and the source is at https://github.com/wondelai/skills.

### Which book is the The Mom Test skill based on?

It packages *The Mom Test* by Rob Fitzpatrick — YC founder, author of the definitive customer conversation guide. The skill distils the book's method into instructions your agent follows while it works, covering the mom test rules, avoiding bad data and asking for commitment. It sits in the Product & Innovation part of the library.

### Why does Fitzpatrick say never to mention your idea?

Because the moment your idea is on the table, the conversation stops being about their life and becomes about your feelings. People are kind, kindness produces compliments, and compliments are the most expensive data a founder can collect — they feel like validation and cost the other person nothing. Ask instead how they handle the problem today, what the last occurrence cost them, and what they have already tried and abandoned. Those answers are facts, and facts are capable of proving you wrong.

### How does it differ from the Continuous Discovery skill?

Scale. The Mom Test is about one conversation done well — the phrasing of a single question, how to deflect a compliment, how to end a meeting without acquiring a zombie lead. Continuous Discovery is the system around many conversations: who you speak to each week, how findings become an opportunity tree, which assumption gets tested next. Learn Fitzpatrick first. A discovery cadence built on badly asked questions just produces wrong answers faster and with more ceremony.

### The Mom Test is short — should I just read it?

Yes, and that is an unusual thing for this site to say. It is about 130 pages, most of it worked dialogue, and it will cost you one evening. The skill is not a substitute for that evening; its value is that your agent applies the rules to your script and your transcripts, which is the part nobody can do to themselves. The book teaches you the rules. The skill catches you breaking them, which turns out to be the harder half.

### Can it tell me whether my idea is any good?

No, and neither can the interviews. The method reveals whether a problem is real, frequent, expensive and badly solved today — not whether your solution is the one that wins. That is why Fitzpatrick pushes so hard on commitment: an hour of their time, an introduction that spends their reputation, a deposit. If nobody will give any of those, you have learned something solid about the problem and still nothing about your product. Design Sprint and Lean Startup take over from there.

## Related

- All Product & Innovation skills: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/product/
- Jobs to Be Done: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/jobs-to-be-done/
- Hooked UX: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/hooked-ux/
- Improve Retention: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/improve-retention/
- Lean Startup: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/lean-startup/
- Design Sprint: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/design-sprint/
- Continuous Discovery: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/continuous-discovery/
- Inspired: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/inspired-product/
- The 37signals Way: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/37signals-way/
- Lean Analytics: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/lean-analytics/